
Tom Tanto, a golf course irrigation pioneer who helped shape the industry, and who was honored with several major industry awards, died on January 25 in Fort Myers, Florida. He was 86.
Tanto worked in the golf course and irrigation industries for more than 50 years, a larger-than-life figure at the forefront of irrigation development. His company, the eponymous Tanto Construction and Supply was among the earliest to be certified by the Golf Course Builders Association of America.
Tanto dedicated much of his life to golf, but he didn’t pick up a club until his late 20s.
Tamas Tanto was born March 21, 1938, in Kormend, Hungary, and raised amid the uneasiness of World War II. Wanting to escape the aftermath of the war, he immigrated to the United States in 1957 aboard a troop carrier, speaking next to no English and landing his first job washing dishes. He later served in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command and studied at the University of Pittsburgh, where he earned a degree in civil engineering.
Tanto never played golf in Hungary and was introduced to the game in the late 1960s thanks to structural engineer work on a golf course. He was hooked — purchasing a set of Doug Ford golf clubs from Sears — and quickly shifted his professional focus.
He launched Tanto Construction and Supply in 1969 with a $5,000 loan and led the company for 32 years — through multiple golf course architecture eras and into the Tiger Boom. When irrigation was still a burgeoning industry across the East and the Midwest, he often provided guidance and information. He was trusted and prodigious, able to handle nearly 10 projects simultaneously by the end of his run. At one time, he claimed to have installed irrigation systems on a quarter of Golf Digest’s top 100 courses — including Augusta National. In 1990, he joked that “there are enough sprinklers on three holes” at the home of the Masters “to do an entire public course in Pittsburgh.”
According to the American Society of Irrigation Consultants, which honored him in 2019 with its Roy Williams Memorial Award, Tanto “recognized and appreciated the value a professional irrigation consultant brought to a project and understood and respected the divergent roles played by the irrigation consultant and contractor.” That earned him and his company “the respect and referrals from many irrigation consultants who understood and appreciated the very important role the installing contractor has on the success of any irrigation project.”
Tanto was also honored over his decades in the industry with the GCSAA’s Col. John Morley Award and, by his alma mater, as a Distinguished Alumnus by the University of Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering.
For a time, Tanto ventured into course ownership: He ran Meadowink Golf Course in Murrysville, Pennsylvania, throughout the 1990s, and opened Totteridge Golf Course in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 2001. He worked closely on that project with Rees Jones, with whom he shared a long professional relationship.
“I love the industry and I admire superintendents,” Tanto told the GCSAA in 2019. “I know how much devotion it requires to be a superintendent. They have to produce, and they come up with an incredible product.”
Beyond the golf course, Tanto appreciated 19th-century art and curated a collection in his Greensburg home.
He is survived by his wife, Susan, to whom he was married for 59 years; his son, Dan (Karen), and daughter, Anne (Mark) Gamble; his sisters, Eva Czéh and Zsuzsa Tanto Németh, who still live in Hungary; and numerous nieces, nephews and grandchildren across the United States, Hungary, Switzerland, Denmark and Finland.
A memorial service will honor his life starting at 11 a.m., Saturday, February 15, at Charter Oak Church – Frye Farm Campus in Greensburg. A celebration of life and a dinner at his family farm will follow in June during the week of the U.S. Open at nearby Oakmont Country Club.
Contributions in Tanto’s name can be made to Charter Oak Church – Missions, 449 Frye Farm Road, Greensburg PA 15601, or to the University of Pittsburgh – Greensburg, 150 Finoli Drive, LH 203A, Greensburg PA 15601.
Matt LaWell is Golf Course Industry’s managing editor.
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