Golf was always in Bill Paulson’s blood. The son of the Napa Country club Head Pro, Bill started caddying and playing golf at 10, continuing this passion through high school. After two years serving in the army Bill accepted a golf scholarship to Chico State and was part of the team that traveled to Mexico and beat the Mexico National Amateur Team.

 In 1965 Bill was named the Director of Redwood City's Department of Recreation. A talented amateur player throughout his life, during this time Bill notably won the prestigious San Francisco City Championship against Artie McNickle at Harding Park in 1970 and won the Alameda city Golf Championship in 1971.

The year 1979 saw Bill and his family move south and join the Southern California Golf Association as an executive, in this role he was responsible for overseeing and organizing all of their major amateur golf tournaments.

Paulson’s journey with the Northern California Golf Association (NCGA) began in 1981. His career spanning over a decade until his retirement in 1986, during which he made significant contributions to the growth and development of the association as Executive Director.

Realizing the need for strong courses for tournament play, and access for NCGA members to play at a reasonable rate, one of Bill’s landmark achievements was the purchasing of land in Pebble Beach and Livermore to build and develop golf courses for the organization. Livermore was selected after having identified that the majority of the NCGA members, close to 60,000, lived within an hour’s driving distance away at that time. Upon the opening of Poppy Hills in 1986, the NCGA became the first Allied Golf Association to own and operate its own course, a rarity still to this day.

Bill to his core loved the rules of golf, championing the association getting stronger and emphasizing and prioritizing rules education. Reaching across the barriers of golf, he also contacted the boards of the Women’s Pacific Women’s Golf Association and the Women’s Golf Association of Northern California extending an invite to volunteers and officials to regularly attend the NCGA’s Rules seminars.

Bill’s legacy included mentoring and recruiting the best at the NCGA, notably hiring Gail Rogers (an NCGA Distinguished Service Award recipient) to be the NCGA’s Assistant Director of Rules and Competitions – the first female administrator in Association golf. Identifying an opportunity to reach his membership on a more regular basis than their annual published “Blue Book” and the advertising revenue associated with a regular publication, Bill hired Ted Blofsky to develop and establish a brand new NCGA quarterly magazine.

This new magazine set the standard for golf association publications – the early inception of the same magazine that our members receive today. Showcasing courses and promoting golf travel, the magazine provided road maps to courses, listed the results of tournaments and spotlighted tournament winners.

Perhaps his greatest achievement, Bill is credited with establishing the NCGA Associate program. This visionary strategy expanded membership outside of private clubs allowing the association grow to the size it is today. The program also included the development of tournaments for Associate members only, increasing the NCGA’s budget and facilitating its explosive growth in the following years.

After retiring from the NCGA, Bill was asked to establish a golf program for California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB). He secured a grant in 1997 to make it a reality and became men’s head golf coach in 1998. He was inducted to the CSUMB Athletic Hall of Fame in 2020. During his 10-year tenure as coach, the Otters rose from NAIA level to national recognition at the NCAA Division II level. Reminiscing on his legacy at the college he is quoted as saying “Deep down, I think I made a difference,”.

Well respected in the golf community, in 1993 he received the California Golf Writers Association "John Swanson Good Guy Award" dedicated to "recording and reserving the history of the game".

 In 1999 Bill was inducted into The Hall of Fame at Chico State in recognition of his college playing days from 1962-1964 and his contributions to Golf throughout his life.  

In 2019 Bill relocated to Southern California and immediately developed a golf club in his senior living community. Regularly shooting his own age in his final years, the club was renamed the Bill Paulson Reata Glen Golf Club in 2024, in honor of his contribution and work for the club.

Bill passed away on February 19, 2024, and is survived and greatly missed by his soul mate and wife Pat, his son Brian and daughter Laurie, daughter-in-law Melissa and his son-in-law Adam, as well as his 5 granddaughters: Aiden, Summer, Kolbie, Darcy and Cassie.