NGC News:

8/24/10 - Regional Finals Tournament Update

Our Regional Finals are now completed. Congratulations to all our players and pros qualifying for the National Finals in Las Vegas. We hope you will all enjoy your experience with us at the great venues we have selected for this event.

Once winning teams are verified and researched invitations for our National Finals will be sent out to all approved participants.

7/16/10 - Tournament Update

Many thanks to all sites and participants for your participation in our event this year. We are winding down from all the Local events and getting players advanced to the Regional Finals. Because we send out personal letters to each participant advancing to the regionals, we need to have any Local Hosts who have not yet submitted their paperwork to get this done ASAP. Players will not be eligible to advance to the Regional Finals until we have verified handicap information, history and approved their participation.

We are pleased to see that the new "Team Guarantee" introduced this year proved to be popular and we expect many teams may now be able to participate in our National Finals that may not have been eligible in previous years.

Congratulations to all our participants advancing to our Regional Finals. We hope you all enjoy the venue, the competition, and participate with the spirit we have envisioned for this event.

12/23/09 - Team Guarantee for 2010

If your site hosts 100 or more players (combined events) and a team from your Regional Finals field does not advance, we will save you a spot for one team at our National Finals! The team may be from any of our three divisions and you may use whatever selection criteria you choose. Here are some of the suggestions we have heard in our discussions of this highly requested feature:

• Use the best score posted from any of your teams at the Regional Finals, with a card playoff for ties
• Use combined "Player Points" for the respective team members from your Tournaments throughout the season (freezing them on your Regional Finals date). Note: This also may help increase participation in many of your other events!
• If you can get your teams together quickly (within 2 or 3 days), host a "shootout" after completion of the regional event.
• Hold a drawing (after completion of your Local events) among the participating regional finalists to predetermine which team would advance if no one qualifies at the Regional Finals.

Many of our Local Host Sites will be able to significantly increase their participation with proper promotion and describing their personal experience at our National Finals. By the way, all of our financial incentives and additional pro qualifications still apply!

12/23/09 - DVD's of the 2009 National Finals

Our editing and production of the 2009 National Finals is now complete. The event is now in the process of being burned to DVD's and will be going out to all of our participants later in January.

11/10/09 - Photos and Hawaii

Photos from our 2009 National Finals are now online and available for viewing and downloading. Be prepared to spend a few minutes because there's over 1,000 pictures available. You can get to the Photo Gallery from our Gallery Link or clicking here.

Congrats to Chad Watson from Boise Ranch in Boise, ID. Boise Ranch was our Top Site in player count hosting 212 players in 2 events. As is our custom, we award our Top Site Host with a trip for two with Airfare and Hotel included. This year Chad's destination is Hawaii! Have a great time and hope you can match or exceed those results next year!

10/27/09 - National Finals Summary

Vegas! Need we say more? Great weather, great courses and a great field contributed to the largest national finals in our history! Our thanks to all our participants for a most enjoyable event.

The 2009 ESPN National Golf Challenge National Finals were completed on Saturday Oct 24, 2009. The National Finals will be produced as a special DVD for all of our players and pros and we expect them to be mailed by mid-December 2009. Listed below are the top 3 positions in each division:

The complete list of Amateur scoring can be found in our Professionals and Amateurs links at the top of the page. More details and pictures will be available soon.

7/6/09 - Welcome to the Regional Finals

Although there are still quite a few local events remaining we have reviewed and approved over 1200 players for the Regional Finals. Congrats and good luck to all our advancing teams.

As a general rule, up to 8 teams in various divisions may advance to our Regional Finals from our Local Sites. The actual number of teams depends on the participation at your local Qualifying Site, however each participating site is usually required to advance 1 team from each division. (In the case that no obvious gross teams are participating, Sites may substitute a Net or Senior Division team if they so desire).

Regional Finals Sites are determined based upon numerous factors but typically include the best geographical locations for your Region, based on the Local Site registrations available to us at the time. Please see your Local Site Tournament Director for the additional forms and Regional Entry fee information for regional qualifiers.

Included in the Regional entry fees for 2009:

• Greens fee
• Cart fee
• Practice area / Range balls
• Food and Beverage (determined by the Regional Finals Site)
• Full Tournament Management/Scoring/Officiating
• Custom ESPN Golf Challenge Trophies for top 3 teams in each division
• Gift Bag:
  • $75 Callaway Golf Gift Card
  • Callaway X-Series Golf Shirt
  • Gift card from Protege Sports
• Entry Fees into National Finals for qualifying teams

Basically, there should be very little additional expense incurred at the Regional Finals Host Site.

5/13/09 - Tournaments are under way

Thanks again to all who have agreed to host our event. Our tournaments are now underway and don't forget that if you happen to come up short of your objective with the your first event you may host another one (and the results will be added to your first event) before july 15th, 2009.

Our first Regional Finals will be hosted on August 9th, 2009 at some of our sites across the country. Please go to our Regional Finals Course listing to check the date for your event.

Congrats to all our Regional Qualifiers from our courses who have completed their events. If you did not qualify at your site you still have plenty of time to enter again at many of our other participating courses. Please check our listings for your state on our Local Host Sites page.

3/29/09 - Regional Finals Host Sites

We're still watching the map for the best locations for our additional Regional Sites. We want to thank all of you who submitted a Regional Finals Host Site Request form and let you know that all were considered, or are still being considered, based on the site participation in your area.

How do we choose? Well, we have a huge wall map where we plot every course that registers each year. When we begin to see some clusters in an area and we can reasonably circle 12-15 sites, we then look for the prime geographic locations to allow the most people a reasonable drive time. Unfortunately, we do have some areas that participation is low and these particular sites will have further to go to attend the Regional. For this reason we have usually set up a Regional Site in Las Vegas and offered a free practice round to those who are going to have to travel a long distance. It seems as though Vegas has the cheapest plane tickets from about anywhere and.. well.. after all, it is Las Vegas!

2/23/09 - Rules & Regulations Update - Eligibility

We have modified our Rules and Regulations to address the requests for more clarity and allow more players to be eligible to participate. We hope this change simplifies our eligibility requirements and removes any confusion the prior language caused. Our thanks to all those who provided us feedback regarding this clause.

A new revised copy of the Rules and Regulations incorporating this wording is now available on our PDF Downloads - Forms page.

The old wording read:

2. Team Composition

a. Teams: Teams in the ESPN National Golf Challenge may be formed by any combination of male and female participants (two men, one man and one woman, two women).

b. Eligibility: Net/Senior Net division players employed with the following companies may participate in the ESPN National Golf Challenge at the Local level only, but are ineligible to advance to the Regional Finals or National Finals: an employee, officer, director or agent of ESPN, Inc., The Walt Disney Company, the Hearst Corporation, the applicable Host Site, or any of their respective licensees, assigns, parents, affiliated or subsidiary companies, nor an immediate family member or a member of the same household of any such individual.

The revised wording is now:

2. Team Composition

a. Teams: Teams in the ESPN National Golf Challenge may be formed by any combination of male and female participants (two men, one man and one woman, two women).

b. Eligibility: Net/Senior Net division players employed by ESPN may participate in the ESPN National Golf Challenge at the Local level only, but are ineligible to advance to the Regional Finals or National Finals.

1/17/09 - New Seniors Division

We've been listening to your suggestions and think this is a really good idea! So, 2009 will be our first year for your players who are (or will be) age 55 or older to participate in their own division.

We'll offer an advanced set of tees at the Regionals and National Finals specifically for these players to enjoy our event even more. The division will be "Net" only (handicapped) based on our normal handicap guidelines and our finalists will compete on their own challenging golf courses at the home of our National Finals, The Las Vegas Paiute Golf Resort.

We look forward to hosting our new Senior Division and hope they feel that they have finally found a national event designed for their significant contribution to the game of golf.