The Idaho High School Activities Association (IHSAA) passed a proposal that the school year of 2022-2023 will start the fall off with golf as one of the sports options, rather than it being in the spring. 

All schools in the state of Idaho will now be following this new proposal for the golf season change.

However, this does not apply to 3A and 2A schools since they are smaller and have reoccurring athletes for sports like football, volleyball, cross country, or soccer. 

There was a substantial amount of time to debate the pros and cons before this change happened. 

Julie Hammons, assistant director at IHSAA, thinks that after all the time it took to put this idea into action, it will help schools across Idaho. 

“The IHSAA has considered moving golf to the fall numerous times over the past 10-12 years. Basically, the teams will have somewhere to play. I’m not exaggerating the fact that courses were telling schools that they would not host them in the spring, period.”

If this change does not seem to work for schools in Idaho, The IHSAA is willing to look for a better solution, including Hammons. 

“I think it’s important to remember that the IHSAA Board felt like it was time to give this change a try after years of consideration and multiple proposals. If it doesn’t work for our schools, they would look at other options.” 

According to Hammons, having golf in the spring meant that many schools would not be able to find a course that would have the availability for school teams. 

“They explained that golf courses were dropping their teams and not allowing high schools to use their facilities as a home course in the spring. The demand for golf has risen significantly in the past few years, and the courses need to meet that demand by community members instead of hosting high school teams.”

Although Hammons has received a lot of positive feedback from parents and students, there is also speculation about whether not this was a good choice. 

“There are some schools who are wary of a split season and, honestly, some schools who do not agree with the decision at all. Parents and students are also split on how they feel about the change.  Some parents have expressed their concern about conflicting with the fall junior golf events, so we’ve been working with that group to come up with compromises.” 

However, one of the golf coaches at Lakeland High School, Rick Anderson, has run into some issues with this new state-wide change. 

“Looking at this from a Boise perspective, this change has a lot of advantages. However, you have to look beyond the Boise perspective. It gets cold up here, and we may not be able to host tournaments if it’s snowing.”

Anderson put a lot of effort into trying to stop this proposal. 

“We protest for two reasons: one weather and two is golf course availability. During August and September, that is the busiest time of the year for our local golf course for bigger groups like businesses, and so that’s going to be a difficult situation the convince the courses to donate the time on the course for free” Anderson said. 

“Unfortunately Boise was just thinking about Boise. They were certainly not thinking about us here in Kootenai county. My guess is they will go back to golf season in the spring in the next few years.” 

There is also the conflict with players who want to play fall sports and golf in the spring. Anderson has to give up coaching a sport that he has loved coaching.

“It might affect a couple of football kids. It will definitely affect football, and kids will have to choose. I have made a decision to stay with golf and give up coaching football for the first time in 39 years, so that will be a big change for me.”

Although The IHSAA passed this change hoping to help schools out, this idea has Lakeland High School stressing to see if this change will be a good thing.