2018 Yearbook

8 Hello again from the west coast of Iowa. 2018 went very fast! The Iowa golf community has a lot to be proud of and many things to be thankful for. The Iowa Golf Association has had another good year thanks to all our friends in golf. We all share the common enjoyment of this great game. Our membership continues to grow with nearly 20,000 IGA members and 190 member clubs. The IGA remains committed to Preserve, Protect and Promote the game here in Iowa. The IGA Foundation also continues to grow and expand its reach. Under the direction of Foun- dation President Andy Burton and our excellent IGA staff, we have made some good financial decisions to help grow our Herman Sani and Ann Griffel scholarships. A big “thank you” to all who have contributed to the IGA Founda- tion. Your contributions were numerous and help us accomplish our goals. I wish I could single out each and every one of you, but I do want to give a very special thanks again to the Coppola family for their generous donations the last few years. Because of them, our scholarship programs have a very solid foundation and we are grateful for everything they have done. Before I go any further, I wish to extend my gratitude to the superb IGA staff. I feel they are second to none. With limited time and budgets, Chad Pitts, Bill Dickens, Katelynn Hogenson, Clint Brown, Nate McCoy and our USGA interns Megan Rush and Jordan Lester continue to go above and beyond to make Iowa golf enjoyable! I also want to specifically thank all the volunteers who have helped out at various events throughout the year, and specifically sin- gle out our “all-world volunteer”, Sean Flanders. During the summer months, it feels like Sean is one of the staff, as he contributes so much time and effort. We are very happy to have him! From the President Mike Pape President Our IGA championships and sanctioned point events had another exciting year. Although we endured extra challenging weather conditions in 2018, the IGA staff and volunteers made the best of things and many great champions were crowned. We welcomed three new sanctioned point events in 2018 (The Classic at Elmwood CC, the Joe Au- gust Match Play at Ames G&CC and the North Iowa Amateur at Mason City CC) and they got off to good starts in their first years. I would like to congratulate our players of the year, who were as follows: Women’s - Sydney Eaton Men’s - J.D. Anderson (back-to-back) Senior Women’s - Robin Webb Senior Men’s - Joe Palmer Super Senior Men’s - Rob Christensen (back-to-back) Junior Girl’s - Paige Hoffman Junior Boy’s - Jake Marvelli These players exhibited excellent abilities and a lot of class. We also owe a debt of gratitude to all our great host courses. It was a privilege to contest our various championships and qualifiers over your wonderful layouts. Not only is great golf played within our state boundaries, but it continues to be played by our native sons and daughters throughout the country. We had several people recently named to the Glob- al Golf Post All-American Teams! On the senior side, Iowa was represented by Gene Elliott, Mike McCoy, and Joe Palmer. These three players have excelled in Iowa and around the world. Iowa has the NCAA Division I champion from Des Moines, playing for Augusta, Broc Everett. He won a hard- fought playoff battle in May at Karsten Creek GC in Stillwater for his first collegiate win, which just happened to be the biggest in the sport! I would also like to thank the USGA and our Regional Director Tyler Riggin for their continued support. We are excited for the 2019 rules revi- sions taking place this January. During our winter months, please take the time to review the changes