FORE!
It’s about that time again–time for wild drives, flubbed chip shots, lipped-out tap-ins and, heaven forbid, slightly bent clubs. We all love this exasperating, infuriating game, not simply because we’re masochists, but because every now and then, perhaps every fiftieth shot or so, we do hit a good one, and there is satisfaction in that.
The Sterling Farms Men’s Club looks forward to launching our 2020 season, but we warn you up front that it will be a season of change. First of all, throw away that old scorecard and pencil and take out your phone. Yup, we’re introducing Golf Genius to the Men’s Club this year, which means electronic scoring on your phone. You simply download the Golf Genius app, enter your score after each hole and let Golf Genius do the rest. Golf Genius offers us a greater variety of tournaments, live leader board features so you can see where you stand vis-á-vis other players on the course, and a host of new possibilities, like a massive skins game for anyone who wants to participate. We will leave the sheets up for a period of time, but we hope to transition entirely to electronic scoring fairly quickly. Our resident Golf Genius guru will be Mitchell Schepps. As Mitchell says:
The Sterling Farms Men’s Club will be utilizing Golf Genius for all of our competitions in 2020. Aside from its many benefits, Golf Genius offers our club the ability to communicate with you via custom text messaging in addition to email, so it would be great if each of you updates your eGolfer profile on GHIN.com with your cell phone number. If you do not yet have an eGolfer profile, you can register for one at https://ghin.com/egolfer/register.aspx. We firmly believe that Golf Genius will dramatically enrich your golf experience with the Sterling Farms Men’s Club!
The Worldwide Handicap System has also been updated this year, which means that all of our handicaps will be derived slightly differently than in past years. Here are a few of the highlights:
• Handicaps will be updated daily, rather than twice a month.
• Your eight lowest scores out of the past twenty will be used rather than the lowest ten.
• The high score that any of us can use for handicap adjustment purposes will be net double bogey. That means on any stroke-hole your maximum score will be triple. If you do not receive a stroke, your maximum score will be double. (As always, you must adjust your score before you enter it into the GHIN system. That has not changed.
To help you understand all the changes surrounding the new Worldwide Handicap System and Golf Genius, we are holding a Seminar this Saturday, March 7th, from 12-2 at the Royal Green. Please make a special effort to attend so that all of us start the season on the right foot.
Of course, while a lot has changed this year, a lot has not. We have 22 weekend events lined up and 10 larger tournaments. You can participate in as many or as few as you like. Here’s a quick look at some of the benefits that membership in the club offers you:
• Handicap and GHIN #
• Access to $20,000 in prize money throughout the year
• Member-Member and Member-Guest Tournaments
• Club Championship
• President’s Cup and Vice President’s Cup
• Governor’s Cup
• Season Opening and Closing Events
• Interclub (Sterling v Hubbard) and Shoreline (Sterling v other area courses)
• Sentinel Maintenance Player of the Year competition• Access to CSGA, MGA & WGA events• And much more
Sentinel Maintenance continues to sponsor our season-long Player of the Year race. Please thank Marc Schultz and his entire team at Sentinel for donating the prize money. And remember, you want to rack up as many POY points as possible throughout the season in order to make it to the Final 8 and have a shot at the big prize.
For all you new guys or singles, we offer a New Member’s/Single’s List designed to help you connect with other golfers. Simply ask to have your name and email address added to the list and we will send out your information to all the other guys on the list. That way, if you’re looking for a game or someone is looking for a player to fill a slot, you can easily make arrangements. (We will send out an invitation to join the list in a month or so.)
If you haven’t signed up to the Men’s Club yet, please do so now. You can sign up in the pro shop or at sterlingfarmsmc.com.
Yup, golf season is almost here. We’re looking forward to another great year. Sure, there will be a lot of changes out there, but change, sometimes, is good. Maybe it will even help us to enjoy this diabolical game a bit more.
We hope to see you soon,
Jeff Mayfield
President, Sterling Farms Men’s Club
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