Rightly or wrongly, it is probably assumed that men 18-24 will mostly be playing in NCAA tournaments.

Glenn

Spend the summer in Scotland.  Smaller than Ohio, with less heat and humidity, and you get to play tournaments at all levels at some great and even quirky courses every weekend, and even during weekdays!

Golf Associations (and clubs) in the US just don't get it.......

Rich,

I'm drooling!

I a have been playing golf all my life in Ohio thank you very much and that is it for our state golf association. There is a state Open run by the Northern Ohio Golf Association.

Tom,

How about that website? What a joke? How can you look at Indiana and Tennessee and California and Texas and allow yourself to look like that?

The Ohio Amateur and the Ohio Mid-Amateur are it, no State Match Play at all.

Glenn Spencer:

Why don't you call up the Ohio Golf Association and try to do something about it? Why don't you volunteer your time? You are aware, aren't you, that all these state and regional amateur golf associations are pretty much made up of people who devote their time and effort to amateur golf for no remuneration? It's always been that way.

We are blessed in Pennsylvania to have such a knowledgeable and hard working President leading our association

The GAP and PA Golf Association have to be two of the best run organizations in the country.  Mark Peterson the executive director  and his group do an excellent job coordinating events.

Jason

Glenn:

In my 30 years of playing tournaments and twenty years as a staff member and volunteer in golf associations, I've heard all the complaints about how the game is managed. What you are talking about is hardly news or newsworthy.

The OGA exists to run just a few events. The five regional golf associations (GCGA, MVGA, TDGA, CDGA, NOGA) provide the bulk of the tournamnet opportunities, as you know. I know the GCGA Met Championship is match play. I don't know if the others have a match play, but I believe several do. I can tell you it is not geting any easier for the GCGA to recruit courses to host the tournament.

I don't know what your golf situation is, but if you are a member of a private club, please go sell to your board the idea of giving up the golf course for six days in the middle of the golf season, especially in Ohio and other limited season states. If you are a public golfer, as am I, go convince the owner to forego the green fee and cart revenue; alternatively, go convince the association board to pay the fees. You are in for a challenge.

In short, many course do not want association tournaments at all, and certainly not match play events, and most of all not events that do not produce revenue.

Yes, some state associations have match play events and are successful at getting top notch venues. They can still do it because of history, tradition, longstanding leadership, huge volunteer forces, incredible PR efforts, and some even compensate the sites to some degree. But they have to fight the battle to keep match play going every year, and have to conceed more and more to the courses, such as permitting non-tournament play on tournament days when possible, monetary compensation, gift certificate purchases, etc.

But many associaitons do not have match play events, and some have dropped the match play format due to the logistics. Some have researched starting or restarting match play events, and have been discouraged by the challenges of doing so. It aint easy to get these done, believe me.

Call Jim Popa at the OGA and ask him why there is no state match play championship. Then come back here and report what you found out. But I bet you won't have learned anything new since reading this post.

" knew Mr. Popa very well and I know Jim a little bit and I know that he tries the best he can and that is why I ask is it time for the USGA to step in?"

Glenn Spencer:

Time for the USGA to step in for what? Do you think the USGA is going to fund the Ohio State Golf Association or any other state or regional golf association in America? That does not happen--it's never happened and it never will.

These state and regional golf associations have to be self-sustaining and self supporting.

The USGA has very much indirectly assisted state and regional golf associations in the last 25 or so years by essentially franchising or licensing them as GHIN handicap service providers (that is if the state or regional association wants to use the GHIN System) but the USGA is never going to fund state and regional associations directly.

State and local golf associations depend on basically two things for their revenue---tournament entry fees and GHIN handicap revenue. (although some are now getting into revenue generation by title and corporate sponsorships).

A regional golf association like GAP (Golf Association of Philadelphia) which is the oldest regional association in America, depends on GHIN income for just about half its revenue and that's probably about typical for state and regional associations that are GHIN providers. For the rest they depend basically on tournament entry fees.

GAP runs about 50 tournaments a year of all kinds including USGA qualifiers. That's a helluva schedule for a seasonal regional golf association.

The Pennsylvania Golf Association runs about 23-25 tournaments a year including qualifers but they are not a GHIN provider so they depend strictly on tournament entry fees for their association income.

The good news with GAP, West Penn GA and the Pa Golf Association is they have traditional relationships with the clubs and courses in their purviews and so they don't have to pay the clubs for use of their courses for tournaments.

A regional association like West Palm Beach apparently pays the clubs where they hold tournaments and so the entry fees for their tournaments are probably three times higher than associations like GAP and the Pa State Golf Association.

GAP, West Penn and Pa Golf Association have paid staffs and really good ones (Jason Mandel mentioned Mark Peterson who is the executive director of both GAP and Pa Golf Association and I have to think he's one of the best young executive directors in America). The Met Golf Association (New York) to me is sort of the last word in regional golf associations in its clout and organization and its executive director Jay Mattola is probably the best in America and has been so for maybe 25 years (I think David Fay used to work for Jay Mattola)).

Almost all these state and regional golf associations have volunteer boards that run these associations (like the USGA) and we wouldn't have them or those associations if everyone in the state who's interested in golf and golf tournaments said they don't have time to serve or that they wouldn't make any difference as you just said.

Many of the volunteers are active tournament golfers or ones who used to be. Some call this kind of thing--'Giving back to the game". If there was none of this attitude in the states and regions I dare say there would be no state or regional golf associations at all and no state and regional amateur tournaments. They just don't happen automatically for the benefit of golfers and the USGA is not and never will be the source of their administrative revenue.

The Ohio Golf Association is an interesting case. They are considered to be somewhat in the vein of mavericks by the USGA. They tried some years ago to buck the Rules of Golf by institituting their own local rule on repairing spike marks in contravention of the Rules of Golf and just this year they're attempting to require the use of a competition golf ball (in only a single tournament) basically in contravention of the USGA's policy on ball conformance as well as perhaps somewhat in contravention of the authority of "The Committee" (Rule 33) to institute local rules (under the Rules of Golf).

So if you think the USGA is going to fund the Ohio State Golf Association (or any other state or regional association) to run their state and local tournaments you're dreaming. As I said the USGA is not going to do that for any state or regional golf association but frankly, if the Ohio State Golf Association called the USGA for a ruling in that tournament in which they'll require a competition ball the USGA essentially would not answer them because they do not believe they are playing the game by the R&A/USGA Rules of Golf.  

By the way, the Pennsylvania Golf Association just held their match play championship last week at Totteridge G.C in Greensburg Pa. The Pa Golf Association is 97 years old and we've only had a match play championship for four years (It's called the R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship). The field is an invitational of 32 players off our annual player performance list. They teed it up Monday morning and Arnie Cutrell beat Nathan Smith on the 16th hole on Wednesday morning by about 10:30am to win it and we were all outta town and on the way home by noon.

Settle down, Tom

I was really asking a simple question.  From your reply it seems that GHIN/USGA sells its system at some sort of disccounted price to people like GAP who then charge retail price to the individual clubs, thus creating the "income" you mention as accruing to GAP.  Unless this deal is an arm's length one and open to other parties to compete with the regional association, it really is "largesse" rather than true "income."  Have I missed something?

Vis a vis Scotland, club Open tournaments involve a fee paid directly to the club, usually on very favourable terms (e.g. you pay ~£30 for a tournament at Dornoch vs. the normal green fee of ~£80).  National or Regional (i.e. Fife) tournaments require a green fee paid directly to the appropriate agency.  These fees are also modest.  In addition every club assesses each member about ~£7 which goes to the SGU for its various services.  Clubs run and pay for their own handicapping software, which is sold by several competing suppliers.

Rich

PS--did you answer my question?

Rich:

The price of the GHIN handicap computation service is generally higher all of the other computation services which are marketed to clubs and associations. Why do so many of the associations subscribe? GHIN offers a number os services with the cost, including the state of the art tournamnet pairings program (used even at the US Open) and a service to calculate hole by hole stroke allocation.

The associations' handicap fees are not really fees just for handicapping. The revenue from the fees covers most of the associations' non-tournament costs.

Association membership fees run anywhere from about $10.00 to $25.00, maybe slightly higher in some of the more affluent parts of the country. In certain situations GHIN handicapping is free to juniors, abd the associations generally discount their fees by the amount of the GHIN cost.

The associations are free to subscribe to whatever handicap computatiion service they fel is the best for them. M ost feel that is the USGA's Ghin service.

In addition every club assesses each member about ~£7 which goes to the SGU for its various services.  Clubs run and pay for their own handicapping software, which is sold by several competing suppliers.

7 Pounds is just over $13 at todays rate.  Add handicapping costs on top of that and I'd guess you get pretty close to the WPGA's $18 membership fee per person.

Tom Paul & Jim Sweeney have stated most of the points I would have made better than I could.

A couple of things to add.  

The WPGA ends up spending almost every penny we get in tournament entry fees at the clubs that host our events.  We hold out a little for trophies and for the cost of our registration provider, but all the staff labor comes from our membership dues.

We pay the club for carts (when allowed), range balls, and food for everyone.  What is left over goes to gift certificates in the pro shop for approximately the top 1/3 of the field.  A club that hosts our Mid-Amateur, for example, might gross nearly $10,000 for the day.  We don't pay green fees, but they get a lot.  The only match play event we have is an invitational for 16 juniors.  The club doesn't get much out of that, but it isn't much of a load to give us 12 tee times one day and 3 the next.

GHIN operates on a break-even basis as I understand it.  If they have too much profit, they will refund some money to the associations.

Our $18 per adult golfer fee (kids are free) pays for GHIN, TPP, computers for all our clubs, course rating, full-time handicap support with service calls as needed (bet most providers in Scotland don't give you that), seminars on handicapping, rules, club leadership and other topics, many publications including our club survey that boards use to compare themselves with other clubs, tournaments, a couple of meetings a year for club representatives and board members, discounted services for websites and club evaluation services, and being the non-commercial, impartial voice of amateur golf in our region.  Not a bad bargain for $1.50 a month.