IAPGA Executive Director

Greg Mason, PGA | Iowa PGA | Executive Director

As our Tournament Season came to a close on Saturday, October 8th as we administered the final round of the Iowa High School Athletic Association’s State 4A Boys State Championship at Elmcrest CC, I took a moment to take a breath and think what a nice year we had.

Then I remembered the year isn’t over for some of our professionals as we have six of our Senior (50+) playing in the Senior PGA Professional Championship at Twin Warriors & Santa Ana Golf Clubs in Santa Ana, NM on October 13-16, 2022. The low 35 Professionals get to qualify and play in the 2023 KitchenAid Senior PGA Championship on May 24-28, 2023, at our new PGA of America Headquarters in Frisco, TX. We have had Judd Gibb, Jeff Schmid and Chad Proehl play in the KitchenAid in the past few years. I am hopefully we get a few into that event again as we have some pretty good golfers in the state of Iowa, both Amateurs and Professionals.

We have two of our young Associate/Assistant Professionals playing in the Assistants National Championship in Port St Lucie, FL on November 17-20, 2022. Good luck to Zach Steffen and Matt Jennings.

All of our Associations are moving towards our Annual Awards season. The Iowa Golf Association will name its winners and celebrate them on December 16th at Terrace Hills in Altoona, IA. From their Players of the Year to their awarding of the Golf Courses of the Year, Superintendent and Golf Professional of the Years will be honored along with some other very deserving award winners. The Iowa Chapter of the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America will host their awards for 2022 in 2023 on February 16 at their annual meeting. The Iowa PGA will award their Section Awards along with their Player’s of the Year for the Professionals and our Junior Tour (just completed its 25th year) at Riverside Casino and Golf Resort on November 15, 2022.

As the final tournaments are played and the awards handed out for 2022, the Iowa PGA has already begun planning for 2023 and another great slate of educational opportunities, tournament opportunities for our Professionals and our Junior Tour Players and whatever we think of as we do some wonderful planning. Our Iowa PGA Board, Iowa PGA Foundation Board and our Past Presidents will be doing another Strategic Plan for our next 3-5 years to help guide us towards bigger and better things.

Thanks to all of you that have volunteered, were a spectator or participated in any of our educational or playing opportunities.

As an old friend, Dr. Hooshang Soltenzadeh, used to say, “I am sad that this year is over, but really happy that we get to meet/play again next year”.

For those interested in marketing with us, we will have spots available for you to place an ad. Just look for our special marketing page within the pages of our magazine. This digital magazine goes to over 15,000 people on our email list along with being sent over our social media channels. If you wish to be a part of something new in the Iowa Golf scene, please feel free to email me at gmason@pgahq.com. You can always call the office at 319-648-0026 as well.

Have fun, Play Well “Mase”