Good afternoon,
At the IJGA, we are steadily working to complete the 2023 schedule to provide more playing opportunities to our membership. Current schedules can be found on our website under their respective programs and these will be updated daily. Tournament Information Pages will be live in January. In 2022, we were able to offer an additional 1,000+ playing opportunities compared to 2021. We realize the strong demand for tournament golf and have made changes to the membership levels in 2023. Below is a link to the 2023 membership levels and a breakdown of how each membership level will work. 2023 Membership will open on November 17th at 10 AM CST.
Elite Plus
The Top 50 Overall Junior Golf Scoreboard (JGS) Ranked Boys in the State of Illinois and Top 25 Overall JGS Ranked Girls in the State of Illinois as of 1/1/2023 will have access to four elevated events on January 25th. These events are the Players Challenge #1, DuPage County Junior Classic, MAJGT at Countryside and the IJGA-CDGA Junior Amateur. You will have one week to sign up for these events before they are open to Elite Members. On February 1st, Elite Plus members will have access to Multi-Day Events and Qualifiers. On February 15th, Elite Plus members will have access to single-day events. When signing up for membership, our tournament software is not capable of making a membership invite only so please sign up for the Elite Membership. On 1/1/2023, you will be invited to the four elevated events that you can register for on January 25th. Please note: in order to be an Elite Plus member, you must have been an IJGA member in 2022. We will move to the next player in the ranking if players were not a member in 2022.
Elite
Elite Members will have access to the four elevated events on February 1st along with multi-day events and qualifiers. For the four elevated events, a max handicap requirement of 4.4 for the Boys and 9.4 for the Girls is needed in order to register for these events. The Boys 13-14 Division for the DuPage County Junior Classic will have a handicap requirement of 18.0. On February 15th, single day events will open to Elite Members.
Basic
Basic Members will have access to all tournaments on February 15th. A handicap requirement for the elevated events (stated above) is required. This membership is geared to the player that is looking to play in single day events.
8-11 Member
For players ages 8-11 years old. We recognize there is no true advantage of being an Elite Member or Basic Member for this age group. 8-11 Members will have access to their events on February 15th.
Waitlists
Waitlists formed quickly once tournaments opened in early 2022. We had more registrations in the first 12 minutes in 2022 compared to the first 24 hours in 2021. Something we could have never predicted. For 2023, any tournament that has a waitlist, we will be sending emails to the active field two weeks in advance to the tournament date reminding players that they are currently in the field and if they can no longer participate, to cancel as soon as possible. We want to get players off the waitlist quicker in 2023 to provide the player ample time to plan accordingly. We will also be emailing players on event waitlists reminding them that they are on the waitlist and to cancel out if they are no longer able to play, so players who still plan to play can move up on the waitlist.
Junior PGA Championship Qualifier
In 2016, the IJGA took over the Junior PGA Championship Qualifier from the Illinois PGA Section due to their low participation numbers. For 2023, the PGA of America has asked the Illinois PGA Section to take back this qualifier as the PGA of America wants every PGA Section to run the qualifiers and make them 36-hole qualifiers as well. You do not need to be an Illinois PGA Junior Tour member in order to sign up for the event.
I realize this is a lot of information to take in and we will be sending out more emails leading up to tournaments opening up in late January to educate everyone on these changes. My staff, tournament committees and our Board of Directors put in a lot of time over the last few months finalizing 2023 membership changes and we are confident what we put in place will help alleviate some of the strains that happened in 2022 when signing up for tournaments.
Thank you,
Matt Wennmaker
Executive Director, IJGA
1/17/2023