President's Message -- November 29, 2020

 Board, Grand Prix, Event Schedule and Putt Them Out!!

The  ASGA Audit committee has done their constitutional duty of auditing the books. Vice President Lino Oballo and General Membership Delegate Lewis Howell have confirmed  that the 2020 Board's records, maintained by Treasurer Sam Mihalik, are in balance and all funds accounted for at the end of the fiscal year 2020. With the annual audit completed the board officially hands the gavel over to the new 2021 Board. You will recall that the general membership has voted in the same board and officers for this new term in order to efficiently continue dealing with Covid 19 as it relates to golf and managing the business of ASGA. Our goal is to continue playing safely within the guidelines, while serving our membership with as many events as possible for our league play and supporting golf throughout our area.

The first order of business of the new board will be in the very near future to announce the Grand Prix modifications led by Paul Redden and the 2021 Event Schedule led by Shawn Higgins. Paul and his team's goal is to increase awareness and involvement for Grand Prix and to simplify the rules going forward. The standings will come out after this  is done, retroactively to the event played October 27th. Shawn has advised that he plans to leave the event format (TBD) to be determined later on many dates, in the hope that Covid19 will become more controlled and we will be given the green light to add some four person team events to the schedule. He will be putting the new schedule on the website soon.

We had a long layoff this year in dealing with the pandemic and also have added some new members. Both of these situations brings up the need to remind us all that one of ASGA oldest and most famous traditions is that we believe in putting the ball in the hole and to never "give" a putt. The tradition of ASGA also has some very relaxed rules to help with speed of play and safety of our mature membership. We encourage you to read the Golf Information on our website especially focused on ASGA Rules of Golf and ASGA Rules (FAQ). However, the only time you can pick up a ball and quit a hole is when you have hit the maximum shots allowed per hole of 4 over par or in the rare event we schedule a matched play event and you give an opponent a putt as a good gesture or strategy in that format only. Neither Foursomes deciding on their own, board members "puffing" their chest nor anyone else can give a putt or take a putt without penalty. The Event Director will investigate those pointed out to him, but come on you don't need that, take care of it within your group. It is the right thing and honest thing to do to protect the other players. I am not sure how religious any or all of you might be, but wouldn't it be a terrible thing to get to the gates of Heaven and be told to turn back because the records showed that you accepted a gimme in an ASGA Event or witnessed one and stayed silent. I know for sure the golf gods will get even with you. Come on now! Putt them all out!! We come to play and have fun within the rules we have set.

On behalf of the ASGA Board of Directors and Austin Senior Golf League, 

Travis McWhorter, President

An Important Message from your Handicap Chair

It is not hard. One Score Card procedure works for all current formats.

Below is the current schedule for the next three ASGA Events. Currently these are the only type events we are planning to play due to Covid 19 risk analysis by the City.

Next Three Events

As a person and as your Handicap Chair I really believe in keeping things simple.

Bruce Jones our Website Chair and Paul Redden before him have created computer programs that will do the calculating for us. All you have to do is put the last name first then first name or at minimum the initial. Then keep score for all players in your group using the actual score made (maximum of 4 over par per hole.) Turn the completed card in at end of round, including scorer's and the one that attest's names. All I will then have to do is key in the actual scores you and all the rest of the golfers in your group actually made on each hole.. You can total them if you like so I can compare, but do not write in dots in best ball or net scores or anything else, just your actual score. See the card example we have shown. That is all we want. You can keep a separate card for your own games, dots or whatever. Do not turn in that card.

Now you are all smarter than me maybe, but there are two reasons I want you to follow my directions. One is we use your actual score to be a part of your handicap calculation. Two is that filling out cards the same as you would for an individual event will let the computer do the thinking and make your life simple. So there is only one way to fill out cards for all current event formats. I like simple and it will make your life simple too.

You can go to this link and see an actually completed card the way we want it. Oh yeah, if I can not figure out your numbers and/or figure out who you are from your names or lack of, I am told I can DQ you. Ok, now whose the smartest?

Thanks so much for helping me do my job and here's hoping your team wins our first team event in a while.

Handicap Chair,
Bill Burke

Sample Card (click here for larger image)

 

President's Message -- November 3, 2020

Our First Team Event. We Are Expanding The Periods Requested To Four.

Beginning tomorrow November 4th, when you sign up for next week's event at Morris Williams you will be registering for a 2-Person Best Ball Net Event. It will be important to remember to create the two-person teams as you register your players. The system will initially sign up the four players alphabetically. In some cases that will be your teams, but if not please move the player numbers around to match the teams.You should end up with player 1 and 2 being a  desired  team and player 3 and 4 being the other team. In the event you sign up one player it is obvious they will need a teammate. If you sign up 3 it will be assumed that player 1 and 2 are teammates and we will need to add a player to the foursome to have 2 teams. And finally if you sign up two players we will know they are teammates and we will be trying to add a team to fill the foursome. If we can not find a teammate during registration, a single can not compete in the event (you can still play the round of golf, however). It is safest to have picked a partner before signing up if you possibly can.

The other very desired change we have been working on is that we are expanding your requested tee time periods from 3 to 4 with some flexibility. We have discovered from conversations, sign up patterns and the survey that some did not sign up for period one because they did not want to risk getting the very earliest tee times. In the beginning period one was the most popular requested and then it switched to period two with the fewest being period three. We believe that expanding to four gives the best chance for all to get their desired range. If you really want the first few earliest tee times pick period one, a little later pick period two, middle morning, pick period three and later in the morning pick four. We are also asking you to complete the short survey for preferred time range to see how that matches up with the new four periods. Thanks for your support.

Remember you can always reread Registration Help under the Tee Time Registration button to better understand the process.  We really recommend you do before signing up this week and we have revised this information to match these changes. 

Should you be thinking about how to keep score for the event next week,  Bill Burke our Handicap Chair will be updating you about that before the event is played.

It will be fun to play some team events and we wish you the best of luck in obtaining your favorite times. The computer will be as fair as possible and we will keep a watchful eye to ensure the same.

On behalf of the ASGA Board of Directors and Austin Senior Golf League,

Travis McWhorter, President