2019 Yearbook.indd

82 | IOWA GOLF ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT MIKE PAPE IGAF PRESIDENT Hello Friends of the IGA Foundation, In 2019, we continued to serve our mission, giving back to the game in numerous ways such as scholarships, junior golf, supporting turfgrass research and preserving the rich history of the game here in Iowa. We identified 9 new scholars through the Ann Griffel and Herman Sani Scholarship programs and handed out a total of $46,000 in scholarship money! Behind the scenes, we continue to work toward raising the value of both of our scholar- ships because, as you all know, college is not getting any less expensive. 2019 was the second year of the Youth on Course program here in Iowa. We were excited to see it grow substantially over year one. The number of kids participating grew 62% (97 to 157), the number of participating courses grew 54% (15 to 28), and the number of rounds subsidized increased 53% (240 to 455). You can read more about this program on the subsequent pages. We are very excited about it’s proven track record of bringing youth to the game. We continued to support our office mates at the Iowa Golf Course Superintendents Association and Iowa Turfgrass In- stitute. One of the ways we do that is making a $3,000 donation to the ISU Turfgrass Extension Service. This grant pays for ISU turf experts to visit an IGA member club that is having turfgrass issues and would like a consultation. In any given year, our grant pays for about 10-15 visits around the state. We are very proud of that and have a goal of increas- ing that donation in the future. We had a very exciting project come to fruition in late 2019. After nearly two years of work, our book on the history of golf in Iowa - Golden Harvest: Iowa’s Rich Golf History - was published. Author Rick Brown put in an extensive amount of work researching, writing and editing the book. We were thrilled with the final product. Within its 496 pages, you will read about some of the greatest players, courses, events, and stories about the game. There is some amaz- ing stuff in there. You can purchase the book through our website. We also hope to have it in many golf shops around the state when the season opens up this spring. The proceeds from the book go toward our Foundation programs and services. Finally, we would not be able to do all of these things if we did not have the financial support of our many donors. If you just look at the numbers within this report, you will quickly get a sense of how much money we need to raise each year to provide these programs. Thankfully, we have been able to do that on a regular basis since the inception of the Foundation in 2011. Enjoy reading the rest of this report and we hope you consider supporting the Iowa Golf Association Foundation with a donation in 2020. You can be assured that your money is going toward great causes in and around the game of golf. Mike Pape IGA Foundation President