SNGA Unveils Changes For Upcoming 2022 Tournaments

Welcome to 2022, Southern Nevada Golf style. It is a year that promises to be filled with impressive tournament courses, thrilling tournament finishes, new and old champion and some changes. For 2022, the SNGA is unveiling changes they hope will make the association even stronger. As always, the bottom line remains the same for the SNGA: Ensure top-notch competition and impressive tournaments. –Bill Bowman, Las Vegas Golf Insider staff.

The change will come on the SNGA Tour (one-day events) section of the SNGA. The group will now be its own entity. Tournament finishes in SNGA Tour events in 2022 will no longer count toward point totals for Player of the Year for the regular SNGA race. But the SNGA Tour will now also have its own Players of the Year as a separate series. The group will also have its own awards at the close of the season.

To clarify, the SNGA Tour is made up of one-day tournaments and held mid-week 90 percent of the time. On the flip side, the SNGA Championship Series of events are two-day events held mostly on weekends and include the major championships, qualifiers and other high-level events. Now, players will only earn points toward player of the year races when competing in whichever tournament series they are playing in and not as in the past when SNGA Tour points counted towards the SNGA Championship Series player of the year points race.

“Here’s what we see,” said Tim Brand of the SNGA. “Player of the Year is very important to people but some of them are still working and can’t play in one-day events (SNGA Tour) during the week. And there are also SNGA Tour players who can’t play on the weekends. This gives everyone the chance to compete for Player of the Year in the series they can play in.”

But that doesn’t mean players can’t compete in both.

“We encourage players to play in as many events as they’d like,” Brand said. “We’re just trying to make it a little smoother for everyone.”

There is one other main change Brand and the SNGA wanted to highlight. The one-day SNGA Tour events will now be just four divisions. There will be Championship, Net, Senior and Silver divisions. The change comes in that anyone wanting to play in the net divisions of the Senior and Silver divisions will now be playing in the overall Net Division. There won’t be net divisions in the Senior and Silver Divisions in 2022.

Brand said with the handicaps and different sets of tees in use it will keep it a competitive division no matter a player’s age or ability.

“We will pay more Net spots with larger fields,” Brand said. “There might be 40 or so guys in the Net field if we have an 80-player overall field and that means we may be paying the top 10 finishers rather than just the top three.”

Brand wanted to remind players this change is for the SNGA Tour events only.

“The SNGA regular events and the state tournaments will remain the same with six divisions (Championship, Net, Senior, Senior Net, Silver and Silver Net),” he said.

Overall, Brand said the SNGA is anxious to see what 2022 brings for everybody.

“We’re always trying to make sure we have a product that everyone feels is worth coming out and playing in,” Brand said. “And with these changes, we hope to get more people out competing against more people, getting to know more people and getting bigger payouts.”