ON THE FIRST TEE...

With Nick Dietzen

Are You Ready For Active Season?

In the Allied Golf Association world, “active season” is defined as the period on the calendar during which any round you play in your home state or region counts toward your Handicap Index.

April 1st is celebrated here as the beginning of “active season” in Montana. It’s a busy time of year for the MSGA Staff as well as for a golf course near you, with season staffing coming back in the coming weeks and course openings being staggered as weather allows.

No Foolin’ – Tournament Registrations are open April 1st for MSGA Championships, the Senior Tour as well as District Events for Junior Golfers. (See our ads in the following pages of this newsletter.)

Not interested in playing an MSGA Event?

We still promote opportunities for you to compete across the vast Treasure State. Our new, sortable Tournament Calendar can be found here and will continue to populate as clubs add events throughout the season.

Competitions are not for everyone. Not everyone considers themselves “competitive” and as an educational hurdle, we in the golf world have a long way to go in communicating the benefits of a handicap, one of the key benefits of an MSGA Membership.

I have heard many who are regular golfers remark “I’m not good enough for a handicap” or “I don’t play in tournaments.” While we conduct numerous competitions, ultimately our goal is to build a community of golfers, both grow and maintain the game.

The origin of the handicap system was to provide a basis for equitable competition between players of varying skill levels. It is one of the unique scoring systems that makes golf attractive to many who want to compete throughout a lifetime. I could go with a friend to a tennis court and their skill level may dwarf mine and neither one of us is going to have a tremendous time if our skill levels are not closely aligned. With golf and the handicap system, I could play with someone of any age or skill level in an equitable manner.

Again, this is an option, but it is not the reason to consider a membership or to encourage a friend to join the MSGA.

Your membership provides support to the community of golf broadly. The superintendent and their staff who maintain our playgrounds benefit from grants the MSGA provides for continuing education as do the PGA sections as they work to promote and encourage golfers at your local club. The MSGA provides grants to introduce the game to students across Montana – we provide scholarships to graduating high school students, to collegiate golf teams.

The MSGA serves our youth in multiple ways in addition to competition – all junior memberships are free of charge. In the coming year we will be expanding our partnership with Youth On Course in service of our juniors as we provide greater access to courses around the state with $5 or less green fees at participating clubs.

As we kickoff active season, know that we are concerned less with how well you played and more about you being part of our community and being active. I was fortunate to be introduced to the game at a younger age by my father who instilled the idea early that golf is a lifetime sport and I have benefitted from continuing to enjoy playing, occasionally competing and mostly from the community of golfers in my life.

As I continue to encourage my friends who are aging out of other recreational activities or exposing their children to new activities, I hope that they will consider golf – after all it is a game available to us in all seasons of life, and right now – it’s the active season in Montana. Let’s get out and have fun in 2024!

Thank you for being a member. If you can, encourage a friend to join us too.