President Letter--100 Club

To: Current/Prospective ASGA 100 Club Members

Members,

Your  Board of Directors has approved the discontinuance of the separate flight for 100 Club members for individual net events to address issues with flight counts and handicap spread within flights.

Please review the following and send me or any Board of Director member your comments or questions.

Travis McWhorter
ASGA President

The History

The concept of the 100 Club was proposed by then-President Don Pratt and approved by the Board of Directors on June 12, 2013.  As reported in the minutes of the Board meeting that day, "The prime reason for the establishment of the 100 Club was to provide some equalization in competition for players regardless of their distance off the tee".  That remains the case today!

Team events did not have a separate flight for 100 Club members and that was true also initially for individual events. While not part of the approved proposal it was decided to provide a separate flight in individual events for the 100 Club members. The first such event was held at Lions Municipal on October 8, 2013 with nine of the twenty 100 Club members participating. The members' course handicaps ranged from 24 to 32.

The separate flight for individual events with the exception of the two day annual tournament has continued to this date.

The Issue

There are currently 31 active 100 Club members with more expected in 2017. Their handicap index ranges from 17.1 to 36.4. The separate flight for individual events poses problems in balancing the number of participants across flights while maintaining a reasonable range in handicaps within the flights. This issue is projected to worsen as more members become eligible for the 100 Club. (A wide range in handicaps within a flight can be unfair to the participants and uneven flight numbers can contribute to unfairly weighted Grand Prix points).

Participation in the 100 Club individual events has ranged from 6 to 20 players as well as a big range in handicaps. We do not have enough tournament participation at this time to break the 100 Club into multiple flights when the number is overly large, and on at least one occasion there were insufficient entries for a separate 100 Club flight (4 players minimum).

The Resolution

Effective with the next individual net tournament (Lions Municipal on February 07, 2017) the separate flight for 100 Club members will be discontinued and those participating members will be integrated into the regular flights based on their course handicaps.  100 Club members will continue to play from the forward tee box in all events and their handicaps will continue to be based on the forward tee parameters (slope and rating).

Additional Notes

Members moving in or out of the 100 Club need to do so before the end of January in order for the handicaps to be adjusted for February.  An additional note: The USGA course rating and slope have been updated for Lions Municipal and will be adopted by ASGA starting February 1, 2017. The immediate effect of the change will be to generally increase course handicaps 1-3 strokes dependent on handicap index and tee box  (low end handicaps will be effected very little).