Local Iron Thong News

The State of ITG

Updated: 04/17/2011 07:48:22 AM

THE STATE OF THE IRON THONG

STATE OF THE IRON THONG -- APRIL 2011

Gang,

The officers and board members of the ITG met on April 12 to discuss a few subjects and review how our 10th ITG Tournament unfolded. We made a few decisions and have a couple of announcements everyone needs to hear, so here goes.

First, the state of the Iron Thong is excellent, as always. We culled our membership list down to those who are actually active with our group (or are guests waiting to get their three rounds in), and we still have a membership of about 56 players, with three or four more waiting to join. Courses are still giving us the best deals in town and contacting us and asking us to schedule an outing with them. As a matter of fact, I’m meeting with the brain trust over at Silverhorn later this week to discuss next year’s schedule. They’re also anxious to host one of our semi-annual tournaments. We’re only playing there twice this year, so next year we can count on five or six scheduled rounds.

CHARITY BEGINS ON THE GOLF COURSE

We’ve discussed dedicating one or more of our Saturday tournaments during the year to a local charity for the last couple of years, and we’re finally going to do it. We’ve contacted the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer folks and are going to donate all our proceeds from the April 30 outing to them for breast research. This is a bonafide and successful charity, and I’m sure we’ll all be happy to pitch in our Saturday winnings.

It’s going to work like this: everyone who plays will donate $15 (which most would have paid to enter the pools anyway). The ITG will match whatever we raise times two and the total amount will be donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. If you can’t play but would like to donate, you can do so, too. ITG will match those donations, as well.

And we’re going to make it a fun day for everyone. Instead of our usual low net, skins and birdie game, we’re going to pretend we’re a mini-Ryder Cup team and play a game called “Scramalterball.” It’s easy. We’ll break into 2-man teams (since no one is keeping any of the winnings and the round won’t count toward handicap, it won’t matter who plays with whom). We’ll play holes 1 through 6 in a scramble format, where both players tee off and select the better shot and both players play from that spot until the ball is holed. Only one score will be posted for each of those six holes.

Holes 7 through 12 will be played in an alternate-shot format. The first shot will be played by one of the players and players will alternate shots until the ball is holed. Once again, only one score will be posted for each hole.

We’ll finish off holes 13 through 18 by playing a best-ball format, where players play their own ball and the better score on each hole will count as the team score.

At the end of the day, the lowest total score wins, and we’ll have the opportunity to do something a little different. I think it will be great. And of course, the donation we make to the Komen Foundation will be deeply appreciated, as well. April 30 is Susan G. Komen Day in San Antonio, with many activities all around town to raise funds. We’ll be part of many organizations raising money for a special cause. We’ll award some trophies to our winners, so you won’t go away empty-handed. We’re going to try to schedule at least two charity Saturdays each year, so please give me any suggestions you may have for a good charity for us to work with later in the year.

WHEN ARE DUES DUE? NOW!

Now that we’re into the Spring/Summer section of the year, $20 dues are once again due. We have an ongoing problem getting you’all to come up with the cash, so here’s how we decided to tackle the problem. Dues are due at every six-month tournament. But if they’re not paid by July 23 (or about halfway between tournaments), your name will be put on an inactive list, at which point you can’t play in any of the money games until the $20 in paid. To make this easier for you to keep track of, I’m marking down whether or not your dues have been paid on the weekly groupings list. You’ll see if you’ve paid or not, and so will we. This is really a silly thing to hang on like it does every year. Let’s just get the thing done. Our dues are the lowest by far of any golf group in the San Antonio area.

HELP FOR THE HANDICAPPED

We all have handicaps. Mine are putting and medium irons. No, I mean we all play in the ITG under a handicap system that is administered by the USGA. After the last tournament, there were quite a few people who felt the handicaps were inflated, and as we found it later, they were. We always assume that the golf courses themselves know their difficulty and slope ratings, so we go with what is on the scorecards. John Hernandez spoke to the USGA folks and found out that that’s not actually true, especially at Pecan Valley.

The USGA has what they call the National Course Rating and Slope Database. Their figures are more up-to-date than lots of the course ratings, so from now on we’ll go with them rather than the scorecards. John is updating our database as you read this. What does this mean to you? It means that our net scores will be closer to par. There shouldn’t be any more 59s winning tournaments – they’ll be 65s or so instead.

The whole idea of a handicap is to even out the playing field. If player A has a 6 handicap and player B has a 20 handicap, then player A should shoot, on average, a 78 and player B should shoot, on average, a 92. Then they would both have net 72s. (This is a simplification, but you get the idea.) Of course, some will play better than others, but remember when you play a tournament you’re competing against the course, not the other player. Winning net scores should be more reasonable in the future.

HOW COME YOU DON’T HANG AROUND ANY MORE?

When this group first started back in 2005 or so, most of the players stayed around after finishing up while we figured out who the winners were. We’d pay up after the round. The result was a great feeling of camaraderie, something that we’ve lost since we’ve grown in size. We’d like to try to get some of that feeling back. To do so, we’re going to buy a laptop that will be carried to all Saturday matches. After the round, two of the officers will key in the results, and determine the winners. If they’re still there, they’ll get paid right away. This will be easy for birdies, but a little more time-consuming for skins and low net. But we all think it’s worth a try and worth the extra work to get everybody together for a while longer on Saturday. I’ll let you know when we get the laptop (anyone want to donate one?) and are ready to start staying.

LESSONS LEARNED

First off, we had a great tournament, one of the best ever. Pecan Valley was a fantastic host. I think everyone will agree that having a separate room to use after the round was a perfect idea. It was the best tournament ever.

But it did have its problems, I mean, challenges. As a result, we’re making some changes to how we’ll operate in October. First of all, we’re going to give two Longest Drive trophies, one for male and one for female. So if we have only one or two girls out there in October, at least one of you better hit the fairway!

Next, we’re going to break up into a minimum of four flights, even if we don’t have 40 players. We feel that smaller flights will be more competitive, with shorter ranges of handicaps in each one. Also, we’ll make sure that someone with the same handicap won’t end up in one flight and someone else with the same handicap won’t end up in another. That’s what happens when you set arbitrary figures for numbers of players in a flight. We feel that it really doesn’t matter if there are only 8 players in A Flight, for example, and 12 in B Flight, as long as the range of handicaps are close and the competition is fair. And also, of course, that will mean more winners when there are more flights. It’s conceivable that we may end up with 5 flights one of these days. And that’s just fine, as long as they’re fair.

Also, we were sort of disappointed on the number of photos taken at the April tournament. We got our group photo, but didn’t have many candid's, and didn’t get the foursome photos taken at all. We’d like to see more, so next time we’re going to ask more people to show up with cameras, and take more photos so we can all be stars of the internet! Our webpage is our history, and the more we record the better!

BUT OFFICER, I WAS ONLY …

We had such a great time at the last tournament that I forgot to announce the newly elected officers for the next two years. We have a couple of new faces, both of whom have kicked in with good ideas already. Eugene Fedelin is our new Secretary. He’s going to be taking some of the webpage duties from John Hernandez in the future. John has been the hardest worker in this group for years, and deserves a little rest. Eugene is a great choice to ease into the Webmaster role.

Jamie McBride is our new Treasurer. He’s already updating our financials page and developing a spreadsheet to keep up with our money. He’s not afraid to speak his mind and bring new and fresh ideas to our officer core. Congratulations to Eugene and Jamie!

Of course, that means that we lose John Hernandez and Mike Linares, but not really. John is still working as Webmaster and will have a little easier workload now that Eugene is ready to step in. Mike has been our Treasurer for the last couple of years and has seen our kitty grow into a big cat. He’s done a great job and we thank both him and John for their dedicated and invaluable work. Of course, both John and Mike are also members of our Board of Directors, and remain so. We’ll have their inputs and experience to help us for years to come.

Pete Cliburn was re-elected as our Vice-President for another two year term. He’s done a fantastic job and has been our jack-of-all-trades. He steps in and takes over everyone’s duties at some time or another. He’s our super utility player!

And for some reason, you guys decided to reelect me as President for another two years. I feel humbled that you have confidence in me, and I’ll do my best to keep earning it for the next couple of years. We have a great combination of officers at the ITG. It’s one of the big reasons we’ve been successful and continue to be successful.

THAT-THA-THAT’S ALL FOLKS

That’s all for now. Don’t forget that you can always ask any questions or make any suggestions by clicking on the “Ask the Pres” button on the homepage.

See you on the links!

Steve