2025 Super Social Media Award: Andrew Dooley

Andrew Dooley works as the superintendent at The Union League Golf Club at Torresdale, a venerable northeast Philadelphia course. Since purchasing the club in 2014, The Union League has concocted innovative ways to connect members through golf. In 2024, it even expanded Torresdale’s footprint by unveiling The Landing, a 9-hole, reversible par-3 course.

Dooley is the ideal leader to document and share the property’s exciting golf and turf story. A superintendent who has done everything in the last four years from elevating the conditioning of an 18-hole Donald Ross design, to opening a new maintenance facility, to helping build and grow in The Landing, Dooley effectively uses every social media app he downloads. He frequently and thoughtfully shares Torresdale-related content on four apps: LinkedIn, X, Facebook and Instagram.

His posts are team-oriented and take followers inside the agronomics of the 27 holes his staff maintains. His social media versatility and willingness to enthusiastically promote his employer and employees earned him a 2025 Super Social Media Award. 

Dooley will be honored alongside fellow award winners at 2:30 p.m. PT, Wednesday, Feb. 5, at the Social Media Celebration at Aquatrols booth #4025 during the GCSAA Conference and Trade Show in San Diego. The event is open to all. Free drinks will be served during and after the ceremony.

You use multiple social media platforms effectively. What are you trying to achieve with each platform?

X has been really for just golf course-related stuff. Instagram, which is connected to my Facebook account, has been a combination of work and personal. I have the ability to obviously separate those, but people that are on Facebook, like some of my relatives, have commented that they enjoy seeing my career progress and successes. LinkedIn has been around for a while, but from a professional communications standpoint and marketing standpoint, it’s a trend now in our industry for folks to become more involved and active on LinkedIn. With it being winter, we just had a conversation with our assistants about how we can market them and what’s going to help them get their name out there and get them an interview when they feel comfortable enough to apply for a superintendent’s position. I told them it seems like most of our members here at Union League — and members at other clubs and general managers — are on LinkedIn. So, I’m encouraging them to start an account and get some professional data and a professional photo on there.

How powerful is social media as a team leadership tool?

I wish more of our team was involved in social media and partake in it. Our staff that’s on social media are always liking pictures and posts. If I have a post where there’s a picture of them, the next morning they’ll go, ‘Thanks for putting that on Instagram, Facebook or whatever it might be. That was awesome.’ Our assistants do a great job at the golf course day in and day out, but to be able to celebrate that and show the industry what they are accomplishing and what they are working on is going to help them so much get their name out there about who they are and what they can do.

What have you learned about using video in posts?

If you can include a video, it gives that much more insight on a project in terms of how the steps are going and how you are getting from Point A to Point B. What’s the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words? I’m sure there’s something like that out there for a video … it’s probably worth 10,000 words. More video is better as long as it’s in good taste and means well. Viewers appreciate the videos probably more than the pictures.

What type of industry information do you like to see on social media?

One of the first things that comes to mind is if there’s a new piece of equipment out on the market. You might have heard about the piece of equipment in discussions with other colleagues, but probably the first thing you are going to do is go to social media and see if a picture or video is on there and see what it’s going to do, and how it can benefit your operation.

Guy Cipriano is Golf Course Industry’s publisher + editor-in-chief.