News

Golf looks a little different this summer.

New health and safety plans are in place for the first time at Sedgefield Country Club in Greensboro, North Carolina, as the first AJGA event of the summer season begins.

The new requirements include parameters to keep safety No. 1 by limiting the overall number of people at an event, eliminating all possible touch points, and maximizing the game’s natural physical distance.

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Global Golf Post Coverage of Blueprint

The International Association of Golf Administrators (IAGA) elected Mark E. Peterson as the 2020 IAGA President during its Annual Conference held Nov. 3-6 in Monterey, Calif. Peterson serves as the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) Executive Director. He also is the ED for the Pennsylvania Golf Association and the J. Wood Platt Caddie Scholarship Trust. He will lead IAGA’s nine-member Board of Directors.

“I am honored to serve as the President of the IAGA,” said Peterson. “The IAGA has provided me with the platform to learn and grow in golf administration since I started. It has provided me with mentors and educational opportunities that continue to enrich programming in GAP and the Pennsylvania Golf Association.”

Peterson, 44, a resident, Berwyn, Pa., began with GAP in 1996 as an intern. He took over as Executive Director in April 2000 at the age of 24. At the time, Peterson was believed to be one of the youngest executive directors ever hired. GAP has expanded by more than 100-percent in terms of Members and Member Clubs since Peterson started. He has served on various USGA committees (Green Section, Regional Associations and current co-chair of the AGA Council). Peterson has been the Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Golf Association and J. Wood Platt Scholarship Trust since 2000.

“GAP has a long relationship with the IAGA, which started with Peg Burnett. She attended the meeting to form the Association in 1968. She along with my predecessor Jim Sykes both served as President of IAGA.   I am so proud to join them in this leadership role,” said Peterson.

Peterson has a lifetime affiliation with the game starting as a kid in Brookfield, Wisc. He grew up at Westmoor Country Club with his father and two brothers. Peterson walked onto the University of Villanova golf team and competed for three years (1994-96). He turned to the administrative side of the game thanks to a P.J. Boatrwight Jr. Internship with the Wisconson State Golf Association in 1993. He served the WSGA as intern for three consecutive years. Thanks to the netowork of the IAGA, Peterson took his skills East, and interned with GAP from 1996-97. He was later named Director of Operations in 1998, which he served as until taking over for Sykes.

Peterson has attended almost every IAGA Conference since 1997.

“During my time on the IAGA board, we have seen many advancements of the Association, highlighted by the hiring our Executive Director Bill Walker. Over the next year we will continue to focus on the expansion of member services while holding true to our heritage of providing an opportunity for association leaders and staff to advance their industry skillsets,” said Peterson.

Story by WP Ryan | Minnesota Golf Association

The IAGA will honor longtime Golf Ontario Executive Director Dave Mills with its Distinguished Service Award, to be presented on November 6^th at the 2018 IAGA Annual Conference at the Innisbrook Golf and Spa Resort.

Mills, 71, of Belleville, Ontario, served as Executive Director of Golf Ontario for 17 years, from 1997 until 2014. He first joined the Ontario Golf Association, as Golf Ontario was known at the time, as a club representative for the Bay of Quinte Golf & Country Club in Belleville in 1986, where Mills’s skills at organizing and growing junior golf led to his election to the board and the provincial chair of the OGA’s Junior Development Committee.

Mills accepted the executive director position with the OGA in 1997 after concluding a 27-year career with Ontario Hydro. During his early tenure as executive director, Mills steered the association out of significant financial issues and eventually put it on solid financial and administrative footing.

Within a few short years, he led the association through an amalgamation with the Ontario Ladies’ Golf Association in 2001 to form the Golf Association of Ontario, one of the largest amateur golf associations in North America. Calling it his most satisfying career accomplishment, the amalgamation led to recognition by the Ontario Ministry of Sport of the GAO as the official Sport Body for golf in Ontario.

Highlights during his tenure include establishing an annual scholarship program, launching the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame, creating a partnership with the Ontario Golf Magazine, initiating numerous player development programs including Golf in Schools, participation in Canadian and Ontario Summer Games, and working with numerous young golfers and their families as they pursued golf scholarships at universities in the U.S., and careers as golf professionals.

Prior to his Golf Ontario tenure, Mills worked for Ontario Hydro, one of the largest electricity corporations in North America. He attended the University of Toronto graduating in 1970 with a BASc in chemical engineering and later attended the Banff School of Advanced Management.

Today Mills remains actively involved with Golf Ontario as a tournament volunteer and with the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame as a member of its selection committee. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2016, most notably for his efforts in reorganizing the OGA as well as for his leadership during the OGA/OLGA amalgamation. Without the former, the latter would not have been possible; it is the amalgamation which is generally acknowledged to have created unprecedented growth and recognition for golf in Ontario, including participation in the Ontario and Canada Summer Games and for access to funding of new programs, such as the creation of a world-class player development program.

The IAGA Distinguished Service Award was established to recognize individuals or groups whose actions have fostered the IAGA objectives as stated in its bylaws: “To promote and conserve the best interests and the true spirit of the game of golf as embodied in its ancient and honorable traditions.” It is the organization’s highest honor. The selection criteria includes the demonstration of superior or innovative administrative abilities, excellence in information exchange and dialogue between golf administrators and golf organizations.

Adam Helmer, 37, of Ottawa, Ontario, has been at the heart of Golf Canada’s rules and competitions for more than 10 years. From mid-June to late August, you’ll find him inside the ropes for Golf Canada’s major competitions and a few of the game’s majors, including the Canadian Amateurs, the RBC Canadian Open, and the Canadian Pacific Women’s Open.

All told, Golf Canada – what was once known as the Royal Canadian Golf Association – conducts 30 or more championships and qualifiers each year for golfers in Canada’s ten provinces.

As GC’s director of rules, competitions and amateur status, high on Helmer’s list of challenges is pace of play.

“A high percentage of what we deal with as tournament administrators and referees is pace of play.”

There are variables-a-plenty affecting pace of play, including course setup, weather, size of the field, tee-time intervals, etc., but Helmer believes getting players engaged in the solution to the problem is the key.

He cites the PGA and LPGA’s efforts at proactively engaging players in improving pace through their player advisory councils. After the LPGA Tour adopted 11-minute tee-time intervals and implemented a new time par policy that focused on the lead group, the tour shaved 14 minutes off the average time and 22 minutes from the longest time.

“We’re big proponents of eleven-minute intervals,” says Helmer, adding, “It makes all the difference in the world.”

Whereas limiting the field size is also an option, it’s not a practical or ideal solution given the need to grow player participation, he concedes.

For certain, advances in golf ball and driver technology are credited with most influencing the game inside the ropes, yet Helmer sees the biggest change and opportunity for golf administrators is in the form of new technology, both hardware and software, and the impact it has on communication. He points to hand-held devices such as smart phones and tablets that allow referees to monitor pace of play and collect data from walking scorers in real time.

At Golf Canada, we’ve streamlined the player experience, explains Helmer, adding that their tournament software (provided by Bluegolf) features the convenience of a single username-password login for all GC and provincial competitions, and more seamless communications before, during and after competitions. The GC tournament app also allows competitors to check in to a championship, much like an airline flight, call for a referee, view hole locations and provide access to interactive GPS distances on course. As a nod to environmental considerations, Helmer adds, GC has also replaced all of its traditional printed leaderboards with television monitors and radically reduced the amount of other printed materials.

Helmer and Golf Canada’s Rules and Amateur Status Committee Chair, Diane Barabe, worked four Opens together this summer: the CP Women’s Open, the Canadian Open, the U.S. Open and The (British) Open, a feat which they jokingly refer to as “the Triple Crown of Refereeing.”

Helmer also worked the Toronto 2015 Pan Am Games, a precursor to golf’s Olympic Games debut in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, and has recently officiated at the Players Championship and the WGC-Dell Match Play.

What’s most important at a major championship in his view is how well the course is covered by referees. The Masters uses referees who are assigned to specific holes allowing them to become intimately acquainted with the problem spots unique to their hole (TIOs, GUR, water hazards and the like), while the USGA has recently turned to “pods,” or small groups of referees who are led by a pod captain, and who rotate among one or two assigned holes and work either morning or afternoon shifts. The R&A assigns walking referees to specific groups at The Open facilitating better rapport between players and their referees, while Golf Canada, together with the PGA Tour, uses a group of roving referees at the RBC Canadian Open who cover the entire golf course.

Whether it’s pods, stationary or roving referees, prior to officiating at a championship Helmer likes to “take a lap through the Rules book” to refresh his knowledge, visit the facility to acquaint himself with the golf course’s specific trouble spots and quirks, review the Local Rules, and meet with other referees to discuss potential issues on-course.

In Helmer’s experience, there is no substitution for careful planning and preparation prior to a refereeing a golf championship.

As most of you know, one of IAGA’s premier partnerships is with Affinity Travel Benefits.  Fun fact: Affinity has forged relationships with nearly 50 golf associations, molding their offering specifically to serve your members.

With Affinity’s travel and entertainment platform, Allied Golf Association members are enjoying up to 70% discounts on hotel rooms and greatly reduced pricing on a robust supply of tickets to sporting events, concerts, theme parks, and movies.  Golf associations are benefitting from enhanced member loyalty by associating their brand with a valuable and highly utilized benefit.  In fact, according to Affinity, AGA members are averaging $120 in savings per booking.

“We work in a wide variety of industries but the culture in golf is unlike any other,” said Affinity’s President, Stephen Boyd, “When travel is promoted by email, social media or the eRevision newsletter, we see registrations converting north of 20% consistently. Golfers love to read about their sport, and they clearly value and trust in the content and products provided by their allied golf associations. It is a special relationship and the results are immediate and palpable.”

Affinity launched its first golfer-dedicated travel site in February 2016. Twenty golf sites were active by mid-summer, and Affinity soon learned from its partners of a growing need to support lodging for tournaments.  “We challenged our technology team to create sites that geo-locate the golf venue and then sort hotels by proximity.” said Stephen.

“We’ve benefitted from using Affinity’s travel platform both internally and externally,” said Matt Vanderpool, Georgia State Golf Association’s executive director. “We’ve significantly reduced staff and volunteer time and travel costs and provided tournament players with flexibility to secure savings while maintaining hotel brand alligences, if necessary.

Affinity has expanded its travel services to include host hotels for golf events.  Affinity reaches out to all the qualified hotels near tournament venues, obtains discounted pricing, and whenever possible negotiates amenities like complimentary parking, breakfast and wifi.

Bruce Jones, Affinity’s vice president of sales, said “This is an exciting part of our business. We discuss needs with our golf partners, negotiate the rates and details with hotels for their events, and present the information back to them in a highly organized, simple format for a final decision; then we set up a branded, booking webpage for competitors and add it to the travel site. Turnkey and simple is the goal.  And if there are enough bookings, we get comped rooms for staff.”

So what’s next for Affinity? “Marketing support, surveys and enhancements to the user-experience,” said Lee Thomas, Affinity’s chief operating officer.  “We currently offer turnkey advertising plans and collateral in our marketing asset library and our partners are building great loyalty programs with sustained marketing campaigns. Beyond this, we intend to use data and surveys to enhance our sites and organically grow sales for our partners. We want all partners to be successful in equal measure – from the smallest partner with limited staffing to the largest partner with every success tool at their disposal.  This is how we’ll define success in the future.”

Affinity, which recently signed a five-year extension with the IAGA, offers IAGA Members free travel websites and host hotels services, and a revenue share on member purchases.  Contact Affinity to learn more at hello@affinitytravelbenefits.com or 844-MYTRAVL (844-698-7285)

The IAGA is happy to welcome Shaun Boyle to our team to serve as our intern for 2018.  Shaun is a recent graduate of the Fox School of Business at Temple University where he earned a degree in Business Administration. Throughout his time at Temple, Shaun worked for the men’s basketball program as the head student manager and a recruiting intern. His work with as a student manager at Temple led opportunities working for Under Armour and High Major Sports where he assisted with the operations of AAU basketball tournaments across the country.  Additionally, Shaun spent time with the Philadelphia Phillies as a member of their Community Outreach staff.  His duties included fundraising and charity work.

Shaun is passionate about sports and in particular golf.  As with most members of the IAGA community, Shaun began his golf administration career at a local golf course.  In his case, Wyoming Valley Country Club in Wilkes-Barre, PA served as his introduction to the game. When asked about this opportunity with the IAGA, Shaun stated the following “I am very appreciative of the opportunity to work for an organization like the IAGA, and I am excited about my future in golf administration.”