MAJGT NEWS
DEAR Players,
The 9th season of the Mid- American Junior Golf Tour is fast approaching and there are definitely some exciting things in store! A common question we get asked is, what do we do during the off-season. Aside from some putting competitions in the hallway, a large portion of my time is put into creating the best and strongest schedule possible. As you know, planning a competitive golf schedule can be a cumbersome task with a lot of events conflicting with one another. The same can be said with creating a schedule that works for both the MAJGT and its participants. I think this season’ s schedule is one of our best yet! We’ re making stops at some annual facilities like Kenosha Country Club and Purdue’ s Kampen Course, but we’ ve also added some new courses as well.
Junior Golf Scoreboard( JGS)
In the off-season, we wanted to educate ourselves a little more about the Junior Golf Scoreboard rankings so that we can help our members better understand the system. As a result we are going to be making some tweaks to help the ranking of each tournament. A key part of the ranking is individual scoring— this is the average difference of each player’ s score compared to the USGA rating of the tournament course. This component accounts for 65 % of the player’ s ranking. This upcoming season you’ ll be seeing longer course yardages to help with this part of the ranking. The next 25 % of your ranking comes from a JGS formula that determines strength of field. The final 10 % is the
strength of your finish in each event. Because we use JGS for the Field Determination Policy for Spring / Fall Opens as well as first round pairings for each event, we wanted to help you better understand the ranking system. For a more detailed explanation you can visit their website. As a reminder, you must compete in four( 4) multi-round( 36-holes or more) events within the last 365 days to establish and maintain a ranking.
Fall Shootout
Finally, we will be hosting the second Fall Shootout at Bull Valley Golf Club in northern Illinois. Last year players from Illinois teamed up to compete against players from Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The event was a huge success and I hope it will remain that way for years to come. The players who received invitations were at the top of the MAJGT All- Midwest points standings. I think it’ s a great goal for players to have going into the 2017 season. Not only would you be representing your state, you get the opportunity to play on a team in match play format; something you don’ t usually see at MAJGT events!
I look forward to seeing you all out there this season and, as always, please don’ t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions!
Elisa Hermes
Director of the Mid-American Junior Golf Tour( MAJGT)
16 Illinois Junior Golf Association