The North Scottsdale Men’s Golf Association was founded 11 years ago at the then “Sanctuary” golf course in North Scottsdale.  When the league started we played all our events at Sanctuary and we played every-other week.  In the summer, Sun-Cor Golf (former golf course property owner in Arizona) hosted a number of inter-club tournaments at Palm Valley, Club West, Sunridge Canyon, Sanctuary and Stoneridge (Prescott Valley, AZ).  It was a fun, albeit small “group” of players but they were a bunch of good guys.

In late 2008 what was at that time the “Sanctuary Men’s Club” was dissolved by the course after 7 years.  We were told we were a strain on the staff, we demanded too many things (like proper accounting, marketing, customer service and honesty) and that they didn’t really want to cater to us any longer.  Most of the group couldn’t believe they did it after that many years of hosting the league.  We didn’t know it then but it was the best thing that could have happened!

There was a core group of about 25 players and Mike Crum & Curtis Palmer & myself that wanted to continue with the group.

I called Tom Crowley at Vista Verde and asked for his help – And he stepped up big time and the NSMGA was born!

Curtis built our website, Mike agreed to handle the money and banking and I set out to let the world know what we were doing… all we wanted to do was have the ability to play golf with our friends that we had made over the years and take our previous experiences and try and do something better.  We talked about our “vision” and we discussed a lot of “what if’s” and we set out to do something we hoped would turn into something big.  We had the attitude of “If we build it, they will come” BUT only if we did it right and we were unique in our approach.  Little did we know…

• In our first season (2009), we had 44 members, we played at 3 courses, Vista Verde, Tonto Verde Ranch & Peaks and we played every other week.

• In our second season (2010), we almost doubled in size to 84 Members, we went to a weekly schedule with 44 events conducted at Vista Verde, Tonto Verde Ranch & Peaks and Sanctuary and a few local traveling events BUT we conducted our 4 Majors at Quintero, The Golf Club Scottsdale, Troon North and Firerock (and the word got out about what we were doing).  We also introduced the NSMGA Cup Point System, NSMGA Cup, the Playoffs and the Tour Championship.  Last year’s Cup winners were Mr. Pete Schaaf and Mr Jim Ogden.

• Our third full season (2011) we increased the Membership to 103 Members, we maintained our weekly schedule with 44 events with 4 Majors conducted at Troon North, Firerock, Talking Rock and Blackstone as well as 3 playoff events and the season ending Tour Championship (won by Mr. Tim Cleckner [net] and Mr. Kurt Wahl [gross].  We also conducted our first traveling event as 40 of us headed over to palm Springs, CA for 4 rounds in 3 days (Classic Club, Desert Willow – Fire Cliff & Mountain View Courses and Silver Rock).  We also added our version of the Kodak Million Dollar Challenge (called the “Picture This” Challenge).