Less than a month away

It's amazing how quickly time passes...more so the older you get. It seems like yesterday I was returning back to work from the Holiday break, yet here I sit less than a month away from our first event. Lately, my time has been filled with tournament favor orders, trying to plan out course rating trips, site visits, and making sure that I am ready for tournament preparation to begin. For those not in and around the tournament admin portion of golf it may come as a shock the amount of prep work that goes into even the easiest of events. I know when I began my internship with the TGA, several years ago, that was the biggest shock to my system. Weeks of preparation can go into an event and even more so for our major championships. Sure, our attention to detail may add a few days of work here or there... but I truly feel that it is because of our discipline to make sure everything is correct that we separate ourselves from other associations.

In a couple of weeks we will be conducting our first event of 2010, a TGA Championship Series event at The Governor's Club in Brentwood, TN. Last year we opened with the same event and the weather was very unkind to us. My fingers are crossed for good weather this year! So tournament preparation continues...in a few short weeks we will find ourselves marking hazards, dotting hole locations, and writing rules sheets all in preparation for a great beginning to the 2010 season.

TGA Annual Board Meeting

On Saturday, February 27th, the TGA staff, Executive Committee, and Board of Directors met for the annual TGA Board of Directors Meeting at Hillwood Country Club in Nashville, TN. This meeting allows the TGA staff to give both the Executive Committee and the TGA Director's a recap of the previous year and to discuss goals for the upcoming one. The meeting began with a roll call of all TGA Member Club representatives followed by reports from both the Handicap and Course Rating leaders informing of the past year's results and current year's goals.

Kathy Gordon, Southeast Regional Affiars Director for the USGA, gave her annual USGA report in which she stated that the entire Southeast Region had weathered the economic storm well the past year. She informed the attendees that the USGA was feeling the impact of the economy as well but that no major changes were going to have to be made. She also reported on the new USGA president, Jim Hyler, and his vision of taking the USGA "green".

Following Kathy, the Board received yearly reports from the TGA President, TGA Treasurer, Men's and Women's Competition Committees, Rules of Golf Commitee, the Tennessee Golf Foundation, and the Strategic Planning Committee. Through the reports given it was clear that 2009 had been a great year given the economic struggles that we faced, and it was apparent that we were headed in a very good direction moving forward into the new year.

The meeting was concluded with the honoring of Lewis Foster, who had served as the Tennessee Golf Association President for the past two years. Mr. Foster was a great asset for our association to have at the helm and we were very appreciative to him for all the work he had put into bettering us as a premier golf association. Mr. Tim Jackson will replace Mr. Foster as the TGA President for the 2010-2011 term. As most of you know Tim is a staple of Tennessee Amateur Golf and we couldn't be happier to be represented by such a wonderful leader on and off the course.