2020 IGA Yearbook

FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR 2 020 was a year of flexibility, transition, and change. The COVID-19 pandemic certainly brought many changes to how we operated events. A few were canceled, a few postponed, and all had some sort of adjustment. We also saw a staff member retire and will be welcoming a new addition to our team in 2021. I can recall vividly meeting with our Rules & Competitions Committee on Friday, March 13th at the IGA Office. That was the day Augusta National announced that The Masters was going to be postponed and two days after Rudy Gobert (Utah Jazz) tested positive for the virus, which was the spark that shut down all major sporting events. It was our last in-person meeting for quite some time. I spent much of mid-March through mid-May on the phone and on ZOOM meetings collaborating with our colleagues at the Iowa Golf Course Superintendents Association, Iowa Section PGA, and Club Management Association (Tall Corn Chapter) as we worked to unify our message to keep golf clubs and courses open. Collectively, those groups (IGA, Iowa GCSA, Iowa PGA, CMAA) form the Iowa Golf Council. Currently, the Iowa Golf Council is an informal organization that we resurrected about three years ago. The intent was to focus on golf tourism in Iowa and keep an eye on any legislation that could affect our game. Now we can add pandemic proclamation information and interpretation to that list! It really was a blessing to have already started the Iowa Golf Council as this pandemic came down upon us all. Because we had such great relationships amongst our groups prior to 2020, coming together to form a cohesive voice and “work for golf ” was very easy for us. I know it wasn’t that way in many states, so for that we are grateful for our allied associations. Ultimately, the USGA would announce that there would be no qualifying for their championships in 2020 and that only four of the 14 would be conducted - the U.S. Open, U.S. Women’s Open, U.S. Amateur, and U.S. Women’s Amateur. We would end up postponing two of our championships - the Iowa Mid-Amateur and the IGA Four-Ball - from May until late summer. As facts around the virus became known, we were comfortable with proceeding with our golf championships beginning in late May with the IGA Senior Match Play. Obviously, we had many different CHAD PITTS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR IGA & IGAF