More on November 12

 

Chester Burks Passes

Chester Burks

With sadness we report that long-time member Chester Burks passed away October 28^th. 

Not many of our current active members were playing before 2006. Chester was one of the few. He participated in over 740 total events, with 20 of those happening this year! Our heartfelt sympathy to his friends and family. 

Here is a link to an on-line tribute to Chester.

 

 

Event Sign-Ups—What’s the Deal?

We are experiencing both our largest membership ever as well as our largest fields ever, which is impacting our ability to effectively manage our events. As you read above in the President’s letter, we have capped our membership at current level until we can reduce the size of our event signups. GolfATX is not allowing any further expansion, be it dual-courses or alternate days or additional single course tee times. 

This will be the current signup methodology going forward. All signups will be closed at 156 maximum. For any event where less than 156 will be allowed by GolfATX to play, removal will begin at last entry and work backwards as needed. It is our understanding Lions Muny will be most impacted.
Hopefully we can quickly reduce our event size as we go forward. 

Renewals Re-emphasized

It is important to re-emphasize another of the President’s messages.

If you fail to renew by Jan. 31, you will:
a)become inactive and therefore not be able to compete in events; and
b)will have to re-activate via the waitlist, after those already waiting to join.

 

Finances

A big thank you to our Secretary/Treasurer David Brader, who has been in this role since fall of 2021, and has signed up to help us once again for 2025-2026. The annual financial report to members created each year by David is available in the “Minutes and Reports” section under the “Our Organization” tab. 

On behalf of the Board, 

Bruce Jones
Admin/Webmaster

 

President's Letter and More...

President's Letter November 2025 

2026 ASGA Board Launched November 6, 2025 In the Harvey Penick Room at Lions.

Members,

The Transitional Meeting that closes out the previous board and brings on the new one often is fairly limited as to activity.

This Board is a very experienced and with so many action items on the agenda, I set out to get them done.

1. The board led in discussion by our new Vice President, Dan Roberts, decided that The 2-Person Grand Prix should be modified slightly to allow more members a chance to win as the season progresses. The scores that will count toward your team's  final score will be reduced from 11 to 9. Your  best 9 at season end will count. In the event you do not play in 9 events it will be your total score from all events your team played. In addition to this improvement Greg Marshall has added 2  2-person events to this year's schedule.  The Individual All-In Grand Prix will not be changed. The vote for this update was unanimous.

2. A few general members and a couple of board members pointed out that perhaps our 60 and up membership was too wide a span of ages.  They made the observation that by starting at some other age like 65 would be of value and curtail our membership. Bruce Jones provided some analysis of members from each age bracket from 60 and up and all of them have current members including 90 and up having 4 members. The review of the reasons why ASGA changed to 60 and up a few years back revealed that ATX offers annual memberships for Seniors 60 and up. The board unanimously decided to leave our age groups as they are.  We plan to continue to solve our growing membership another way. We believe we can solve it early next year  before daylight saving comes back and shortens our good morning tee times. In  the short run we have capped the membership and created a waiting list on our website. We really want to serve as many golfers in our area as possible, but we strive to make our rounds fun for all that are members now.

3.  Renewing your membership is very important, even more so when we have people on the waiting list.  At our annual membership meeting David Brader our Secretary/Treasurer sets up a booth and stays as long as you want to renew you annual membership. We also have a very convenient way to renew on  our website. They all should be done, but they are not. You need to get it done before the end of December to avoid paying a higher fee in January 2026. You board unanimously voted this year to say if you do not renew by the end of January 31 2026 you will be making a mistake. If you plan on playing with us in 2026 renew now. If you wait until February, or other months later in the year you will sign up as a new member and should we be still on the waiting list for membership you will be added to that list. So, please come on, get it done. On February first we will adjust our membership based on all signed up or renewed. It is only fair. Help us out.  Renew now!!!

4, Our newest board member is Ric Chapa. He serves the general membership with a focus on new members. He also is the perfect person to communicate with should you have an idea you think has merit. Ric will hear you out and get the proper hearing for your idea at the next board meeting. All of our board members are here to serve.

I am very honored to be your president this year. It will be my goal to see that we have a great year. The Board is one of the best I  have seen.

Sincerely,

Travis McWhorter
ASGA President 

2025 Annual Meeting, President's Cup, and Luncheon Info

This year’s President’s Cup, Annual Meeting and Luncheon will be held at Morris Williams Pavilion on October 21st. Here are some details of the event.

PRESIDENT'S CUP (MATCH PLAY)

The President's Cup

As we do each year, today’s event will be match play, with a shotgun start at 8:00AM. All players must be in carts by 7:45. You MUST rent a cart for this event. (You do not have to use it—if you don’t, please advise your opponent IN ADVANCE of heading to your starting tee.)

Past President Greg Marshall will lead Team Blue along with his Assistant Captain Jim Sallade, our current Handicap Chairman. 

Lewis Howell, a former ASGA president, last year led the 45-person RED team to a close 24-21 victory over Team Blue rival leaders Sam Mihalik, a former president, and Jim Sallade.

This year current President Allan Myers will captain Team Red, along with Bruce Jones as Assistant Captain.

The four leaders plus Shawn Higgins, Event Chair, will meet Saturday morning the 18^th to draft this year’s teams.

How do you get to be selected to play Oct 21? It is simple. Sign up or have your usual person sign you up to play in the event. The sign up will be open Wednesday the 15^th until 4 o'clock Friday the 17th. No need to select a time as the event is a shotgun start (appx. 8:00). You must sign up by Noon Friday. Maximum number of signups 144, first-come-first-served. Friday afternoon Bruce Jones will compile the list of signups and forward it to the Captains and Event Chair so they will have time to prepare for Saturday morning's draft. You will see on Sunday the 19th at the usual time which team you are on and who you will compete against in net match play.  

If for some reason you need to cancel after signing up, send an email to Bruce Jones so another opponent can take the missing place.

On Tuesday morning you will pay your usual fees at the course. A special scorecard will be handed out for each pair of matches, showing stroke differences, if any. The winning President Cup team members will win $14 whether they won, lost, or tied their individual match.

THE ANNUAL MEETING

At the meeting we will elect Association Officers for the upcoming 2025-2026 season. In addition, door prizes will be provided for those with luncheon banquet tickets, along with announcements of the Grand Prix winners, and of course the President's Cup. There will also be members recognized for special awards.

MOST IMPORTANTLY YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN THE ELECTION OF OFFICERS.
Travis McWhorter led a nominating committee that is recommending, with Board approval, the following members for 2025-2026 board positions. Any member is also allowed to nominate a member from the floor during the election process.

COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATIONS:

President:  Travis McWhorter
Vice President: Dan Roberts
Secretary/Treasurer: David Brader
Event Chair: Greg Marshall
Handicap Chair: Jim Sallade
PARD City Board Rep: Maury Miller
General Membership: (nomination from the floor per bylaws)
Website/Admin Chair: Bruce Jones
Past President: Allan Myers (automatic per bylaws)

THE BANQUET/LUNCHEON

Tickets for the banquet are now on sale on our website. The cost is $15, including fees. Allan Myers and Dan Roberts will oversee the banquet this year. After you vanquish your opponent 4 and 3, just head to the pavilion.  You’ll see Shawn (in his last official act as Event Chair) scoring the event in real-time. Pick up your banquet ticket from Allan/Dan. Keep your banquet ticket stub as it will be used for the door prize drawings.

RENEW YOUR ASGA MEMBERSHIP

In the banquet area you will have your first opportunity to renew your ASGA membership for 2026. We will have a table set up (look for David Brader, our excellent Treasurer) where you can easily renew your membership. Online renewals for 2026 begin November 1^st.

Renewal dues remain at $15 for next year. The main renewal period begins with the date of the Annual Banquet event and continues through December 31st. After December 31st if you fail to renew, your fee will increase to the new member rate of $20.00 to reactivate your membership.

Hope to see you at the Annual Meeting, President’s Cup competition and luncheon/banquet.

Any questions, contact Dan Roberts, Member Delegate.

On behalf of your 2024-2025 Board,

Bruce Jones
Admin/Webmaster

Another Successful Championship & One Other Item

 The Championship

We had a nice turnout for this year's championship, 125 players competing in 12 flights. Our new ASGA Champions are Hal Johnson, who posted a nice gross score of 136 over two days, and Terence Donovan, who claimed Net Champion with a score of 125! Their names are of course inscribed for history on our website, adding to our list of ASGA Champions. In addition to our course leaders, we had special events of Long Drive and Closest to the Pin. Here are those results:

Attendance was significantly higher than previous years, exceeding our previous high of 108 players in 2024.

Our next up significant event on the schedule will be our Annual Meeting and Banquet (liberal use of that word!) so stay tuned for that. 

Testing, Testing!

Some of you may have noticed a new tee time format this week. Golf ATX has graciously allowed us to test simultaneous #1 and #10 tee times.  If this works well, we may be allowed to continue this for other events in October. Currently we have a limitation of 128 entries this week, so we still have some work to do to figure out what we do if we exceed 120+ players. 

I cannot urge you strongly enough this week--if you wish this tee time setup to continue, you need to stay up with the group in front of you.

Link here to our video for tips to keep pace.

That's all for now. Hope your scores exceed your expectations!

On behalf of the Board,

Bruce Jones

ASGA Admin

ASGA Annual Championship and More...

George with his winning golf ball

Hole In One!

The HIO jackpot that grew to over $500 has been won. Congratulations to George Herlin, who made his shot at Lions #13 during last Tuesday’s event. A new jackpot will begin with next week’s Lions event. Here’s more info on Hole-In-One.

An Update on Scorecard Policy

There has been a recent wave of people forgetting to turn in their scorecards after an ASGA event, which causes extra work for our Handicap Chair and others, along with confusion for the membership. A late card causes all the winnings/flighting/Grand Prix counting to be redone

In an effort to curtail the late and/or missing cards, ASGA will be implementing the following: 

Following completion of the ASGA event round, the scorer for the group is responsible for promptly turning in the attested scorecard, placing it in the box provided in the course's pro shop. Promptly implies that the card is turned in prior to the scorer going to his car in the parking lot, the bar, the restroom, etc.

Failure to turn in a scorecard for the group will result in the group not being part of the results for that event. Photos of scorecards sent from home will no longer be accepted. The $7 entry fee will not be returned, instead it will be treated as a donation to the Austin Parks and Recreation Department.

Thanks for your support on this.

Annual Championship Begins September 9th

Our 2025 ASGA Championship event is less than two weeks away. Over two Tuesdays we will determine our ASGA Champions, one based on gross scores, and one on net scores. Here's your chance to join the list of past winners--a tradition since 1976! On September 9th  we will play the first day at Jimmy Clay golf course. The second day of competition will happen the following Tuesday on September 16th at Roy Kizer.

You only sign up one time for both days. On day one at the Clay golf course, members will play with the groups they sign up with. Tee times are distributed and assigned as we normally do. The second day grouping process at Kizer will be a little different. Participants will be placed into flights based on your handicaps and grouped with competitors that shot similar day one scores.

If you have a bad day one, you may be asking why bother to play on day two?? One answer is the $450 of additional prize money you can win.  Each day of this annual event we will have closest to the pin and longest drive competitions.  Participants will be divided into three groups so you will compete against members with similar handicaps. On day one at Clay, winners of the competitions will receive $25 each. On day two, that amount doubles to $50 each. Winnings will be distributed at our Annual Banquet Meeting on October 21st after the President’s Cup Competition at Morris Williams. 

In addition to the winnings above, you also can win via the flight competitions.  Our Low Gross ASGA Champion receives $100.  We also pay $100 to the member who achieves the lowest NET score for the two-day competition. All flight payouts are doubled.  Since this is a two-day event, you will pay two event fees. Let’s say you win your flight which would normally pay $20. Being a two-day event, that amount would grow to $40. For the ASGA championship, that amount doubles to $80.

One other thing to note…while you will pay your greens/cart fees as usual on both days, your event fee for both days ($14 in total) will be collected before your first round on the 9th at Jimmy Clay.
Let us know if you have questions.  There is plenty to play for!!!  We hope to see you there!

ASGA Rules Update

The ASGA Rules Section has been updated to clarify rules for two-person events and match terms now used in USGA and World Golf.

On behalf of the ASGA Board,

Bruce Jones
ASGA Admin

September Brings the End of Two-Course Events

Members,

Just a quick reminder that starting on September 2nd, we will be going back to using a single course for our events each week.  This means about half of our members will have tee times later than 9:30 a.m., just like in the past.  

By all accounts, the dual course events were very popular.  Members got to play earlier, and rounds were 15 minutes shorter on average.  A winning combo!!  

For the moment, GolfATX has informed us that we can no longer host dual-course events for the foreseeable future.  While this is disappointing, the Board is determined to continue meeting with the GolfATX team to see if we can develop formats that allow for earlier, faster rounds.  Stay tuned!!!!

On behalf of your ASGA Board,

Bruce Jones
ASGA Web Admin

Here Comes Summer! Early Tee Times!

Next Wednesday, May 28^th, we will start our signups for our two-course events. 

Beginning the 3^rd of June and lasting through August we will hold almost all our events simultaneously on TWO courses, thanks to GolfATX. It will be a positive impact for most players (last tee time will fall around 10:00 a.m. instead of noon or later), but we will need to be attentive to signups and schedules as we get used to this new setup..

For those of you who do signups, you will find along with the usual entry fields, a choice of courses for selection. It will look similar to this:

 

We need to balance our use of courses (equal number of foursomes for each). The initial balance mechanism decider will be signup order, i.e. the later you sign up the more likely you may not get your choice of course. If you are not a full foursome at signup, you also may not get your choice of course. The schedule will be posted in the same manner as today.

Results will show up as today, by course. Event types (e.g. Scramble) will always be the same for each course. An example:

Regarding slow play, while currently slow-play groups are moved to 10:30 or later, for two-course events these groups will be assigned to the latest tee times scheduled. 

One new item that we will be trying: ONLY SELECT PERIOD ONE IF YOU WISH TO TEE OFF IN THE FIRST HOUR. Remember first-hour foursomes are expected to finish in under four hours. 

And I would be remiss if I failed to mention Paul Redden's contribution to our website modifications to accommodate the new scheduling/reporting requirements.  Paul, a twice President of ASGA, prior Board member for 11 years, and still active member, was instrumental in this process. Thanks, Paul!

For questions, just send me an email. See you on the course(s)!

Bruce Jones
ASGA Admin

 

April Notes

Fill the Divot Day!

Hopefully not Mo Willy!

First up, Morris Williams Course is planning a “Fill the Divot” Day on April 14, their monthly Monday when they are closed. Nobody likes to see multiple divots in the fairway—this is how we can help. The plan is to start about 7:30-8:00 a.m. for maybe two hours—the more the merrier.  If you have a small bucket and hand trowel, bring that so we don’t drain every last sand bottle! 

Contact Scott Stewart, one of our group who helps out at Morris Williams, to sign up. Just text him and he will follow up with you. 

He can be reached at (512) 577-4741.

Thanks!

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A couple of short notes—yesterday I saw someone hitting from a drop zone on #3 at Morris Williams—but he was across the bridge!  Our drop zone is next to the Red Tees. Please use the correct one when we play our Spring Partner Event in a couple of weeks. 

A reminder that beginning with the first Tuesday in June, we will be using two courses for the three months of summer, A big thank you to GolfATX. For details on which courses, you can find it on the Austinsga.org website under “Event Schedule”. 

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The next two events (the second one is actually a Tuesday/Thursday double event), are partner events. If you don’t have a partner but DEFINITELY want to play REGARDLESS of Tee time, sign up. At our ABCD Scramble we had 14 dropouts AFTER the schedule was posted, which left a lot of people hanging. 

Be courteous and don’t do the late dropout routine.

See you on the course,

ASGA Webmaster

Notes from the 10th Tee

 From our Pace of Play Captain (and Past President) Greg Marshall:

Unfortunately, after all the improvements in our Pace of Play, we have regressed so far in 2025.  The average round this year is now almost 10 minutes longer and a lot less players are finishing in less than 4 hours and 15 minutes. We’ve even had a few 5 hour rounds creep back in.  Not the direction I think we want to be headed.  

We have already provided tips and support and you can refer back to them in the Pace of Play section of the website.  So for now… let’s just keep it simple. 

Keep up with the group in front of you!!

If you’re doing so…. you’re good.  If you’re not keeping up, then refer back to all the tips and tools we’ve provided and use them to help you and your group catch up and stay on pace.  Our membership has grown 20% since 2022.  So a group playing slowly affects a lot more players.

If we continue on this pace, we’ll probably need to look at limiting our entries to a max number of players on a first come - first serve basis.  Not something we want to do!!!!

And finally, we need everyone to take a moment and fill in your start/finish times for your rounds.  Last week, more than ⅓ of groups did not do so.  This makes it difficult to determine our actual pace of play.  Remember…your times determine if your group is restricted to later tee times.  So give us the correct info so we don’t have to guess.

Questions?  Let us know.  We want your Tuesdays to be fun and have you home waaaayyy before dinner!!!

Greg

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And hints from your Tee Time Scheduler:

Remember when you sign up--check to see that it went through. We had another "signup" this week that had the potential to disappoint four members because the signup did not go through. How to check that it went through? Easy, just click on



which is located under Member Programs, Tee Time Registration. If you don't see your signup...you haven't signed up.

Lastly remember that if you do the Tee Time Signup, The period you choose is first priority over the optional "ideal tee time". For example, say our first tee time is 7:00.  If you pick period 2 and 9:00, and 80 other players have picked period 1, that's 20 tee times minimum before we get to yours, i.e. you just signed up for 11:20 at the EARLIEST!  Please pay attention so as not to disappoint your teammates when you get that very late tee time you didn't want.

Each week we are now having 130+ people sign up which means the last tee time will continue to be after 12:30 until we get to June when our split courses will take effect.

Regards,

Bruce Jones
ASGA Web Admin

 

Winter Weather is Coming!

Always a good lie with snow!

The upcoming week of January 19 looks to be a cold one. A very cold one--which means ASGA will be cancelling our Tuesday January 21 event. Here are some of the details regarding why--from our partners at GolfATX (edited).

"Due to the current forecast, GOLFATX will deploy putting green covers beginning Saturday the 18th at Jimmy Clay, Roy Kizer, Morris Williams and the Balander Short course.  Kizer and Morris Williams will be closed for play, we will have availability at Jimmy Clay until 10:00 AM on Saturday.  Lions, Hancock and the practice ranges will be unaffected on Saturday.  We anticipate greens covers remaining in place thru Wednesday the 22nd but the situation could change based on weather.  Lions and Hancock will be opened intermittently with the approval of our agronomy staff during this weather event.  

"We do not know exactly how long it will take to cover the greens but we know we have over 8 acres in the 64 greens we are covering and the task will be significant.  The reason for deployment early Saturday is to get in front of the north winds arriving early Saturday afternoon.  We appreciate your understanding during this necessary disruption.  The only way this plan changes from Saturday morning is a major change in the forecast.

"We have another irrigation pond project scheduled for Lions at the end of January bleeding into February.  The pipe going from the pond into the irrigation house needs to be repaired requiring some excavation work in the pond itself.  We do not know exactly what we are going to find nor the impact on play but we will do our best to communicate those disruptions and adjust fees accordingly when they occur.  

"Materials for the lighted driving range at the Clay/Kizer should be arriving next week and work will start shortly thereafter.  We look forward to having a wonderful "after-hours" spot for you to continue working on your game.  Operation hours on that driving range will be communicated at the end of the month.

"In our last communication, our par threes (and all other holes) are getting pitted with pitch marks, cleaning up your marks is a vital ingredient to the healthy future of the turf, please enjoy this short video on proper pitch mark repair.  

"An additional way to limit visible damage to the course is thru cart traffic.  When you are entering fairways from the path and see a worn spot, avoid it and take another route.  If we all take the same entrance point, we create roads.  Roads on golf courses are not good.  When around tees and greens, all 4 tires on the path will limit those nasty ruts that we all see, traveling carts can go around you.

"Steve Hammond

"GolfATX Division Manager"

Hopefully this will be the worst of the winter weather--

Bruce Jones
ASGA Admin