Saguaro Men’s Golf Club

The Club: In the early 1960s (~63) four golfers from Randolph Men’s Golf Club wanted to play golf more than once a week, other than only on Sundays. So they formed a new club to play twice a week. They picked Wednesdays and Saturdays. They named it the “Saguaro Men’s Golf Club”. They adopted the USGA rules to play by, and have membership in the Arizona Golf Association (AGA). This allows the Club to use AGA’s “Golf Genius” website to schedule and manage events. We also manage membership and member’s handicaps. Currently there are five Club members that serve on the Board of Directors; President, Handicap Chairman, Tournament Director, Membership Chairman, and Treasurer. All are volunteers. The board’s duties include setting the yearly membership dues, arranging tee times, running the events, ruling on issues brought up to the board, and managing the pay outs for events. Each Board member serves for two years. The Club holds annual elections to select new Board members on a staggered year basis. We have had numerous Club Tournament Directors over the past 60+ years. It is a thankless job which requires finding the courses to play, the most appropriate event to play on the course and the number of tee times to reserve. They have all been very creative and focused in coming up with several special events. Without them there would be no Club. Sign-ups for all events are done online with the events for the month set up a couple weeks before the following month starts. Members then just add their name to the event. Once the Tournament Director (TD) for that event sets up the foursomes with their group players, tee box assignment, and start times it is Emailed to the attending golfers. Hence each player knows when and where to show up to play. This information is also available through the “Golf Genius” website along with results for the previous events. We welcome new members with AGA handicaps. Those who do not have one will need to play five Club events to establish a handicap. Annual dues are presently $45 + $5 for the Hole-in-One fund. Additionally, the AGA charges the club $50 per member per year for a total annual dues of $100. There’s a hosted Annual Dinner paid for by the Club at a local restaurant usually held in November or December, following the President’s Cup tournament. Also provided is a lunch during the Club Championship. The original payout for a Hole-In-One has been lost to time, but since the early 90s or late 80s it was $250, than bumped up to $300, than again to $400. Once there is a payout members put in another $5 to refund the pot.

The Event: The club plays at all 5 City of Tucson golf courses along with Haven, San Ignacio, and Crooked Tree. We have also been able to get tee times at The Golf Club of Green Valley, Star Pass, La Paloma, Ventana Canyon, Quarry Pines, and El Conquistador. Each event usually has a mandatory $10 entry fee and the option to play in gross skins and net skins pots. Each skin pot entry is $5 (again optional). We only allow one net stoke per hole. We pay approximately 25% of the field entering. Also we pay out cash for closest to the pin winners per event. To keep events interesting we change them from just low net to; low net/low gross, 2 man best ball, 2 man total net ball, 4 man yellow ball, 1-2-3, and 2 man scrambles.

The Majors: For several years there were only 2 special events - the Club Championship held around in late April, and based on stroke play with entrants divided into flights; the President’s Cup is held in the fall and is based on net stroke play with one flight. Both of these tournaments is a two day event, held on consecutive Saturdays. We have added a third event which is our Match Play Championship. It typically starts in late winter and lasts until mid-April. There are three other semi-major events; the Firecracker event (held around the Fourth of July), the Red, White, and Blue event (held around National holidays), and the Longest Day event (held in late June). The Club had also had sponsored teams to play in various City of Tucson events - including the Citizen’s Cup which they won several times over the years. And the AGA two man scramble.