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compiled by CHRIS LANG
» Virginia Golf & the people who make it great
& NOTES: 7
Get Ready for Great Golf in 2018
AS WE CELEBRATE a spectacular 2017 season and move into the new year, we thought we’ d help you start 2018 with a special issue of Virginia Golfer. You’ ll notice that we made some changes, with an eye toward making the first issue of the year— in the golf offseason in Virginia— a little more evergreen. Inside, you’ ll find everything you need to get geared up for the year ahead, including:
Schedules and information to get you ready for various professional golf tours. For the fifth straight year, the PGA Tour is operating with a wraparound schedule that began last fall, but for many, the Hawaii and West Coast swings signal the beginning of a new year. The PGA Tour makes four stops relatively close to Virginia— once in Maryland( tentatively), once in West Virginia and twice in North Carolina. The LPGA Tour returns to VSGA member club Kingsmill Resort, and the PGA Tour Champions makes another stop at VSGA member club CC of Virginia in October for the first event of the Charles Schwab Cup playoffs. An expanded look at the VSGA championship schedule. The VSGA competition season kicks off in April with the Virginia-West Virginia Matches and concludes in October with the Four-Ball Match Play Championship. In between, the VSGA will conduct nearly 70 championships and qualifiers for men, women and juniors. A detailed look at the VSGA VIP Golf Card program, which offers VIP pricing at more than 200 courses in Virginia and West Virginia. Proceeds, in part, benefit the VSGA VIP Scholarship Foundation. A look at the newest class of the Virginia Golf Hall of Fame and information on how to purchase tickets for the induction ceremony, which in 2018 will be held at Hermitage Country Club in Manakin-Sabot.
We hope this issue helps get you excited for another great year of golf in Virginia. If you have questions, comments or concerns, please contact me at clang @ vsga. org. Thanks for reading, and we’ ll see you on the golf course!
Chris Lang, Editor
Upon Further Review
The world’ s governing bodies adopt new protocols for video review
In April 2017, Lexi Thompson was walking off the 12th green at the ANA Inspiration— the LPGA’ s first major championship— when she was informed that she was subject to a four-stroke penalty because a viewer had emailed in a possible rules violation from the previous day’ s round.
Once LPGA Tour officials reviewed video of the incident, in which she incorrectly marked her ball on the 17th green, Thompson was hit with a retroactive two-stroke penalty. She received an additional two-stroke penalty for( unknowingly) signing an incorrect scorecard.
The Thompson incident was a tipping point for the world’ s golf governing bodies. On Dec. 11, a working group led by the
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6 V IRGINIA G OLFER | J ANUARY / F EBRUARY 2018 vsga. org