The purpose of the Senior Men's Golf Association of Patuxent Greens Country Club (PGCC) is to promote and encourage the game of golf for senior men through participation in and sponsorship of golf and social activities. Fifty is the minimum age required for membership. Members pay annual dues of ten dollars to participate in all local SMGA activities. Members of SMGA who are 50 or older are automatically eligible to participate in Maryland Interclub Senior Golf Association (MISGA) events.
The Association provides an organized basis for group golfing activity throughout the year. For the primary golfing season of April through October, the tournament chairman schedules tournaments in collaboration with our MISGA representative, who schedules the MISGA events. Thus, two streams of tournaments are interleaved into a single tournament schedule. Members must sign-up on a roster sheet to participate in a specific event, whether SMGA or MISGA. During the rest of the year (November through March), play is informally arranged according to the number of members who show up. No advance sign-up is required.
All SMGA events occur on Wednesdays, as do home MISGA events. Away MISGA events occur on the host club's senior day, which can be any day of the week, but most likely Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.
The tournament chairman runs the local tournaments, following the tournament schedule for format and arranging the pairings for equity. Each golfer contributes four dollars for a prize fund from which the winning teams receive gift certificates. A member of the SMGA must participate in a minimum of 8 non-MISGA SMGA events to be eligible for the SMGA Champion or Flight rankings. The sum of the best two of up to four designated "individual by flight" scores, both gross and net, will determine the overall SMGA Gross and Net winners for each of four flights. These are the only SMGA events where prizes for gross scores are awarded.
The MISGA representative handles all MISGA activity. In concert with the MISGA reps at other clubs, he arranges schedules and coordinates the mixers. Additionally, he conducts the home mixers.
MISGA is an organization with more than 4400 members from 59 clubs in six divisions located across Maryland, as well as several adjoining states. MISGA's principal activity, and what sets it apart from the usual golf association, is the scheduling and playing of hundreds of mixers each year. A mixer is simply a meeting of senior golfers from two member clubs on a home and home basis that provides an opportunity for the visiting club players to play a different course, to meet and form friendships with other senior golfers, and for the enjoyment of golf and fellowship. Schedules are arranged between the various club representatives according to a prescribed formula, which insures playing a diverse set of clubs each year, yet still favoring a within division mix.
A mixer is not a competition between clubs. Rather, the host MISGA rep forms teams with two members from each club, trying to maintain an equitable distribution of handicaps among the teams. The mixed team then competes against all the other mixed teams, playing a format devised by the host club, typically the two better balls of four. Sometimes, more than two clubs participate in a mixer, with suitable distribution of club members across teams. After golf, the players eat lunch seated with their teammates. At the conclusion of lunch, the tournament director awards prizes in the form of gift certificates for the host club's pro shop. All participants, including members of the home club, pay for golf carts, lunch and prize money. Shotgun starts facilitate scheduling for starting times and for lunch. Handicaps are used for all mixers at 90% for two better balls of four format and at 100% for formats using individual scores of all team members. There are no mixers in which prizes are awarded on the basis of gross scores.
In addition to the mixers, MISGA sponsors several MISGA-wide tournaments during the season, and conducts golf trips to southern resorts during off-season. Spouses may participate in the organized golfing activity during the trips; however, the minimum age for men to participate in golfing activities is 50.
This page last updated: June 23, 2008