New Road Home

It’s here!!!! Thanks to the new partnership with AT&T our new mobile office has arrived. We are now going to be able to run each event from this state of the art trailer and with the MGA now having over 30 events, this trailer will allow us to better serve the players. The trailer has a weather system inside to track bad conditions for us and it will allow us to provide Live Scoring. However, the biggest plus is that we will have a main hub at each event, so it will be easy for players to find us!!


I would like to thank AT&T for making this happen for us. I am looking for a long and great partnership for years to come.

Now onto the world of professional golf, I get a kick out of all commentators who just jump to conclusions on the littlest things. Take for instance this past weekend at the Bay Hill Classic. Tiger is making a run on Sunday and then makes a few un-Tiger like errors and it took Johnny Miller two seconds to start questioning what he and Hank Haney (Tigers teacher) are working on. Come on, give me a break, the guy makes two bad swings coming down the stretch of an event on a really hard golf course and he get crucified about swing adjustments. All this showed is that Tiger is a little human. Yes he played bad on the back nine, but is he in a slump? No I do not think so!!! I have not been around a more driven person than Tiger. All that did Sunday afternoon was make him work that much harder for the Masters. All I have to say is that I hope they are getting his green jacket ready at Augusta!!

See you soon on the tee,

Scott

Player of the Year!

During halftime of the last Missouri Basketball home game verse Colorado I had the privilege of presenting John Kelly with the MGA Player of the Year Award for 2006. John had a great summer by winning the Ozark in April, finishing runner up in the Cotton, winning the Missouri Stroke Play Championship, and then highlighting his whole summer with making it to the Finals of the United States Amateur at Hazeltine. With John’s great play in the US AM, he now gets the honor of playing in the Masters. I talked a little bit with John about the upcoming event and he said that he is already making trips down to Augusta to get some extra time in there. (Who blames him) He also said that he has practice rounds set up with Ben Crenshaw on Monday and Fred Couples on Tuesday. I think that is a great thing that these former Masters winners will take John around the course and show him what he needs to be watching for. What a great experience. I know all of us here at the MGA wish John good luck and to have fun in April.

About three weeks ago I went on a golf trip with some friends down to San Antonio. There were 12 of us that went on the trip. Joe Jimenez the long time head golf Professional at Jefferson City Country Club lives in the San Antonio area now, so we played four days of golf in a pro am format. Each day you rotated pro’s, that way each guy got a day with Joe. My day with Joe happen to be the day we play LaCantera, the host course for the PGA Tours Texas Open. The wind blew about 30 to 40 mph that day, Joe is in his 80’s now, however that does not stop him from still powering each drive out there between 240 to 280 yards. Joe broke his age each day with ease, shooting around par each day except for the wind blown day where he still shot 77 from the back tee’s which well over 7200 yards long. It was a great treat to play with him and see what a great tempo he had. It was a struggle for me that day, and I had to really grind the last two holes so that I would not be beat by a man well over twice my age. I birdied the last hole to clip him by two. (Thank God)!! I pray to God that when I am 80 that I can be as active as he is. If you are looking for a good golf trip, check out San Antonio, there are some great courses and the prices to play them are reasonable too.

Entries have been open and on line now for about two weeks. So, if you want to enter a MGA event this summer, go to the web site (http://www.mogolf.org/) and create a player profile for yourself to start entering the events. If you want to get in the Four-Ball or Senior Am do not wait, these two are filling up fast!!

Enjoy this great weather the next couple of days, before long it will be 110 each day and then too hot to get out and play.

Until I see you on the tee,


Scott Hovis

Don't Miss Out!!

Don’t forget this Monday, March 5th at 9 a.m. you can go to http://www.mogolf.org/ and start entering events. So make sure that you set your clock and be ready to go. You can enter all the events that you want to play in for the year at once. So do not miss out!!!

Also if you have not looked at the Swingspeed, you are missing out. We have sold 6 already and getting phone calls all the time. The cost is only $90 and it is available for right and left hander's. This is a great tool to help you warm up and also get your muscles in golf shape. I highly recommend this piece of equipment. Go to http://www.swingspeed.com/ and check it out. Email me at shovis@mogolf.org if you want one.

See you on the tee!!!

Times Are A'Changing

It's about time, finally we are getting some warm weather, however it will only be short lived. It is just a tease to make us want to get on the course even more.

Last week was the Kansas City Golf Show held at the Overland Park Convention Center, there was a nice turn out by Golf Companies and courses. As most would expect the busiest section of the show was the testing area. Here players could get a few swings in on the latest clubs on the market and see what will help their game the most this year. It was great to see all the golfers out getting ready for the 07 season.

One of the newest and most intriguing training aids that I saw is the New Swingspeed. This aid is a piece of metal that has the perfect grip on the end of the stick; the other end has three donut weights. You can adjust the weight to your liking. All you do is swing this 16 ½” stick anywhere you like to work on your swing. The Swingspeed will add distance to your game and the reason I like it the most is because it works out and builds the muscles you use the most while playing golf. I have had a SwingSpeed for about two weeks now and I have been using it twice a day. I was very sore after the first day; it really gives you a great workout and helps with all aspects of your golf swing. I am looking forward to seeing how it has helped me, this week when I get to tee it up in Texas. John Richman from Kansas City is the President for the company and he uses it before he plays each time, he says that it gives him a great stretch before he goes out. I am all for this product, I think that they have hit a home run here, there are no negatives to this, if you can not make it to the gym or just want to work on your swing, what a great way to help build your golf muscles and also teach those muscles memory. Go to the website http://www.swingspeed.com/ to check this out. If you are interested in one of these and I think all golfers should be, then e-mail me at shovis@mogolf.org and I will get it dropped shipped to you at a lower cost than you can get a golf shop.

When you have a slow moment and want something to do, go the MGA web site and click on Rafs rules. Take his rules quiz to polish up your rules knowledge before the season starts. Do not forget that March 5th is the magic day when the applications will be online for players to enter all events at once. So make sure that you mark that date down.

On a sad note, the golfing community lost a great member this past weekend. Ron Goodwin, a MGA Director and also a KCGA Director lost his battle with cancer. Ron gave a lot of his time to course rating, forecaddying and also being a rules official. Anytime you had a question about a rule, all you had to do was ask Ron and he knew it right off. I am sorry that I only got to work with him for a couple of years, however in that short time I learned a lot from the man. He is going to be greatly missed. Our prayers and thoughts go out to the Goodwin family.

PGA Show Afterthoughts & MGA Tournament Info

Amazing, that is one word I would use to describe the PGA Show last week in Orlando. That was my first experience at the show and I will make sure that it is not my last. If you are a golf junky, like me, you could spend hours in the show and still not see everything there. As most of you already know, square is the new shape of the year for Drivers. Callaway had there new square face driver at the show and it took a couple of times looking at it before I got use to the shape. Anything and everything that you could imagine related to golf was at the show, if you ever get the chance to go or if you are a club professional you need to go. It is something all golfers need to see once.

All I can tell you is to just keep telling yourselves, ‘May will be here before long and this awful cold weather will be gone.’ This is just not fun anymore!! I hate even going outside to get in the car. However, watch July roll around and we will be complaining about how hot it is. But right now, I say bring it on.

We here at the MGA are getting Ready for the BIG DAY, MARCH 5th, that is the day all you players can start entering the events for the upcoming year. That is right, you can enter everything at one time now and will not have to worry about missing deadlines, just pay by credit card or print the applications out and mail them back in to us. Also, right now if you go to the schedule page of the web site, you can click on each event for the upcoming year and it will give you all of the cost for each event and the entry includes. On the entry page you will see that we have blocked rooms at certain hotels for the players this year, so make sure that you take full advantage of this.

The Senior Series is running on full go, we have already over 50 members signed up for the great new Series, so if you’re a senior player do not miss out. Get your application in and get ready for the upcoming year.

Stay warm and make sure you have March 5th circled on your calendar; I don’t want you to miss out on the great golf events this summer.


Take care and thank you again for your continued support of the MGA.