Gonzaga Escauriaza has been re-elected President of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation, a position he will hold for the next four years. One hundred and eight members of the total 113 attendees at the Extraordinary General Assembly -there were also four abstentions and one null vote-, held both in person and online, supported Gonzaga Escauriaza with their vote, which represents a percentage of 95.6% of the attendees.
He is the eleventh President in the history of this federative body, which was first elected in December 2008, succeeding Emma Villacieros.
Escauriaza was the only person who had presented his candidacy for President of the Royal Spanish Golf Federation within the established deadline, a process that concluded last December 1. The then candidate for the Presidency was endorsed by 135 representatives, a number that implied, in percentage terms, the support of 88.8% of the General Assembly.
.
Thank you to all the different bodies
After the election of the President, Gonzaga Escauriaza addressed all those present to thank the unity shown by the different bodies of Spanish golf and the support received, before reviewing the current situation of Spanish golf, the actions carried out during the past mandate and the new initiatives that are already part of future actions.
“I want to thank you for the trust you have placed in me because once again I have four years of illusion. I promise you maximum work and dedication despite the years I have been in office. I have a great team and we will continue working for golf with the greatest of motivations”, he said to all the attendees.
In his speech to the members of the General Assembly, Gonzaga Escauriaza had emotional words for Luis Álvarez de Bohorques, Secretary General and Managing Director of the RFEG who died last April as a result of the coronavirus: “Luis was a member of the RFEG and the COE. We respected him for his curriculum and for his great knowledge of golf, for his personality and his lack of desire for prominence. We loved him for his great heart and sense of humor”.
The President of the RFEG also thanked the presence of Alejandro Blanco, President of the COE, at the time of the election: “It is a real blessing that you are our president of the COE, a person who lives for sport, who has gone out of his way for the athletes so that they also have a future when their sporting careers are over. However, what I would highlight the most is your moral and human rectitude”.
Alejandro Blanco took up the baton, congratulating Gonzaga Escauriaza and Spanish golf as a whole: “Results speak louder than words, there is the majority support for the management of Gonzaga Escauriaza and his team. Golf is a great model for Spanish sport due to the work of its athletes, its referees, its clubs, its Autonomous Federations, its sponsors… The golf family has a great structure and the results are there”.
The President of the COE highlighted “the complicated times we are going through, but we are going to get through them thanks to the work of everyone. The key is to stay together, to review yesterday in order to plan the future correctly. And in this sense, the RFEG is a model to follow, with Gonzaga Escauriaza at the head, one of the great referents of the presidents of the National Sports Federations, with an enormous vital experience”.
“The sporting results are very important, they are our reference, but behind them there is a great Federation and a great structure capable of writing many more good pages in Spanish sport,” concluded Alejandro Blanco.
.
Great challenges for the future
As re-elected President of the RFEG, Gonzaga Escauriaza addressed all the assembly members to emphasize that “in a very complicated year due to the pandemic, for society and for the sport, I believe that golf has been strengthened thanks to the unity shown at all times, which allowed us to have the first protocol approved by the CSD and the ICTE”.
“The image of safety has been reinforced, of the benefits it brings to the health of its practitioners, to the social distance created… Golfers have gone to the clubs, although we have to support the commercial tourist courses, which are suffering a lot, so we are going to promote actions for national players to at least partially compensate the absence of foreign golfers,” Gonzaga Escauriaza said.
The small but significant increase in the number of licenses; the professional and amateur sporting successes -with Jon Rahm, number 1 in the world ranking, leading the way-; the holding of numerous professional tournaments in our country; the implementation of the new World Handicap System; the celebration of the Solheim Cup 2023 in Spain; the preparation of a rigorous study on the economic impact of golf in Spain… were some of the issues addressed by Gonzaga Escauriaza in his speech, who highlighted the fact that “seven out of every eight euros generated by golf go to other sectors, which shows its importance and involvement with the Spanish society as a whole”.
“More public courses close to the center of the towns, sustainability, digitalization…, we have countless projects ahead of us that we will carry out with the contribution of everyone, members, clubs, FFAA, sponsors and the media. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for helping to make Spanish golf great”, concluded Gonzaga Escauriaza.
A person intimately related to golf
Born in Bilbao, Gonzaga Escauriaza, 63 years old, studied Economics and Business Studies at the University of Deusto. He was Spanish Amateur Champion in 1977 and runner-up in 1978. In 1977 he was also Spanish Doubles Champion together with Emilio Soroa.
The current President of the RFEG, who acceded to this position in December 2008, was also part of the Spanish national teams that were present at the 1977 and 1979 Absolute European Championships and the 1978 World Championship. As captain, Spain was proclaimed European Team Champion in 1997.
Gonzaga Escauriaza was also captain of the Saint Andrews Trophy -an amateur competition that pits Europe against Great Britain & Ireland- in 1998 and 2000, as well as captain of the European team in the Bonallack Trophy (Match Europe – Asia/Pacific) in 2000, 2006 and 2008.
Escauriaza received the RFEG’s Medal of Merit in Golf in 1997, the year in which he was appointed President of the RFEG’s Men’s Amateur Technical Committee. Since 2000 he held the position of Vice President, succeeding Emma Villacieros as President of the RFEG in December 2008.
Previously, in October 2007, Gonzaga Escauriaza was appointed President-Elect of the European Golf Federation (EGA) by unanimous decision of the General Assembly of this golf organization, which is linked to the amateur world and includes all the National Golf Federations of the Old Continent.
This appointment as President-Elect was accompanied by his appointment, in October 2009, as President of the EGA, a responsibility he held for a further two years before being appointed ‘Pas
t President’ (Past President) also for another two years, meaning that his top-level responsibility in the European Golf Federation extended over a period of 6 years.
Presidents of the RFEG
D. Luis de Arana (1934-1936)
D. Valentín Menéndez, Count Cimera (1937 – March 1939)
D. Francisco Carvajal y Xifre, Count of Fontanar (April 1939 – April 1950)
D. Luis de Úrquijo y Landecho, Marqués de Bolarque (April 1950 – April 1959)
D. Luis Mª de Ybarra y Oriol (April 1959 – January 1965)
D. Luis de Úrquijo y Landecho, Marqués de Bolarque (January 1965 – June 1968)
D. Juan Antonio Andreu Bufill (June 1968 – July 1974)
D. Juan Manuel Sainz de Vicuña (July 1974 – April 1981)
D. Juan Castresana Ávila (April 1981 – December 1981)
D. Luis Figueras-Dotti Cabot (December 1981 – November 1988)
Dª. Emma Villacieros Machimbarrena (November 1988 – November 2008)
D. Gonzaga Escauriaza Barreiro (December 2008 – )
.
Election of members of the Delegate Commission
Likewise, a vote was held regarding the members of the Delegate Commission who will exercise this function during the period 2021-2024 in those categories where the number of candidates was higher than the composition established by the federation statutes.
The assembly members present at the Assembly elected Ignacio Iturbe and Pablo Fisas, who received the most votes for the Athletes category -the only one where there were more candidates than seats in the Assembly- and, therefore, will become members of the RFEG’s Delegate Commission.
The Delegate Commission is also composed of five Presidents of Autonomous Federations -Baleares, Cantabria, Castilla La Mancha, Navarra and La Rioja-, five members of the estates of Clubs -Sotogrande, La Barganiza, Manises, Laukariz and RCG San Sebastian-, one member of the Estamento de Clubs -Sotogrande, La Barganiza, Manises, Laukariz and RCG San Sebastian-, one member from the Technicians-Coaches category -Juan Ciordia-, one member from the Judges-Referees category -Carmelo Castillo- and one member from the Sports Associations category -Golf School of the Golf Federation of Madrid.
Leave a Reply