We’re Off and Running for the Season!
VSWGA CALENDAR AND MEMBERSHIP
Can you believe it’s May? Maybe the snow this past weekend wasn’t ideal for our golf plans, but it’s Vermont, and of course we had temperatures in the 70s later in the week. We held our first State Day on Tuesday, 4/29. Let the games begin!
Visit https://vswga.org/calendar/ for the full lineup of State Days, Majors and Invitationals around the state.
VSWGA MEMBERSHIP AND HANDBOOK
Along with Spring flowers and migrating birds (including snow birds!), we’re excited to see you and to be playing again here in Vermont. If you haven’t already, remember to visit VSWGA.org or Golf Genius to join VSWGA or renew your membership. Here’s a link to the 2025 VSWGA Handbook.
WHAT’S OUR NUMBER?
We keep a lot of statistics in the VSWGA. Here is some data on our current membership:
Total Members: 372
Total New Members: 27
Total Junior Members: 1 (we would love to see more juniors)
Total Sr Members: 15
Total Club Reps: 34
Please encourage your friends and acquaintances at your clubs to join the VSWGA. Talk it up at your opening events. Invite a golf buddy to join you at the next State Day in our Bring A Guest Program. The best way we grow is through YOU!
WELCOME TO OUR NEW VSWGA MEMBERS
Do you remember when you joined the VSWGA? Do you remember playing your first State Day or Major? Were you a little nervous? I think we can all admit there is some elevated level of anxiety when joining a new group or golfing at a new course. We have had over 25 new members join us this season. Let’s make them feel especially welcome by signing up with them at a State Day, saying hi at events, and guiding them through any first time jitters about VSWGA process and rules/etiquette.
And a big thank you to those seasoned members that have invited and encouraged your friends to join us.
| Becky | Bouchard | Kwiniaska Golf Club |
| Ann | Caslin | MT Anthony Country Club |
| Beth | Clark | Killington Golf Course |
| Tricia | Demiglio | Sugarbush Resort Golf Club |
| Janice | Glennie | Kwiniaska Golf Club |
| Lee | Gray | Montague Golf Club |
| Bonnie | Harrington | Lake St Catherine Country Club |
| Judy | Jenne | Orleans Country Club |
| Kathi | Keller | Timber Greens Golf & CC |
| Deb | Kelly | Cedar Knoll Country Club |
| Suzanne | Kennedy | Lakeside Golf Club |
| Diane | McCauley | Stowe Golf Club |
| Maria | McGrath | Kwiniaska Golf Club |
| Liz | Mead | USGA/Vermont GC |
| Dara | Mitchell | USGA/Mass Golf GC |
| Kaitlin | Montgomery | Ryder Brook Golf Club |
| Amy | Moody | Cedar Knoll Country Club |
| Julie | Murray | Sugarbush Resort Golf Club |
| Donna | Pratt | Links at Lang Farm |
| Eleanor | Shih | Lakeside Golf Club |
| Mary | Sikes | Ekwanok Country Club |
| Julia | Skonicki | Ryder Brook Golf Club |
| Kazmin | Thibault | Cedar Knoll Country Club |
| Donna | Varney | Kwiniaska |
| Debra | Weinstein | Kwiniaska Golf Club |
| Sandra | Winn | Lake St Catherine Country Club |
| Mary-Anne | Wisell | Brattleboro Country Club |
- Note that players must be a member of a VT Member Club or other org that offers GHIN services before they can play in our events.
VSWGA TAGLINE AND “CAN WE QUOTE YOU” SURVEY
We learned a lot from your ideas for a new tagline and plan to use your wonderful quotations to promote the VSWGA. We are printing a poster for Club Reps to hang at their courses with the tagline suggested by Andrea Brown: “The VSWGA: Where friends come to play.” Thank you, Andrea! And thanks again to all who took the time to respond to the survey.
LOTTERY DETAILS
Registration for a few of the State Day Lottery Events will open in May. Player outcomes at other lottery courses have no impact on the event that you are registering for. For example, if you ‘win’ a spot at Manchester it will have no impact on whether or not you could ‘win’ a lottery spot at Dorset.
Lottery registrants will be sorted into two tiers:
- Tier 1 is for players who were wait-listed at that course or registered but did not get in at that specific course last year.
- Tier 2 is for everyone else.
Tier 1 players are selected for the lottery first, then the lottery will be run for Tier 2 players. Remember that if you register as a foursome, you will be in Tier 2 unless every player in your group is a Tier 1 player.
HELP!!!!!!
Our first event of the season was the Burlington Country Club State Day. We had 120 women register and 3 were on the waitlist. It was a glorious, albeit windy, day. Please remember that:
- Credit Card Woes: When you are registering, your billing zipcode listed on the registration page must match the zipcode of your credit card, otherwise you may receive an error message.
- Missing members: Sometimes you may try to add someone to your group and their name doesn’t show up in the player drop down box. This happens because they are already registered for the event OR they have not yet joined the VSWGA. If this occurs, check the player list to make sure they haven’t already registered themselves and if they aren’t on the list, email us with the player’s name and we can check their registration status.
- Tee Times: After you register your group, you should immediately pick a tee time. Double-check that everyone in your group got into the tee time you picked – occasionally you may be picking the exact same tee time at the exact same time as someone else. When there is an overlap like that, Golf Genius may only put a subset of your group into the tee time. If this happens, email vswgaquestions@gmail.com as soon as you notice it and we can fix it.
- Waitlists – You may check the tee sheet for an event and notice openings in some tee times, but then when you register for the event you were put into the waitlist. This occurs because there are other players that are registered for the event but have not picked a tee time yet. You can see your place in the waitlist on the Golf Genius App by going to Member Portal > Tee Sheets> Players and scroll to the bottom of the list. Stay patient; we do have cancellations so you may get called up to play, even the evening before the event.
PACE OF PLAY – IT HELPS MAKE OUR GOLF ENJOYABLE
In general, our state day events over the past two years have had a decent pace of play. Thanks to all players for paying attention to this. Just a reminder that the players’ starting time and finishing time must be recorded on the completed scorecard:
- Starting Time: Time that the first player in the group tees off of 1.
- Finish Time: Time when the last player finishes 18.
USGA Rule 5.6 encourages prompt play and ready golf, even playing out of turn, in a safe and responsible manner to save or make up playing time.
Keep in mind, if the round is expected to take 4 hours and you make the turn at 2 hours, then you are “on pace” but you still might have a gap between you and the group ahead (maybe they are a twosome, maybe they are low-handicappers having an awesome day). Does that mean you should split up to catch up or can you just continue on your current pace? Well, you certainly shouldn’t stress yourself out and start rushing, but some reasons you might want to try and close the gap:
1) it would be a fun chance to try this whole “split up to catch up” thing
2) you might need that extra wiggle room–say things go horribly wrong on the 14th hole and it takes forever. Now you are no longer ‘on pace’ but are behind. Had you closed the gap, you would have had that time buffer.
Definitely always make sure your group is ‘on pace’ for the round but if you can, like they say on the London subway: “Mind the gap.”
Players who finish 20 minutes or more behind the group in front of them will receive a Pace of Play reminder email. If you receive a letter, please know that we encourage feedback. Let us know if we don’t have the times/numbers correct or if something happened out on the course that caused the slowdown. We can only go by what is reported and with communication we can sort it all out if reality is not what is on the tee sheet.
See VSWGA Pace of Play for details on this and other ways to improve your pace of play.
2025 MAJORS
Within the next few weeks we will be opening up the majors for registration in Golf Genius. As a reminder of our schedule:
July 8-9: Senior Amateur Championship at Champlain Country Club
Aug 4-6: Amateur Championship at Ekwanok Country Club
Sept 6-7: Mid-Amateur Championship at Haystack Golf Course
See the Member Handbook for more information on each tournament.
You may have noticed in the handbook that the format for the Amateur is slightly different this year. Some of this is by design and some of this is because of requirements from Ekwanok. Over the past few weeks we have had a number of conversations with a number of members about these details. Stay tuned and watch our website for more info soon.