History of the Senior Men’s Golf Association (SMGA)

The SMGA began in the early 1990’s with just a few guys --- we were not as formal or organized as we are now.  For example, we just drew balls with numbers when we first started.  We used a set of balls with numbers on them.  We had about 60 balls that were used at the beginning (Walt MacCarthy had a set of balls and Harold Holland had a set of balls that were used for the tournaments and Axel Swanson had a set also).  You would draw a ball, remember the number and then put it back in the bag.  The balls were dropped and balls closest to each other were grouped for two man, three man, and four man tournaments.

In the early years, we paid low gross and low net.  We had one member who won low gross every week so after a couple years, we changed to net only.  All tournaments were paid in cash, not pro shop book.

Harold Holland started the weekly tournaments with assigned players and expanded that to utilize the lineup sheet when he was tournament director and George Alonge was President his first year.  Harold Holland also started the Interclub Tournaments with Hurricane Creek and it expanded from there.

When Dave Mehall became President, he started moving everything to a computer based system including membership, voting, and notifications / communications / newsletters.  Dave also started alternating the lineup criteria such as AD-BC one week and AC-BD the next week.  This was done to get more members playing with a larger group of other members and also to make it more equitable for all members.  The Club also purchased new software that enabled us to make lineups using the criteria we desired.  This had to be done manually up to this time.

Generally, each president has brought some changes.  We converted from cash payout to shop credit under John Anthony, dropped out of the Dallas Senior Interclub (DSI) and began an annual match play event (extends over several months) under Bruce Cox, began paying closest to the hole cash prizes for all par threes under Oliver and Tourney Director Chavez, improved the website and changed the match play to a double elimination format under Jerry Obenour, revised and expanded annual awards and added a free Christmas lunch under Chavez & Holec, and Don Holec initiated the annual “Tin Cup’ Tournament with Eldorado CC, the Gold Tee Program and expanded the Player of the Year award to three separate age brackets.

The original by-laws were written by John Kinney in 1994, revised by Dave Mehall and others in 2006, and were re-written to today’s version by Don Holec and Jerry Obenour in 2009.  Jerry Obenour also created the SMGA website which went on-line in October of 2006.

 

Last revised 9/23/2010