Golf Genius ::

Board Minutes

May 12, 2025

Note: This meeting was long and complicated as there was a great deal of specific information regarding the implementation of Golf Genius. These minutes will not include the details of all discussions as it would be difficult to capture all of the conversations in writing.

Meeting was called to order by Ed Gooze at 1:00 p.m. with a quorum of members present.

Present were: Ed Gooze, Steve Greenbaum, Harvey Goldsmith, Blane Goldwater, Roger Cowan, Michael Camp, Anthony Benenati, Jan Bernard, Bob Lieb, and Larry Tash.

President’s Message: Ed Gooze announced:

Regarding gaining an extra day per month for club events, he received a replay from Chuck Ruiz saying that LA City Policy for senior clubs will not be altered. It was recommended that Ed reach out to the head of the Golf Division directly since the issue of equity has been publicly shared at GAC meetings over the past year. Jan Bernard will provide the contact information for continuing the follow up.
Ed thanked Mike Camp for his great effort in transitioning the Club to the use of Golf Genius.
Ed announced that there is a learning curve for using Golf Genius as he mistakenly entered net, not gross scores in the last tournament. Mike notified us that only gross scores will be posted for future tournaments. The system will convert gross scores to net scores as necessary.

Treasurer’s Report: Harvey Goldsmith announced:

Harvey shared our current budget as having a balance of $10,238.
Sterling Hills charged more than anticipated and Steve Skinner paid for the entry fees with his credit card. Harvey has provided Steve with the reimbursement check.

Tournaments

Jan:

A sign up sheet has been provided to all Board members to sign up for working the starter table at upcoming tournaments. Each tournament will have two sets of working teams. One will open the tournament and be relieved by a second team about half way through. The second team will collect all money and have it ready to be placed in the Club bank account. This way no one has to sit at the registration table for multiple hours before playing their round of golf.
At Sterling Hills, the last group played the course in over five hours which is unacceptable. Earlier foursomes had played in less than 4 ½ hours. We have to take action on slow play, or slower players will have no incentive to speed up their rounds.
At Sterling Hills, we had two no shows that the club was required to pay for. No show members are required to make up this payment and will not be able to enter any events until they pay the fees charged to the Club. Members have been notified of this requirement for sometime on our website.

Rules violations: serious discussion was held about how to protect our tournament players from playing against members who either do not know or refuse to follow the rules of golf and our club local rules for any given tournament. The following items were included in the discussion:

It was moved and passed to create the position of Rules Chairperson on the Board. Along with identifying Anthony Benenati as the Rules Chairperson, it was determined that there would be a committee of two additional club members who would make up a rules committee. Roger Cowan will be one of the two and third person will be asked by Anthony as a club member at large to complete the committee.
The Rules Committee will be responsible for publicizing the Rules of Golf and the local rules to be used for any given tournament. They will also hear and make determinations on the violations they are notified of during our tournament rounds.
The most common complaints are about ball bumping when we are not playing under lift, clean and place rules. Other items that we as a club need to work on include: playing with more than 14 clubs in your bag, use of non-conforming clubs, wrongfully taking drops when not entitled, touching the sand with a club when in a bunker, and other rules to be determined. Our club wishes to be recognized as a club that plays under the proper rules of golf.
We determined that including more mix and match tournaments would be helpful as players learn from each other, so spreading players out will be helpful in providing greater knowledge of the rules of golf.
A letter from the Board will be sent to members who have violated the rules in the past providing input on following the rules and consequences if the violations continue.

Alternative events in the future:

Next tournament is an alternate shot format. Currently, there are 54 players signed up to play. It was suggested that we try additional tournaments that are meant to be fun, such as a five club tournament. We know that this type of tournament was not well received in the past, but we have a younger group of members who are asking for these types of enjoyable tournaments. We will try them to determine the level of interest.
There was a request to organize overnight tournaments in areas away from our usual areas of play. This too is being suggested since we have many newer members and it has been a while, since before Covid, that we have tried to hold overnight tournaments.

Membership:

Membership has remained fairly constant over the past month. We have had several new members join as Associate members.
We discussed who will take over the sending out of new member packets. These packets of information are electronic, so it is not a time consuming task.

MGA report from Bob Lieb:

We have a full team scheduled to play May 15 at Hansen Dam.
Results of the MGA will be published in the Niblick, and Bob will send results to Steve Greenbaum
Most course produced scorecards do not match what the USGA has determined are the proper data for each course. In the MGA and in our club events, the printed scorecards given by the Club will be the official scorecard, not the course produced scorecards as they are often outdated.

Sunshine report by Blane Goldwater:

Blane sent out eleven get well cards and made several phone contacts to our members or their families where illness or injury has recently occurred.
Blane has checked in with past members who are in poor health as well.

Niblick report by Steve Greenbaum:

Thanks to those on the Board who support Steve in his effort to keep everyone aware of what is happening with our club from month to month.
Some members cannot find the Niblick on our webpage. Jan Bernard and Michael Camp were able to determine why that has occurred and it will be fixed so that anyone can find the newsletter in the future on our site.

Handicap Chair report by Larry Tash:

In our last tournament, we had fewer than usual number of players score below their net par. We had only six in this tournament, and 19 in the previous tournament.
Larry and Michael will continue to monitor handicap success with use of no more than ten strokes between players in team events. This has already been put into place.
In the last month, only one active player shot an exceptional score.
We clarified that in our first use of online scoring there were some issues, but they were fixed in the last tournament and a fix will be in place for future tournaments. We will ask players to only record their gross scores, the Golf Genius system will automatically provide the net scores for players or teams.

Golf Genius and Transition issues report by Michael Camp:

The proper link to our website is sepulvedaseniors.golfgenius.com
To enter, there is a single username for everyone. In Golf Genius this is called the GGID. It is in all caps SEPULVEDASENIORS, no password is needed
We will continue to use live scoring along with a hard copy scorecard. Foursomes need to sit together at the end of their round to verify that the online scoring is correct. If there is an error that is finally submitted, it could lead to a disqualification of the entire foursome for that tournament.
A suggested way of registering and exiting members was discussed in detail. We are looking at ways to pre-pay for tournaments using credit cards to pay. Side games, for now, would continue to be paid in cash or check at the registration table. The discussion on this topic is still ongoing and when completed will be presented to all members.

New Business:

We have our schedule for city tournaments completed for 2026 by Jan, but we need to identify someone to take on this responsibility for 2027 and beyond tournaments.
We need to be sure that members keep their Players Cards current.
Discussion about the purchasing, or not, of trophies for the end of the year banquet.
We should consider moving the meeting location to another area, where we normally sign in before tournaments, to make it easier for us to hear each other during the meetings.
We should look for ways to attract younger members by looking at changes in our tournaments, or by other means in the future.

Our next meeting is scheduled for June 16, 2025

Meeting adjourned at 3:10 p.m.

SSGC MINUTES FOR MEETING HELD 4/21/2025

In attendance

Ed Gooze,Harvey Goldsmith,Robert Lieb,Steve Skinner,Dean Abston,Jan
Bernard,Deron Jones,Blane Goldwater,Steve Greenbaum,Roger Cowan and
Guest Conal Oherlihy

Absent with apologies Michael Camp Anthony Benenati and Larry Tash

President’s report

Ed said he was very happy with the way we were transitioning to golf genius.
Thanked Roger for filling in doing secretarial duties
Ed then welcomed Conal to the meeting who is going to be our GAC
representative and thanked him for volunteering.

Treasurer’s report

Harvey informed us that bank balance is $7526.01 however we have one
deposit left of $1584 from the first April tournament which when
deposited will give us a balance of $9110.01 this is after paying
$4400 to golf Golf Genius

Tournaments

Jan stated that even though Michael and Anthony weren’t here we would
still have people checking in for tournaments and maybe the board
members could rotate checking in duties.However down the road it will
all be done on line.Next month we might experiment with a couple of
groups doing live scoring but as Robert stated we still need a hard
copy backup when we do have actual live scoring for all groups.

Handicap
Report was emailed to members.

Membership

Dean informed us we have 204 full members 25 associate members for a
total of 229 members

MGA
Robert told us we have enough players so that everyone will get to
participate in games
We lost 18-12 and 19-11 first two game
Next game is May 15th at Hansen Dam
MGA are trying to get more golf clubs involved.

Sunshine report
Blane told us us that Jimmy Fish memorial will be later in the
year.Tyra and Bernie are no longer able to play due to health
problems.
Banquet this year with shotgun start will be December 10th
Next year will be Dec 9th

GAC

Conal informed us he has received reports from Anthony including
outline of structure and 10 year plan and will attend future meetings
and report back.

Niblick

Steve said everything going well and he managed to put pay sheet in Niblick

Old business

Ed sent a letter to new head of parks and rec Vincent Johnson
requesting more days to play.
Blane is getting contract for 2026 banquet.
She also suggested we get 501C3 to enable us to get gifts from other
golf courses.

New business

Jan is requesting we get someone else to send out new member packets.

May 1st golf fees will be raised $3 by Los Angeles golf division so
senior cost at tournaments including prize money will be $43

Submitted for your approval

Next meeting May 12th at 1pm

Sepulveda Seniors’ Golf Club

Board Meeting Minutes

March 17, 2025

Meeting was called to order at 1:00 p.m. by Ed Gooze. The minutes for February were approved.

Present at the meeting were Board members Ed Gooze, DeRon Jones, Dean Abston, Blane Goldwater, Harvey Goldsmith, Roger Cowan, Jan Bernard, Mike Camp, Steve Skinner, Steve Greenbaum, Bob Lieb, Larry Tash. Guests in attendance included: Mike Russo and Ruth Greenbaum.

President’s Message from Ed Gooze

With all of the course needs for improvement, why are they about to upgrade and improve the meeting room?
Compliments to Larry Tash and Harvey Goldsmith for all of the extra work that they do for the club

Treasurer Report by Harvey Goldsmith

Our current club balance is $12,487.97. The report prepared for members shows all expenses for the previous year as asked for by the Board.
Our projected after expenses balance should be approximately $3436 if everything remains the same.
Our current dues are $90 and we discussed if we should raise them for next year. It was questioned why we need to raise them and Ed Gooze asked what other senior clubs are charging. We will have a new $4400 bill if we choose to use all aspects of the Golf Genius system
Mike Camp explained that currently and we will continue to add $1 to each tournament entry fee to offset the cost of our use of the Golf Genius system. If we choose to allow members to pay for tournaments using credit cards through Golf Genius there is a charge of $1.50 per charge for that service. No decision on this yet. However, we may be able to have tournament players pay their own green and cart fees to the starter. We would only collect the costs for tournament pots and side pots.

Tournaments

The March 24 tournament will be run by Harvey Goldsmith and DeRon Jones.
Golf Genius worked perfectly for our second February tournament. Mike Camp with the assistance of Bob Lieb entered all of the scores for the tournament in about 30 minutes at the end of the day. Golf Genius then produces the tournament results immediately.
Golf Genius has solved the problem of players playing from different tee boxes but competing against each other.
For March 24 we currently have 75 players for our tournament, with one open spot as of this meeting. Future tournaments will be upgraded to 76 players. If we fall short, we can return the tee times to the course about one week before the tournament without charge. We had to change this tournament from Wilson to Balboa at the request of the City because a City Junior Tournament will be taking place on that day..
Question arose regarding Blind Draws. This topic is tied to the issue of having a gap of no more than ten strokes between team members when we play two player team events. This issue was clarified for the Board.

Handicap by Larry Tash

Data update: on February 24 we had 19 players score below their net par score. This was better than usual for our tournaments. We also had 24 members on March 1 with a Club Index less than their GHIN. This is a bigger number than usual. We had one member during February and March shoot an exceptional score (a score with a differential nine strokes or more below their GHIN handicap).
Larry asked if we should recalculate a player’s Club Index and GHIN if they shoot an Exceptional Score during a month. This was discussed.
We agreed that with Golf Genius we will use the players GHIN or Club Index (whichever is lower) as of the Sunday before the tournament as that is when Mike Camp will run the scorecards. Beginning in April, Larry will try to update the Club Index twice per month following each club tournament. A motion was presented and passed to do this.

Membership by Dean Abston

We currently have 195 regular members and 32 associate members for a total of 227 members
Our newest member is Grant Swanson who is joining as an associate member

GAC by Anthony Benenati

Not present, no report available.
Conal O’Herily will be taking on this position as our GAC representative

Niblick by Steve Greenbaum

Steve thanked those who provided articles and he welcomes new articles for the Niblick each month.
Mike Camp will provide Steve with tournament results in any format needed to make it easier to place in the newsletter.

Sunshine by Blane Goldwater

Cards and phone calls to a number of members and former members were provided to reach out to our families due to death or illness.
Banquet costs and deposit were agreed upon to save the December date which will again coincide with our golf tournament before the luncheon banquet.
This year the banquet cost will be $3430
Last year's banquet had costs including $2750 for trophies and $1440 for prizes. There was discussion about whether we should continue to give out trophies, and it was decided to table this discussion for now.

MGA by Bob Lieb

Bob will provide Jan with the rules for MGA this year to post on the website
First match, this Thursday, and the handicaps are determined on the Monday of the week the round of golf is played.
Bob will provide Steve Greenbaum the results to add into the Niblick each month.

Old Business;

Our old match play league was explained by Steve Skinner to the Board as Ed Gooze is making this a priority to try and reestablish Match Play this year. It requires one extra Monday each month of tee times to be able to do this.
Golf Genius update: it worked very well for our first fully run Golf Genius tournament.
A discussion about maintaining our domain name through Go Daddy which costs $70 per year. It was recommended to keep the website and move from Mulligan to Golf Genius for our website. Jan Bernard and Mike Camp shared with the Board and all members what our Golf Genius website will look like. Mike can capture everything that Jan includes on the current website. We should all look at the new website to be sure we are not missing anything in the transition.
It was agreed that in the future we will require a ten stroke maximum difference between players in two man tournament play. If there is more than ten strokes, then the higher handicap player will be brought down to ten strokes for team play. They will maintain their regular handicap for side games as this is able to be done by Golf Genius.
The Board liked the idea of random team play periodically. The random teams can be determined by Golf Genius. We hope that this builds greater sense of community and members make new friends by doing this.

New Business: No significant new business brought up

Adjourned at 2:35 p.m.

Next meeting: April 21, 2025 at 1:00 p.m.

Sepulveda Seniors’ Golf Club

Board Meeting Minutes

February 17, 2025

Meeting called to order by President Ed Gooze at 1;00 p.m. Minutes for our previous

meeting were approved.

Present were: Ed Gooze, Steve Greenbaum, Anthony Benenati, Mike Camp, Dean Abston,

Jan Bernard, DeRon Jones, Harvey Goldsmith, Roger Cowan, Bob Lieb, Larry Tash. Not

present: Steve Skinner, Blane Goldwater

President Report: Thanks to members for their contributions:

Thanks to Jan for all he has done over the years to make the club successful.

Appreciate as he works to transition our club events and web page to Golf

Genius

Thanks to Mike Camp to deciding to come onto the Board and accepting the

responsibility for learning and implementing Golf Genius.. Should be exciting

what we can do with the support of Golf Genius

Thanks to Larry Tash for taking on the task of preparing minutes for our

minutes this year

Thanks to Anthony Benenati for trying to be our representative to GAC

It is exciting that our February 24 tournament will be run completely using Golf

Genius

Treasurer’s Report by Harvey Goldsmith

Our current balance is $10,793.85. This includes the deposit for the end of year

banquet, reimbursement to Saul Isler for cost of trophies. Jan Bernard will be

depositing funds from last tournament this week.

Once deposits are included our balance will be approximately $12,400

Question was asked, "How much is a reasonable balance to maintain in our

account?" The current amount we tend to have seems excessive. Most agreed that

we should look for ways to benefit the entire membership if we are to reduce the

balance.

Harvey has been asked to prepare for the next meeting a summary of our yearly

income and expenditures to better discuss what is actually available for our use.

Tournaments Report by Jan Bernard

Mike Camp has “wired” Golf Genius and is ready to take on tournaments including

the February 24 tournament

Jan explained that the January 27 tournament was canceled early because there did

not appear any way that carts would be allowed out due to rain. If the course does

not let carts out we cancel tournaments. However, they did let carts out but the

course was very muddy and it would have been difficult to play. In the future if a

tournament needs to be canceled the decision will be made the morning of the

tournament, unless we hear from the Golf Division earlier

February 10 tournament had two players not pay to play, they just paid the cart

fee. The two players have been notified, and one person has sent in payment. We

are still waiting on the other member to pay or they cannot play in future events.

February 24 tournament has 74 players and will be run by Mike Camp and Harvey

Goldsmith using Golf Genius

March 10 event will be the first round of the President’s Cup and it will have Harvey

Goldsmith and Don Kihara as the Directors.

Question: “I didn’t know that the same person could win both net and gross in our

tournaments?” Jan explained that based on a member request, members when

playing team events, can pay to enter side bets for both low gross and low net. If

they are in the side bets, then they can win both. We have done this for several

months.

Jan updated us on the progress being made at Buenaventura.

Discussed using member volunteers to go out and mark off unplayable areas of the

course we will be playing. We will look into this in the future

Handicap Report by Larry Tash:

In our last tournament, eight players shot lower than their GHIN Index

Larry noticed there are less gaps of over 10 strokes in the recent tournaments.

Larry asked Jan about using Blind Draws, Is the blind draw from a player in the

same flight as the person needing the blind draw. Jan noted that at this time, the

blind draw could be anyone, but if we agree to the ten stroke difference, then blind

draws will be from those in the same flight as the person requiring the blind draw. A

decision on the ten strokes has not been finalized yet.

Membership Chair Report by Dean Abston:

We currently have 192 regular members and 43 associate members for a total

membership of 235.

Dean will follow up by contacting Philip Butch to be sure he is reminded that his

renewal is due if he wishes to play in the next tournament.

GAC Report by Anthony Benenati:

Anthony attended the GAC last meeting, but cannot be our representative because

he is a City employee. Ed Gooze may have found a member who would be

interested in taking on that position.

Anthony gained a lot of new “to us” information regarding funding and planning for

course improvements.

Sepulveda Golf Courses are the second highest grossing golf courses in the

City. Not including golf carts or the driving range, the course brings in about

$1.8M to the City this past year

There are plans for capital improvements for the course such as replacing the

irrigation system, but this is part of a ten year plan.

He has not been given information, yet, about where the $2 per tee time

funds will be spent in the near future

The Sepulveda Basin Plan changes everything that has been planned, as this

plan was approved. Our courses will remain two full 18 hole courses, but

changes will be made to the courses over the coming years.

We learned that we can and will do walk throughs around the course with the

maintenance supervisor and give the City in writing our prioritized

recommendations for improvements. Anthony will lead this effort.

Niblick Report by Steve Greenbaum:

He appreciates the items shared with him last month and is looking for additional

stories to include in the Niblick this month.

Old Business:

MGA will be led by Bob Lieb and he has a list of players of all handicap levels that

will be rotated throughout the season.

Matches will include five partner best ball match play along with ten singles

matches

Bob will send Jan and Steve Greenbaum the list of rules to place on the

website and in the Niblick

Golf Genius was explained by Michael Camp.

With Golf Genius we can run tournaments and split tees which we cannot do

with Mulligan.

With our current version of Golf Genius, we can sign people up for

tournaments, but we will need the premium version in order to have payment

online and personal selection of tee times and pairings.

A committee including Mike Camp, Jan Bernard, Bob Lieb, Harvey Goldsmith,

Anthony Benenati, and Steve Skinner was formed to work out the logistic

details for future use of Golf Genius and they will provide the full Board with

their recommendations.

A formal motion was passed by the Board to approve the expenditure of

purchasing the premium package of Golf Genius, but we will practice first with

our basic version. The full version will cost $3900 per year, plus a first year

start up fee of $399. This will allow the committee to know what they have

flexibility to do as we grow into the use of Golf Genius this year.

Refreshing Players on the Rules of Golf

Recommendations were made about this.

It was suggested that we focus on a few rules and a way to resolve rules

disputes. This discussion will be continued.

New Business

We will make an effort to have more tournaments where members are in mixed

teams to create greater social opportunities within the club.

Using this with a 1-2-3 tournament would be a good option.

Our current cost for Mulligan is $1 per player in each tournament. On average we

have 72 players per tournament, so that comes to approximately $144 per

month. Once we finish using Mulligan, we will not have to pay for tournament play

to Mulligan, but we will also convert to the Golf Genius website.

Meeting adjourned at 2:30 pm.

Next meeting is scheduled for March 17, 2025 at 1:00 p.m.

Sepulveda Seniors’ Golf Club

Board Meeting Minutes

January 20, 2025

Bob Lieb, President, opened the final meeting of our 2024 Board by thanking members and

reviewing some items that led to our excellence for the year including:

Increased membershipIncreased number of members participating in club events

Increased number of members who attended the end of year banquet

Thanked those on the Board that took important roles in each event

Bob announced that he will lead our MGA team for the coming year and provided

schedules of play

Several suggestions were made on how to improve the banquet for next year including:

Increase the number of Razzle Dazzle winners

Shorten the program time

Think about how much the club subsidizes the banquet

Minutes from our last meeting were approved as written.