CGA and Colorado PGA Join Forces for Junior Golf

Meeting also produces announcements on youth, military and diversity initiatives.

Jon Rizzi

Effective January 1, 2016, the Colorado Junior Golf Association as we know it will cease to exist.

And, if all goes according to the plan announced Monday by the Colorado Golf Association and Colorado Section PGA, the state’s junior golf program will be much stronger as a result.

At the Section’s Fall Membership Meeting at Heritage Eagle Bend Golf Club in Aurora, the two organizations revealed they have teamed up to create a yet-to-be-named junior golf program that will incorporate their respective best practices.

On the PGA side, those practices include Golf In Schools (which has reached 40,000 students in just five years) and the 60-team PGA Junior League. The CGA brings its long legacy of expertise in running junior golf tournaments across the state.

The presidents of the two organizations—the PGA’s Leslie Core-Drevecky and the CGA’s Phil Lane—publicly signed a memorandum of agreement codifying the joint oversight of the program.

Chief among the changes is the creation of a Junior Tour, which will consist of 19 36-hole events, including four “majors”— Junior Stroke Play, Junior Match Play, Colorado PGA Junior Championship and the Tour Championship—in which both boys and girls will compete.

CGA Executive Director Ed Mate (above) said he expects the majors will generate excitement. “How cool will it be for kids to compete for a ‘grand slam’ in a calendar year?”

Junior Tour competitors must carry an 8.1 handicap index or lower. Players with higher handicaps can develop through the noncompetitive Junior Series, also run by both the CGA and CPGA.

Juniors and their parents can also expect a new, streamlined website. It’s a one-stop shop that will not only serve as an event-registration portal, but will embrace all programs related to junior golf (including those run by courses and clubs), as well as Golf in Schools, the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy, the Drive, Chip & Putt Championship and others.

That site, as well as the name of the newly formed collaboration, will undergo a rebranding process that should be finalized before February’s G4 Golf Summit. More details will be available by then as well.

One thing’s for sure: it won’t be called the Colorado Junior Golf Association. Although that organization, begun in 1984, technically reflected collaboration between the Colorado Golf Association and Colorado Section PGA, the CGA exclusively oversaw it.

That won’t be the case this time. Like next month’s Century of Golf Gala and  February's G4 Golf Summit, this nascent junior golf program reflects a true partnership between the two leading organizations in Colorado golf.

“With the great things these two organizations have accomplished, just imagine now becoming one powerhouse where our focus is all going to be about the kids and the families,” said Colorado PGA Executive Director Eddie Ainsworth (above). “How can that not be great?”

NOTES:
The Colorado Section PGA’s Fall Meeting also focused on the accomplishments of the organization’s charitable foundation, PGA REACH, and its three pillars: Youth Development, Supporting Our Military and Diversity & Inclusion.

• On the youth-development front, 59 schools, 60 instructors and 33 golf facilities participated in the Golf in Schools program with 8,857 fourth- and fifth-graders partaking through their P.E. classes…A total of 740 Colorado juniors competed in the Drive, Chip and Putt competition, with three (Caitlyn Chin, Arielle Keating and Luke Trujillo) earning an invitation to Augusta National Golf Club to compete in the National Finals April 3, 2016.

• The Military pillar, embodied by the Fort Carson and Denver V.A. Chapters of the PGA H.O.P.E. (Helping Our Patriots Everywhere) program, utilizes all aspects of golf to help veterans with their mental, social, physical and emotional wellbeing. In just the second year of the program, 20 PGA golf professionals trained in adaptive golf instruction helped more than 150 veterans suffering with physical and mental trauma….With great emotion, Executive Director Eddie Ainsworth announced the Section will be giving away a mortgage-free home fully adapted for a disabled veteran  at July’s Colorado PGA Reach Invitational.

• The Diversity & Inclusion pillar has benefited from $174,485 in Growth of the Game grants and scholarships to promote golf among all individuals regardless of age, gender, ability, background or lifestyle. Working with the United States Olympic Committee’s F.L.A.M.E. (Finding Leaders Among Minorities Everywhere) program, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs Professional Golf Management Program (UCCS PGM) and other institutions like The Broadmoor, Colorado PGA REACH has provided valuable work experience golf industry leaders from all cultural and ethnic backgrounds.

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