Sandy Schnitzer earns a CGA volunteer of the year award for the second time in 5 years, this time for spearheading the association’s apprentice rules official training and certification program; Hiwan Women’s Golf Association receives Club of the Year honors
By Gary Baines – 12/5/2024
Sandy Schnitzer retired more than two decades ago from her professional career working in education, but there were times this year when her volunteer gig with the CGA felt like a full-time job.
It’s not that Schnitzer didn’t take satisfaction from the work — she very much did — but she definitely did rack up some hours.
“I feel like I worked really hard, to be honest,” the Erie resident said recently.
This year, Schnitzer was tasked with spearheading the CGA’s apprentice program for rules official training and certification, and she dove in head-first regarding the effort to train prospective officials in a consistent, methodical way.
As CGA chief marketing officer Erin Gangloff noted at the CGA’s recent Medal of Excellence Ceremony, “This award goes to a volunteer who has gone above and beyond the call of duty. Sandy Schnitzer has been a great leader in rules education and has been instrumental in helping put together and coordinate volunteer rules referee training and certification programs. In 2024, she stepped up to run the CGA rules apprentice program. Sandy dedicated countless hours to onboarding new rules volunteers, leading educational seminars, setting up mentor/mentee relationships, scheduling ride-alongs, keeping track of progress, continuously touching base with them, and keeping them engaged.”
Beyond the satisfaction of building a solid foundation for this training and certification program, Schnitzer now is the proud owner of the CGA Volunteer of the Year honor. This award comes five years after she earned the CGA Women’s Volunteer of the Year honor. In other words, she’s been a volunteer extraordinaire for the organization in recent years.
“I’m just really touched,” said Schnitzer, who has served as a CGA/CWGA volunteer for more than 15 years. “The important thing for a volunteer — at least me as a volunteer — is just to hear someone say ‘thank you.’ That’s all you really need. And this is a huge thank you. I feel really privileged.
“The first (award) was certainly a privilege; this one is even more so, I think.”
Schnitzer said the rules apprentice program came about because the CGA needed more rules officials and wanted more consistency in their training.
“It just makes their foundation much more solid,” Schnitzer said of the people who go through the program. “It’s not that we haven’t tried to do that in the past, but we really needed to get a firmer grip on that. … We wanted to make sure everybody was getting pretty much the same information, the same help, the same training.
“So part of what I opted to do — I guess I stepped up to do this — is to create a program that would keep track of that, to make sure we’re monitoring all of the apprentices to get them through a lot of different steps. There are quite a few steps. They’re not hard necessarily, but if you don’t have somebody helping you through that sometimes (you’ll take the path of least resistance and just quit). This (program) makes that process more accessible and more doable — and gives every apprentice a contact person that is kind of theirs if you will — and it also gives the mentor an apprentice who is kind of theirs. There’s a connection where you have a person buy-in to everybody’s success. That’s something we really needed — a way to make those personal and professional connections to each other.”
And the program has already born fruit. Though there was some attrition along the way, seven people completed the program and will serve as rules officials next year. In fact, Schnitzer said some progressed quickly enough that they officiated independently in the second half of the 2024 golf season. But they, like the other “graduates” of the program, will continue to interact with the individual mentors, who can help their protégés select tournaments that best fit their experience levels.
Roughly a year ago, 33 people initially expressed interest in becoming a new rules official. To successfully get through the apprentice program and graduate to being a certified rules official, they had to get a security clearance (as do all rules officials), were encouraged to watch rules videos online or attend a seminar in person, then took a mandatory 20-question apprentice exam. If they passed that, they did a couple of rules ride-alongs with their mentors or another experienced official. The ride-alongs help the apprentices learn, as a practical matter, how rules officials operate in live tournament situations.
As the apprentices go through the process, their mentors fill out a checklist that needs to be successfully completed. Then the apprentices must pass a second test — a 40-question referee’s exam. (It should be noted that the aforementioned apprentice and referee’s exams are different from the more intensive four-hour USGA exam, which may be taken later.) If they pass the referee’s exam, then they can sign up to work a tournament independently, with the event’s rules captain deciding where to place them in order to set them up for success as a new official.
With 2024 almost in the rearview mirror, the plan is to start the process over again with a new group in 2025.
Among the many ways Schnitzer (left) has volunteered for the CGA over the years is at the association’s Women’s Clinics, where she’s conducted rules sessions.
Schnitzer is certainly no stranger to volunteering in golf. She’s a rules official herself — though this project left her working just a couple of competitions in 2024. “I knew this (apprentice program) was going to be a big task,” she said. “And I wanted to make sure I could give my full attention to this task — the mentors and the apprentices — because I thought that’s where I could be of the most use.”
Schnitzer also helps conduct numerous rules seminars. For example, for many years, she teamed up with fellow rules experts Karla Harding and Jan Fincher in leading rules breakout sessions at the annual CGA/CWGA Women’s Golf Summit. In the past, it wasn’t unusual for the sessions to have a theme, like a clever rhyming take-off on Dr. Seuss, Fun With Two Balls, Jeopardy, etc.
In addition, Schnitzer served on the CWGA board in 2016-17 and on the CGA board in 2018-19 after the integration of the two organizations. And, until this year, she was on the CGA’s Rules of Golf Committee, spearheading education efforts. She’s also conducted rules sessions at CGA Women’s Clinics, which often attracts quite a few newcomers to the game. And since 2017, she’s held rules clinics at individual clubs around the state, with cumulative attendance for those surpassing 2,500. That includes many female groups, some mixed-gender clinics, and a Broadlands men’s group has had her out a couple of times in recent years.
“I take the approach that we can use the rules to help us make good decisions,” Schnitzer said. “Rules aren’t to punish you. If you have a good solid foundation in what the rules tell us, then you can make better decisions when you get yourself in kind of a fix. This is just an extension of that — helping other people have a better understanding of the rules and how those rules can be applied so that they can give back to the community they love. And you can give back to a sport you are devoted to.”
In general, what attracts Schnitzer to volunteer so much of her time to golf causes?
“I think it is a way to give back to something you care about,” she said. “That’s the most important part. To keep using whatever the knowledge and the talents that you have in a slightly different way.
“Another big part, for me, is helping others reach their goals,” Schnitzer added. “I think I just put into words, for the first time, why I became a teacher.”
Before retiring in the early 2000s, Schnitzer spent 33 years in the eduction field — all in either the Denver Public Schools or Aurora Public Schools — serving as a teacher, strategic plan facilitator and vice principal at various times.
Given that, it’s little wonder why Schnitzer has carved out such a big niche in volunteering by focusing on teaching others about the rules.
“As a teacher, this feels like a good use of my skills because what we’re really trying to define is not only what do we want new rules officials to know, but what do we want them to be able to do,” she said. “It’s kind of performance-based things. What should they know, and what should they be able to do before we let them out on the course?
“The (CGA) Rules Committee came up with some criteria over a period of time. We got to the point that somebody just needed to step up and say, ‘I can be the person that can organize this and make sure that we keep moving forward.’ A good part of the success is the willingness of the mentors to step up and take this on.”
In addition to overseeing the program, Schnitzer served as a mentor herself this year.
“When you have somebody give you individual attention, it’s really helpful in terms of not only your knowledge but your self-confidence,” she said. “Then you know you can always call your mentor and say, ‘This happened on the course. I don’t understand what that was about.’ Or ‘I was taking this exam and I don’t understand why I missed these two questions.’ So it’s making those connections, which are very important.”
While the mentor program was a lot of work this year for Schnitzer, she truly does have a deep and abiding interest in the Rules of Golf. How much so? Each winter, Schnitzer, Fincher, Harding and a couple of women from out of state get together — via FaceTime — to study the rules.
“It’s really fun because one of the gals is in Florida, another is in Oregon — then Jan and Karla and I — and honestly I’ve learned more rules in that small study group,” Schnitzer said. “We all try to schedule ourselves for the same (USGA rules) exam date. We do it from about this time of year to the exam date — and a couple of postmortems after that. … They are totally responsible for my (rules) test scores. They’re incredible.”
Despite her busy schedule volunteering and her ongoing study of the rules, Schnitzer does manage to squeeze in a fair number of rounds herself. She’s a regular at Legacy Ridge and Broadlands, and she plays in a traveling league.
“How much golf do you play?” she was asked.
“Not as many as I’d like,” she said with a chuckle.
That kind of comes with the territory for a dedicated volunteer.
Among the other not-previously-announced awards presented at the recent CGA Medal of Excellence Ceremony at The Inverness:
Representing the Hiwan WGA (from left) Maria Dominguez, Amy Young, Betsy Smidinger and Shelly Stansbury.
— Club of the Year: Hiwan Women’s Golf Association, which includes both 9- and 18-hole players. This year, the Evergreen-based club hosted its second annual Breast Cancer Research Foundation Tournament, which raised more than $14,000 for the cause and included 92 players. The Hiwan WGA also hosted the CGA Rules of Golf Seminar and a CGA Member Play Day, and attended the CGA Women’s Golf Summit to network with other women’s clubs. Hiwan also was the site of the 2024 CGA Women’s Club Team Championship.
The Hiwan WGA wasn’t the only representative of the club to receive honors at the CGA ceremony. Also in that category were Laura Robinson (Jim Topliff Award winner) and Tyler Long (a member of the inaugural edition of the Team Colorado junior all-star squad).
Mary Frances Tharp, the executive director for Boys Hope Girls Hope in Colorado.
— Program Partner of the Year: Boys Hope Girls Hope. It was through recruiting for the Solich Caddie & Leadership Academy that the CGA connected with Boys Hope Girls Hope, which since 2014 has partnered with the association in helping to identify kids who could be potential candidates for the Evans Scholarship for caddies. Over the years, 20 students from Boys Hope Girls Hope have become Solich caddies, and three have earned the Evans Scholarship. The mission of Boys Hope Girls Hope is to nurture and guide motivated young people in need to become well-educated, career-ready men and women.
Scott Phelps, the manager of golf for the City of Fort Collins.
— Youth on Course Facility Partner of the Year: Southridge Golf Course in Fort Collins. The CGA — originally in conjunction with the Colorado PGA through the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado — first rolled out Youth on Course in Colorado in 2018. Nowadays, the CGA’s Youth on Course program includes more than 8,500 members and 38 courses. The YOC program allows kids 18 and under to play golf for $5 or less at participating courses. Southridge GC alone accounted for 3,595 Youth On Course rounds this year.
(From left) Payten Baca, Lenna Persson and Hope Torres.
— Grace Burke Awards, presented to select female high school golfers who exhibit character, leadership and personal integrity as demonstrated through their actions in competing and participating in various golf programs: Payten Baca, Lenna Persson and reigning Class 3A state individual champion Hope Torres. Burke was a lifelong golfer who believed strongly in hard work, determination and mentorship through golf. The Burke Award includes a scholarship check payable to the recipient’s college of choice in her freshman year.
About the Writer: Gary Baines has covered golf in Colorado continuously since 1983. He was a sports writer at the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, then the sports editor there, and has written regularly for ColoradoGolf.org since 2009. The University of Colorado Evans Scholar alum was inducted into the Colorado Golf Hall of Fame in 2022. He owns and operates ColoradoGolfJournal.com