The IGA Rules and Competitions Committee spent a good deal of the offseason studying the IGA Player of the Year points systems.  Following that study, the following recommendations were approved by the Board of Directors in late March and will go into effect this season.

Added new point events

We recently announced the addition of three new Sanctioned Point Events – The Classic, a new stableford format event at Elmwood CC in Marshalltown, the Joe August Match Play, the long-standing Four-Ball Match Play format tournament held at Ames Golf & CC and the Mason City Amateur, a 36-hole stroke play tournament held over Labor Day weekend at the Mason City Country Club.

Now counting four

Players will now count up to four additional non-IGA or non-USGA events.  That means a player can now count their top four point totals from of Additional Sanctioned Point Events and non-USGA national events.

“Tiered” structure for Additional Sanctioned Point Events

Additional Sanctioned Point Events in Iowa (non-IGA conducted) will be assigned separate point scales based on how many people participate in each event.  Depending on the number of players, an event will be either “A”, “B”, “C” or “D” with 300, 250, 200 or 150 points being awarded to the winners, respectively.  The “A” level events will award points to the top 30, “B” level will award to the top 25, “C” level will award to the top 20 and “D” level will award to the top 15. This adds a bit more point value to those who finish higher in fields with more players.

Players who play “up” in competition

Players age 50 and over who play in an Open Division rather than a Senior Division will be eligible to earn points.  The amount of points they earn toward the Open Player of the Year race will transfer equally to the Senior Player of the Year race.

For example: A player age 52 plays in the Open Division of the Iowa Masters and finishes 4^thoverall, earning 80 points toward the Open POTY race.  That player would also earn 80 points toward the Senior POTY race.  This same philosophy will apply to Super Senior Players who choose to play in an Open Division or Senior Division rather than Super Senior Division.

National non-USGA events

Performance in non-USGA national events will continue to be counted toward the Open POTY race and will be added to the Senior POTY race.  They will be counted toward a player’s four extra events they can accumulate (in addition to the Sanctioned Point Events).  A big change will be that the IGA will simply rely on the World Amateur Golf Ranking to determine which national events are worthy of points. WAGR was created by the USGA and R&A to rank the top amateurs around the world so we will use that as our basis. Their events are ranked from “Elite” to “F” level events.  We have created our own scale of points depending on those rankings.

Herman Sani and Iowa Mid-Amateur points elevated

The amount of points and number of players who will earn points have increased in both the Herman Sani Tournament and the Iowa Mid-Amateur.  In the Sani, the winner (low amateur) will now receive 300 points with the top 30 earning points.  In the Senior divisin of the Sani, it will be 250 for the winner and the top 25 will earn points.  At the Mid-Am, the champion will receive 250 points and the top 25 will earn points in both the Open and Senior Division.

Super Senior Points System

Following the first year of the Super-Senior Player of the Year, many additions and tweaks were made.  See this link for the entire system.  Some highlights include:

• Addition of Super Senior Division to Iowa Mid-Amateur
• Addition of Super Senior Division to Herman Sani Tournament
• Addition of Super Senior bracket to the Senior Match Play
• Increased point values of Super Senior Division at Iowa Senior Amateur and IGA Senior Match Play

View the complete rules and regulations for all the Player of the Year point systems here.

The Classic at Elmwood, the Joe August Match Play and the Mason City Amateur are now point events.

The Iowa Golf Association Board of Directors recently approved a recommendation of the Rules & Competitions Committee to sanction these new events for the annual Player of the Year races.  They are categorized as an “Additional Sanctioned Point Event”.

The Classic at Elmwood Country Club in Marshalltown is a new event that will be played under the stableford format.  It will be contested during the last weekend in April, making it the kick-off event for annual point races.  Stableford is a format in which golfers play traditional stroke play, but earn points per hole based on their scores with the highest point total being declared the champion.

The Joe August Match Play began in 1948 in Marshalltown, but has been held annually at Ames Golf & Country Club since 1993.  It is a Four-Ball Match Play event in which teams of two play a stroke play qualifying round and are then placed into a bracket based on their qualifying score.  They play match play over the weekend until a champion is declared.  The Joe August Match Play (named after the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame member) will fall into the mid-July weekend where the retired Lake Creek Amateur once was held.

The third event added to the list of sanctioned point events is the Mason City Amateur.  It will be held over Labor Day weekend, making it one of the final opportunities for players to earn points toward the respective Player of the Year races.  The tournament has been played since 1951, moving around a bit on the calendar.  Previously played as a 1-day, 27-hole tournament, now that it is a point event, the event will be staged over two days and 36 holes.  Past champions of the Mason City Amateur include Iowa Golf Hall of Fame members John Jacobs and George Turner, and 2008 Iowa Senior Amateur champion Joel Yunek.

These events are additional to IGA conducted championships and USGA qualifiers, which are also point events for determining the Players of the Year.  This brings the total of “Additional Point Events” to 13.

Entry applications will be available for The Classic at Elmwood on March 1st.  The Joe August and Mason City Amateur entry applications will be available as soon as possible.  You can view information on all Additional Sanctioned Point Events at this site.