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Posted: 3/21/03
USGA Tech Week
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USGA Tech Week
The USGA offers two Tech Week sessions each year (one in November and one in March) at it's headquarters at Golf House in Far Hills, NJ. The purpose of these sessions is to train people in golf associations around the country in the use of various software packages such the TPP program (Tournament Pairing Program) which is developed and supported by the GHIN organization within the USGA and to keep people up-to-date with computer-related technology advances such as Windows XP and wireless internet connections. The sessions are four days long with a variety of classes offered each day. Jessica Carroll, the director of Networking and PC Services, runs the sessions and teaches some of the classes along with people from Networking, PC Services, the Help Desk, and GHIN.
The USGA facility in Far Hills houses about 300 employees (not all of whom actually play golf) involved in administration, rules of golf, computer services, equipment testing, etc. Golf House is located in a very nice rural/residential area of New Jersey with lots of woods and hills. The area is not what we think of when we usually think of New Jersey. As you can see from the photos, the grounds of Golf House are especially lovely. Golf House itself houses a gift shop stocked with all sorts of golf gifts including items related to the upcoming Open championships in Olympia Fields and Pumpkin Ridge. It also houses a museum with golf memorabilia, clubs, balls, clothing, photos and paintings. The actual USGA trophies are also located there. One of the most unusual trophies is the US Women's Amateur trophy.
The administrative offices,
including the classrooms, were located in a separate building. A third
building houses the equipment testing facilities where there is an
observation deck. Visitors can watch short videos of the testing
processes and view work being done. This is the facility which houses Iron
Byron, the mechanical ball striker. Unfortunately, there was no actual testing in progress at the time I was
there.
I just returned from the March session where I attended classes in Trouble Shooting, Microsoft Access, and the TPP program plus a breakfast seminar on web sites. All of the classes were very informative, interesting, and the material was very professionally presented. Many of the classes were held in the auditorium shown here with each person able to try aspects of the material on their own computer. Even though I have used the TPP program a couple of times, I still picked up a lot of useful information about that software. Elizabeth Walker also attended the TPP classes in the November session. I found Access to be a very powerful and exciting relational database tool - much more powerful than simple spreadsheet software like Excel.
The classes were great and I met a lot of nice people from the USGA and other golf associations around the country. The complimentary breakfasts and lunches provided by the USGA were some of the highlights of the week. In all, the week was very worthwhile, and I thank the USGA for hosting the session and the VSWGA for giving me the opportunity to attend.
One final note: the USGA offers a Help Desk service available to assist any of us with problems or questions related to computers and golf. The Help Desk staff is very knowledgeable and will respond to phone calls within an hour and emails within a day. This is a resource which we should not hesitate to use if we need assistance. You can email the Help Desk at helpdesk@USGA.org.
Cindy Paquet
Web Site Administrator
