Golf Leagues

So I've never actually joined a golf league, but have always been slightly interested. The sight of a driving range full of people with swings that didn't hurt to watch was the first selling point for me, and now that I am interested in playing golf more consistently and with other competent golfers, I feel that a league would be ideal. I'm interested in any info/stories of league experiences from you sandtrappians with league experience. Good league experiences, bad ones, mildly interesting--whatever it may be, let's hear it.

Info about any golf league in the Bay Area, especially near Berkeley, gets bonus points!

If by that you're implying that league golfers are more skilled than average, that depends on the league. It's certainly not been my experience. :)

Leagues are good for socializing, but be prepared for some very slow rounds. And while I'm not saying there is sandbagging in every league, I've definitely seen some folks with wildly inaccurate handicaps. I once got beat by someone who shot a net 10-under for 9 holes.

I'd love to get better and play in a league.. that would be so much fun

Leagues can be fun. They are slow playing though. We have many high handicappers in our league. The league I play in is through my work. We don't take into account your handicap outside of the league. All scores within the league count towards your hc. We have 4 flights. And points each week are based on your gross score. We have 25 in my flight. You get points based on how many guys you beat. So if I beat everyone I get 24 points. The next person gets 23 and so on. These point totals are averaged by how many rounds you have played. You are not penalized for missing a week. At the end of the season the flights each have a 4 man playoff. The following week, the 4 winners from the flights have a league playofff.

that is an interesting way to do it. I like that. Where do you work that you have that many people in your company that play golf?

I work at a large hospital in Northern Michigan. We have close to 5000 employees system wide(includes affilite hospitals we own). Employee spouses are allowed to play too. We have about 100 people in our mens league. I am not sure how many in the womens league.

I've been in a league now for about 5-6 years. It's pretty fun, nice guys to play golf with. We have about 220 members in the league. There are weekend tournaments about twice a month, and a 9 hole tournament every Monday night after work.

Spots are definitely limited so you have to make sure to sign up ahead of time if you want a spot.

We have many different handicap ranges ... from +2 to probably 30 or so. Ya I'm sure there are some sandbaggers, but our league committee does a great job of monitoring handicaps and posting scores for us to make sure everything is counted. The committee has even reduced handicaps in tournaments for some of our players that are clearly better than what their GHIN says.

One of the big things for me was the pace of play. Many have mentioned that the leagues are slow, and that was the case for many years at our course. Our committee started keeping track of each group's times throughout the year ... what time they tee off ... what time they finish 9 ... and what time they finish 18. They put together several years worth of data & came up with a system where groups are penalized if they finish too far behind the group in front of them.

The way they do it is if your group is too far behind after 9 holes then everyone is penalized one stroke. If you catch up to the group in front of you by 18, then the 1 stroke penalty is removed. If you don't catch up to the group in front of you, you are penalized ANOTHER stroke for a total of 2 strokes for the round.

Similarly, if you are quick for the first 9 holes but end up getting way behind on the back 9, the group is penalized one stroke.

This works out pretty well ... we used to have 5-6 hour rounds & now we are probably averaging just under 4.5 hours. One tournament we had was closer to about 4 hours which was nice!

I love playing in a league ... I love playing competitively rather than just out poking around on the weekends. Plus we get prime tee times on the weekends when we are in tournaments

The only downside I see is that obviously you play your tournaments at the SAME course over & over again, and that can get boring. There are a couple of courses here in town that have partnered up with each other & they let their leagues switch off between the two courses during the season. That would be awesome, but a little too far for me to drive.