The KPMG Women’s PGA Championship is just around the corner. Sahalee Country Club is looking fantastic and is ready to host a major championship. I encourage you to bring a group from your facility to enjoy the day. Bring your Get Golf Ready class or maybe your PGA Junior League team to help inspire them to love this game the way you do. Tickets are very reasonable and are available at http://www.kpmgwomenspgachampionship.com . Thank you to all who have volunteered, we appreciate your support. Our staff managing the volunteer effort will be at Sahalee all week and will be hard to reach so please, please, please don’t cancel on us! We still need a few more volunteers to help staff the practice facilities. Call Angela Hinzpeter at 360-456-6496 to sign up. Work two shifts and we’ll give you a nice Polo shirt and outerwear piece along with a Section logo hat. Watch the best in the world of women’s golf work on their game!
The Section tournament program is in full swing. The Muckleshoot Casino Washington Open Invitational was a tremendous success. Congratulations to 60-year-young Jeff Coston for winning his 20th Section major! Thanks to the tremendous generosity of our Pro-Am players we raised $60,000 for the Folds of Honor. Also a big thank you to all the professionals who played with our amateurs and joined them up at Muckleshoot and again at Meridian. What a great steak that night!
Next up, the Oregon Open Invitational is returning to Brasada Ranch and the Brasada Canyons GC. We are full with a waiting list! We are sorry for those who will not get play but it’s great to see the demand back for our championships. I hope you are taking advantage of the great lodging rates at Brasada Ranch. It’s a special place, the accommodations and the sunsets are unbelievable. Details are on the Oregon Open page on our website: https://www.pnwpga.com/event/2016-oregon-open-invitational.
The Rosauers Open Invitational will visit MeadowWood GC again this year. Bob Scott is really looking forward hosting, especially with a whole year to prepare! The golf course is looking good and we look for great things out of the team at Rosauers. Each year the Rosauers offers our largest purse at $135,000, don’t miss it. Join us for the pro-am and you’ll enjoy wine tasting Tuesday night at Arbor Crest and plenty of ice cream during the rounds. For more information or to enter, visit: https://www.pnwpga.com/event/2016-rosauers-open-invitational.
June means our PGA dues are due. Please don’t miss the June 30 deadline. Each year, those of you who have your employer pay your dues end up with late fees as they try to mail the check with their AP run on July 10. Please walk your dues through accounting to avoid the late fee. New this year, you can visit PGA.org and create proxy access for your employer to access your account and pay your dues. This new feature should really help. If you have not seen an invoice…it’s not coming. National sends all but a handful of notices via email. Just log into PGA.org or call 800-4PGA-PRO.
Our first Drive Chip and Putt Local Qualifier will be June 19 at The Golf Club at Hawks Prairie, followed quickly by nine more qualifiers scattered around the Section. Please promote this FREE program to your juniors and their parents. This unique opportunity is for all kids of every ability. Parents love it as it’s not a full day affair! Direct your juniors to www.drivechipandputt.com to register. Each year, registration for the girls divisions is a little soft, the same is true this year so their odds are pretty good. Click here for a schedule of our Section Local Qualifiers.
We will be upgrading our accounting software and server later this month. We pushed it eight years and as mission critical as this system is…your checks are important…it’s time. It’s a big project but we have a plan to minimize any disruption in service and you can count on us to deliver.
Finally, be sure to follow Tim Feenstra, Brian Thornton, Clint Ables, Brian Nosler, Tony Robydek, Jason Aichele, Ryan Malby and Jason Pitt at the PGA Professional Championship, June 26-29 at Turning Stone Resort in New York. Coverage is provided on Golf Channel, why not have it on in the shop? Share with your members that each year you enter the qualifier for this championship as well… and that you are going to make it next year!
Have a great month. The days start getting shorter in just 22 days – so make hay now!
Jeff Ellison, PGA