Golf League Question: Everyone Plays Together or Play Whenever You Want?

[xrayvizhen]

I’m part of a weekly nine hole golf league with about 40 members. It consists of 20 weekly individual play matches, with handicaps, starting at 4:00pm every Thursday afternoon throughout the Spring, Summer and early Fall. There are individual low net winners each week and an overall winner at the end of the season. On any given week we will typically get 20 players due to work commitments, vacations, guys who won’t play unless the weather is perfect, etc., and participation in a minimum of 13 matches is required in order to be eligible for the end of the year prizes.

A situation has developed where a group of players last year consistently played by themselves, meaning they didn’t play at 4pm. They teed off around 2pm, paid a higher greens fee as a result, and would then take a picture of their scorecard and email it to the person in charge of tabulating the scores. There were no specific rules stating when a person or a group should play. For years and years, everyone would just show up at 4, we would arrange ourselves into foursomes, and would then get in line and tee off, one foursome at a time. All of a sudden these guys decided they needed to be home by 6, so they said, didn’t want to wait to tee off with everyone else and so booked their own tee time with the golf course where we were scheduled to play that week.

And guess who won the overall championship last year? One of the guys who was in this “special” group.

Well, there was a bit of an uproar last year when the winner was announced, and suspicion was rampant that there could have been some hanky-panky and so this year we want to institute a rule that says everyone must play together within the same time frame starting at 4pm.  For those who are or have played in leagues, does anyone see a problem with this? I’ve heard that some leagues do allow golfers to get their weekly rounds in whenever they can, but then I’ve heard the opposite as well. Which way is typical?

Edited March 24, 2021 by xrayvizhen

[DaveP043]

I've seen both ways.  If you allow play "at convenience" on the specific day, I think you'll get more players.  If you define a specific time, you'll have fewer players, but more mixing of players (a good thing in my mind), more camaraderie, and more confidence in the results.  Personally, I'd prefer a single defined start time, even if it means a slightly smaller field.  And you might find that those "renegades" will actually find a way to adjust their non-golf schedule.

[GolfLug]

We have match-play tournaments at our course that we can play on our own time. But I can see how that wouldn't be so kosher for stroke-play. I guess if folks don't witness play, there will always be those who are short on trust. 

[iacas]

My wife was in a league once and if you couldn't make your league time (all players played Wednesday evenings), you could "pre-golf" (that's what they called it) Tuesday or during the day Wednesday.

I subbed twice, once for my wife with my brother in law, and once with my sister in law for her grandmother. Full handicaps.

We shot… net 23 in the first instance. And net 13 the second time. My sister in law/grandmother got 18 shots on nine holes, and we shot 31. The (randomly were paired against that week) team we beat out of four points… lost the season-long standings by 1 point. 😄

[Club Rat]

On 3/24/2021 at 5:22 PM, xrayvizhen said:

For those who are or have played in leagues, does anyone see a problem with this? I’ve heard that some leagues do allow golfers to get their weekly rounds in whenever they can, but then I’ve heard the opposite as well. Which way is typical?

How did the event turn out this past season?
Did the league allow players to play early again?

[xrayvizhen]

8 hours ago, Club Rat said:

How did the event turn out this past season?
Did the league allow players to play early again?

A "new rule" was created at the start of the season: No individual or group was allowed to play at a time other than the one designated for everyone else. (Thursday @ 4pm.) Problem solved.  

[StuM]

I think an important part of being on a league is the interaction of the players and would not want the “Pre-Golf”.  If timing is an issue see if you can move the league from 4pm to 3 or 3:30 but this may hurt those who are not retired.