“I can’t win!” – Yes you can!!

The NALG is expanding its effort to grow its membership.  Many years ago there was a large membership with over 200 players playing in the national tournament.  Now it is much smaller.  But NALG chair Sid Miner and the NALG board are trying to change that.

When NALG members ask someone why they don’t play in our tournaments there are a couple of common responses.

The first is that they didn’t even know that there were tournaments for lefthanders.  Many states hold them.  Some are beginning to.  The NALG has been around for over 90 years!  Over the years it has been difficult to maintain the awareness that there are left-handed tournaments especially for younger players.  The NALG has been working several avenues to increase awareness.

The second common reason given for not playing in lefty tournaments we hear is “I can’t win!”  Golfers think they have to shoot a low score to win something.  We all know that not everyone can win the titles.  But you can win something!

The NALG targets for about 50% of the field getting a prize of some sort.  At the national tournament there are age division prizes for the top few players in Championship, Open, Seniors (60+), Masters (70+), Grand Masters (80+) and Women.  But this year they are also taking the field and dividing it into flights based on the first round score.  So if you shot one of the higher scores you will be in a flight with similar scores.  So if you don’t win one of the age divisions, you can still win one of the flights and there are prizes for several players in each flight.  So you have two chances to win!

The Indiana tournament has been doing this for several years.  This approach was started by Jack Hammond who ran the tournament for many years.  You can see last year’s winners HERE.  Notice that the highest score to win a prize was 181 for two rounds.  That player shot rounds of 91 and 90.  I know many of you reading this can shoot scores lower than this.  If you are one of them then you are no longer able to say “I can’t win” as it is clear that “You can win!”.

But as we have all told our children – winning isn’t everything.  Other benefits of playing in our lefty tournaments are you get to test your skill while playing with others that will likely become your friends for life.  Everyone enjoys seeing each other every year at the various lefty tournaments.  They enjoy the friendly competition.
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Won’t you join us?