Global Golf Post recently did a story on Joe Palmer’s success as a senior amateur golfer. As many people know, Joe is the owner of Palmer’s Deli and Market, which has four stores across the Des Moines metro area.
Follow the action on Monday, July 9th at Beaver Hills Country Club in Cedar Falls as 84 players vie for three (3) qualifying spots into the U.S. Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach Golf Links.
The 84 players is the most at the Iowa U.S. Amateur qualifier since at least 2002. In all, 7,463 players have entered the U.S. Amateur, including 43 of the top 50 amateurs in the current World Amateur Golf Rankings. Iowa’s Mike McCoy is exempt from qualifying, thanks to his victory in the 2013 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship.
312 players will make the field at Pebble Beach where they will face 36-holes of stroke play to determine the low 64 players who will make up the match play draw. The 36-hole championship match is scheduled for August 19th. You can view the action Aug 15, 16 & 17 on Fox Sports 1 and August 18 and 19 on Fox.
Click here to follow the Iowa qualifier.
One of Iowa’s oldest and most prestigious tournaments gets underway this weekend when Veenker Memorial Golf Course in Ames hosts the 81st Iowa Masters. Gene Elliott will look to defend his title in the Open Division while Ron Peterson looks to win the Senior title for the second straight year.
Elliott’s 2017 title was his third overall in the Iowa Masters, all coming since 2009. His 11-under par total of 205 was two shots clear of four-time champion Jon Brown. Brown recently won the IGA Match Play for the third time in his career. Both Elliott and Brown are members of the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame.
Peterson’s win in 2017 was a runaway. He posted 5-under par 211 while his closest pursuers were 12 shots back.
The tournament kicks off with round 1 on Friday, July 6th and wraps up with the 3rd and final round on Sunday, July 8th. There is a cut after 36 holes.
The entry form for the Des Moines Men’s City Championship is now available. Waveland will once again host this event.
Play is conducted on Friday, August 17 thru Sunday, August 19 in Open and Senior Divisions. Players are guaranteed at least two tournament rounds.
The 2018 Iowa Girl’s High School State Golf Tournaments are underway today (May 29). They will conclude with the final round tomorrow.
The four classes are spread across four golf courses in Iowa. 1A is being contested at American Legion GC in Marshalltown, 2A at Lake Panorama National GC in Panora, 3A is at Coldwater Golf Links in Ames and 4A is at Elmwood CC in Marshalltown.
Click here to follow the scoring, as all sites will be updating scores about every six holes.
Dennis Bull of Norwalk and Charles Jahn of Sperry are competing this weekend at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in Jupiter Hills, Florida. They are not partners, however.
Bull is teamed up with Andrew Price of Lake Bluff, Illinois while Jahn’s partner is Sam Range of Waterloo, Illinois.
There are 128 sides competing in two rounds of stroke play (May 19 & 20) to make the top 32, which will comprise the match play draw.
The Classic, the new modified stableford competition taking place at Elmwood Country Club in Marshalltown, gets underway this weekend. 67 golfers are scheduled to compete in the inaugural tournament.
This will be the first Iowa Golf Association point event played under the stableford format, in which players earn points per hole based on their score. In this case, the administrators at Elmwood CC have modified the traditional stableford point system as follows:
This modified scoring system will put a premium on making birdies and eagles and should make for some exciting “go for broke” golf.
Play will begin on Saturday with the first 18 holes and conclude on Sunday with the final round. There is an Open and Senior Division. In addition to a trophy and gift certificate, the champion will receive the “White Jacket” with The Classic logo embroidered on the chest.
Click the image above to read a feature on Tom Chapman, Sr. (pictured above) by Iowa Golf Hall of Fame member Rick Brown. Chapman, Sr., will be inducted into the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame on Thursday, April 19, at Glen Oaks Country Club in West Des Moines.
The Iowa Golf Association has partnered with a national organization that will benefit junior golfers as well as IGA member clubs. It is called Youth on Course and it was started in 2006 by the Northern California Golf Association. At its most basic level, it is a program that subsidizes rounds of golf for juniors at participating courses.
The concept is this: A junior age 6 to 18 can join Youth on Course for a $15 yearly fee. That gets them access to any participating Youth on Course facility (there are over 700 nationally) to play a round of golf for $5 or less. Then the participating course receives a subsidy for that round (usually another $5). Participating courses can put restrictions on days and times when the YOC rates are available, making it an opportunity for to help grow future golfers plus drive additional business during non-peak hours.
We see the program as a “link” between the Iowa PGA Swings with Kids (Golf in Schools) program and the competitive Iowa Junior Tour. It essentially eliminates the financial barrier for a junior player to play an actual round of golf. We are certain there will be kids who get introduced to the game through Golf in Schools, then utilize Youth on Course to start playing real rounds.
Kids can sign up now for the yearly membership. Simply click here to start that process.
One requirement for the juniors is that they complete an online life/course curriculum. It takes about 20 minutes to complete and it covers some basic FAQ’s, golf course etiquette and rules tips.
We are currently working to “on-board” participating courses. Some of you have already agreed to participate, and we are very grateful for that. If you have not yet heard about this but think it would be of interest to your facility, please give us a call and we can fill you in on more of the details. We would love to have a majority of Iowa courses offer this program.
Finally, this is a program that will be administered under the IGA Foundation, the 501(c)(3) arm of the IGA. For the first two golf seasons (2018 & 2019) the subsides to the golf courses will be paid by Youth on Course national. Beginning in 2020, the IGA Foundation will be paying those subsidies. Therefore, we are taking donations for this program. Usually, the subsidy to a course is $5 per round, so if you donate $100, you are paying for 20 rounds of golf for juniors. Click here to donate.
You can find complete information here or you can look for Youth on Course under the IGA Foundation menu item.
We have no doubt that the Youth on Course program will be a home run. We have a responsibility to do everything we can to support and grow the game. This program develops new golfers and that benefits everyone involved in the game of golf. It was a “no-brainer” for us.
The Iowa Golf Association has made some changes to it’s flagship event, beginning in 2018. The Iowa Amateur will hold two qualifiers to identify golfers who will join the exempt players into the final field at the Tournament Club of Iowa.
The payment structure has been adjusted to encourage more players to try to qualify. Those who enter a qualifying event will pay $85. The players that make it through qualifying to play in the championship proper will then pay an additional $65 fee ($150 total). Players who are exempt will enter the championship proper at TCI directly and will pay the full $150 entry fee at the time they enter.
Additionally, the field size at the championship proper at TCI will be reduced from 156 to 132 players. This was done to to insure adequate pace of play during the championship, allow for more flexibility with weather and also to insure the necessity of the qualifying events.
“In the past, when we would bring 156 players to the championship proper, we would schedule qualifiers and then either cancel because we only had 156 total players enter, or we would have 80-90% of those in the qualifiers making their way through to the championship, which seemed a bit silly,” stated IGA Executive Director Chad Pitts. “This would cause undue strain on the member courses that had agreed to host when we would cancel a qualifier. Sometimes, that meant they could have hosted another outing or event on those days.”
“Granted, we may still have to cancel or have a very high qualifying rate even with reducing the field to 132, but the chances of it happening are drastically reduced”, added Pitts.
The qualifying events will take place at Coldwater Golf Links in Ames on July 11 and Amana Colonies GC in Amana on July 13. The championship proper will be contested at Tournament Club of Iowa in Polk City from July 23-25. You can find entry information here.