IAGA Quick Hits | 9.04.26
The Cobra PUMA Golf State Cup Series: Five Years of Growth and Impact
From the AJGA
For the past five years, the Cobra PUMA Golf State Cup Series has combined competitive junior golf with valuable lessons in leadership, teamwork, character, philanthropy, personal development, and community impact.
In 2025, the series hosted 25 events at premier venues such as Whistling Straits, Pasatiempo Golf Club, Silverleaf Club, and Sea Island. Already in 2026, more than two hundred juniors have participated in nine State Cups, with a full-year goal of 26 events. In the last five years, participants have helped raise more than $5.7 million for charitable causes. Each Ryder Cup-style event brings together up to 36 junior golfers, creating a unique team experience while showcasing some of the best talent in the game.
Meet Olivia Jatczak, A Cape Cod Teen Who Will Play Along PGA TOUR Champions Roster in September at Pebble Beach
From Mass Golf
Golfers spend years trying to control the ball. Olivia Jatczak has learned something even more valuable: not letting where the ball goes control her. Whether she is playing well, recovering from an errant shot or competing in a playoff with a close friend, the 17-year-old rising senior at Cape Cod Academy makes a deliberate effort to smile, laugh and enjoy where the game has taken her.
Now, it’s taking her farther than ever.
Jatczak earned the opportunity to represent First Tee – Massachusetts in the PURE Insurance Championship from September 18-20, making her first trip to California to compete at Pebble Beach Golf Links and Spyglass Hill Golf Course. Prior to the event start, she will also participate in practice rounds at both courses, attend the Pairings Party, and play in a special event at The Hay, Pebble Beach’s renowned par-3 course.
“It’s Pebble Beach,” Jatczak said when asked about the excitement level. “It’s every golfer’s dream. I feel like it speaks for itself.”
The 54-hole event brings together 80 nationally-selected First Tee juniors, 80 PGA TOUR Champions professionals and 160 amateurs. Jatczak will be the first participant representing First Tee – Massachusetts since Jared Winiarz in 2017.
Winiarz now serves as Mass Golf’s Member Services Coordinator and has competed on the USGA stage as a standout mid-amateur.
For Jatczak, the opportunity represents everything she has come to enjoy about golf, whether it’s the constant pursuit of improvement, the places it can take her and the promise that every course might show her something new.
Golf community embraces Zeb Patten after plane crash
From the Tennessee Golf Association
This was a week that Zeb Patten had been looking forward to since last December when the Tennessee Golf Association announced their Senior and Super Senior State Amateur championships would be coming to Lookout Mountain Club in 2026.
Patten has been a long-time member at Lookout Mountain, proudly representing the club at competitions throughout Tennessee and beyond. He also makes his home on the mountain, and he was thrilled to be able to host some of his closest peers as they experienced life for the week in his close-knit community.
But all of that changed on August 9th.
Patten, who has been a pilot for 15 years and serves as Commander of the Chattanooga Civil Air Patrol, and fellow Lookout Mountain resident Grant Caldwell were taking a short flight to Winder, Ga., where Caldwell’s brother has a farm, when their aircraft encountered mechanical issues.
“There was a large bang and the engine quit,” Patten said. “I declared an emergency, and we looked for a suitable place to land. We were trying to get into Bill Elliott Airport in Dawsonville, but it turned out that those trees were so high around it that we couldn’t make the airport.”
New Scholarship House to Serve More Than 40 Evans Scholars at Rutgers University
From NJ Golf
New Jersey Golf and the Caddie Scholarship Foundation joined the Western Golf Association and Evans Scholars Foundation, Rutgers University, Liberty National Foundation and Liberty National Golf Club in July to mark the official start of renovations on the future home of the Rutgers Evans Scholars.
Jameson Hall D, located on Rutgers University’s New Brunswick campus, is being renovated to become the Liberty National NJSGA Evans Scholars Scholarship House, providing Rutgers Evans Scholars with a permanent place to live, study, build community and develop as leaders.
The new residence represents a significant milestone for a program that began at Rutgers with its first cohort of three Evans Scholars in the fall of 2022. Four years later, the program has grown to include more than 40 students, with the scholarship house scheduled to open next summer.
“The Evans Scholars Foundation has become one of Rutgers New Brunswick’s most impactful philanthropic partners, providing tuition and housing each year to more than 40 of our undergraduate students. Through this extraordinary investment, talented young people, many of whom are here today, have been able to pursue a Rutgers’s education while becoming part of a community defined by academic excellence, leadership, and service,” said Rutgers Provost & Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Jason Geary on behalf of Chancellor Francine Conway.