Golf State Finals Finds New Home
INDIANAPOLIS – The Prairie View Golf Club, an 18‐hole championship facility in Carmel, has been awarded a five‐year contract to host the IHSAA Girls Golf and Boys Golf State Finals it was announced Monday by the IHSAA.
The partnership begins with the IHSAA Girls Golf State Finals on Oct. 3‐4, 2014 and continues through the Boys Golf State Finals in June 2019.
“We are extremely pleased to join in a new partnership that will bring our student athletes to another one of the state’s best golf facilities for the state finals,” said Commissioner Bobby Cox. “We’re very excited about the new opportunities available at Prairie View.”
Prairie View is the only Robert Trent Jones Jr.‐designed course in Indiana and sits on 206 acres along the banks of the White River in Hamilton County. Surrounded on three sides by the river, water only comes into play on four holes. At its longest, the layout plays just more than 7,000 yards.
The course has hosted nearly all major Indiana PGA and Indiana Golf Association championships. It just hosted the Mid‐American Conference Men’s Championship over the weekend and will be the site of the Indiana PGA Championship in August.
“We are honored and very proud to be selected as the host site for the premier championship event in boys and girls golf in the state of Indiana,” said “Doc” O’Neal, Chief Operating Officer of Cohoat and O’Neal Golf Management and Co‐owner of Prairie View Golf Club. “It is exciting that Prairie View Golf Club will be partnering with the Indiana High School Athletic Association for the next five years and to be able to provide the boys and girls with a lifetime memory. Prairie View is a fabulous championship golf course and will offer an extraordinary experience for all of the participants.”
Prairie View will be the fifth site for the IHSAA Girls Golf State Finals and the seventh site for the IHSAA Boys Golf State Finals.
Executive Committee Tables Basketball Tournament Proposal
The Executive Committee voted to table the first of two proposals from the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association that would create a hybrid format for the boys and girls basketball tournaments.
The proposal called for a reduction of the current four‐class tournament to three classes, create two divisions in each class at the sectional level resulting in 80 different sectionals. Those sectional winners would then come together in each class at the regional round.
After considerable discussion, the Executive Committee will form a joint task force that will consist of IHSAA board members, staff members (Assistant Commissioners Phil Gardner and Sandra Walter), along with members of the IBCA and the IIAAA (athletic directors association) to further study the proposal. The committee will meet over the next several months and report back to the Executive Committee at its October meeting.
“There is some interest in this proposal but it has a lot of moving parts with financial implications for our member schools,” said IHSAA Commissioner Bobby Cox. “We decided creating a task force was a good course of action to further study the impact and its feasibility.”
A second proposal from the coaches association that would change the length of quarters of junior varsity and freshmen basketball games from six to seven minutes each also was acted upon. The original proposal was amended by the committee and passed unanimously leaving freshmen quarters at six minutes each and increasing junior varsity games to seven minute quarters. Varsity quarters are played with eight minutes quarters.
The Executive Committee also commended the IBCA for its hard work in preparing a proposal given all the complexities of the tournament.
