Wilderness Country Club appoints Thorn as golf course superintendent

Wilderness Country Club, the oldest gated, residential golf community in Naples that just celebrated its 50th anniversary, has appointed Rusty Thorn as its new Golf Course Superintendent.

In this role, he is responsible for managing all of the club’s golf course facilities, supervising department personnel and overseeing all maintenance.

Thorn has nearly two decades of golf course management experience with country clubs throughout Florida and in Alabama. A graduate of Kennesaw State University with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, Thorn launched his career as a First Assistant Golf Course Superintendent in Birmingham, Alabama. He later relocated to Florida, working for clubs in Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Fort Myers and Naples.

Most recently, Thorn was Director of Agronomy for TPC Treviso Bay, an 18-hole Audubon certified championship golf course in a bundled golf community in East Naples. That experience made him the ideal candidate to be Golf Course Superintendent at Wilderness, which also is an Audubon certified, Arthur Hills designed golf course in a bundled community.