rules question about pace of play in a highschool match

[sasquatcho69]

okay so i was playing in my hhighschool match yesterday and the first group that went out pulled away from everybody because they had three very fast players. i was in the second group and on the 7th hole my coach told my and my teammate to pick up and take double par on the hole even though we were about 20 feet away for birdie. so we didnt pick up and ended up both making pars. i looked in the rule book and it said we shouldve taken a 2 stroke penalty and i showed that to my coach. he took me to the sign on the first tee and it said 1. keep up with the group in front of you, and 2. if you fall behind, pick up your ball and put it within one stroke distance of the group infront of you. so my question is, what was the right thing to do?
thanks in advance

EDIT: and then on top of that he didnt want to make the other team take the penalty in any of the groups that he made pick up and take double par. isnt that also breaking a rule?

[Fourputt]

Learn to play faster. It's your job to keep up with the group in front of you, or barring that, to maintain the pace of play set by the course. Were you playing as a group of 4 following the 3 in front, or were you also just a group of 3? If the groups were the same size, then you should never have let them get far enough ahead to be a problem. As soon as you saw them getting away, you should have started working toward catching up again. If the group in front is a smaller group and the course is open in front of them, then you can't be expected to keep up, but in that case there should be a pace of play standard which you should be required to meet.

The rules only mention Rule 6-7 as a condition of the competition. It is not an automatic rule, and must be put in place by the competition committee in order for it to be in force. As a result, I don't think that you have anything to support your position, since apparently Rule 6-7 was not in force at the time. I don't know about your school, but as a starter at a local public course, I've dealt with high school coaches, and several I've met don't even play golf themselves. They know almost nothing about the rules, and only repeat what someone has told them to do or say. We've had trouble with slow play from high school players too, and I've had to counsel the coaches about slow groups. There were a couple who didn't even know what I was talking about.

My advice, before your next team round, try and get some sort of policy ironed out about pace of play, and any such policy should be applied to all players in the field. Arbitrarily penalizing one side for slow play without hitting the other players in the group is contrary to everything the rules stand for. The rules must be applied to the field equally or the competition is a farce.

[Par Fore]

Agree with 4putt.....what was the established pace of play, in terms of hours? Do they expect a 4 hour round? Was your group playing slow and holding up the teams behind you? I've seen a 3 some of fast players play 3 hour rounds, holing out every putt, but it's rediculous to expect the rest of the groups, in a tournament round, to play that fast. Also, it's rediculous for him to expect your half of your 4some to take a penalty, and the other half are allowed to finish the hole???

For the record, I hated high school golf.....the trips were fun with the team, but the rounds sucked.....pace of play was really slow, and there were so many cheaters - who knew it was so difficult to count to 5, or maybe some players were just trained to stop counting at 4, LOL

[jamo]

The rules only mention Rule 6-7 as a condition of the competition. It is not an automatic rule, and must be put in place by the competition committee in order for it to be in force. As a result, I don't think that you have anything to support our position, since apparently Rule 6-7 was not in force at the time. I don't know about your school, but as a starter at a local public course, I've dealt with high school coaches, and several I've met don't even play golf themselves. They know almost nothing about the rules, and only repeat what someone has told them to do or say. We've had trouble with slow play from high school players too, and I've had to counsel the coaches about slow groups. There were a couple who didn't even know what I was talking about.

In this situation, would the "Committee" be defined as the coach? Either way, the sign on the first tee didn't mention anything about double par either, where did the coach get that number from?

[GDWindowpane]

I agree with the above posts. HS golf in my area is a joke. My son played his Freshman and Sophomore year and has now decided not to play his Junior year. It is unfortunate as he is playing his best golf ever. His coach is a joke (boys varsity soccer coach, knows nothing about golf). I could tell stories that would absolutely make your head explode. And talk about creative score keeping, my county HS golf scores are easily 5-6 strokes deflated. So I can't really blame him for not playing. One thing that he will miss is playing the variety of courses. Might be worth putting up with the BS just to get out and enjoy a free round.

[Fourputt]

In this situation, would the "Committee" be defined as the coach? Either way, the sign on the first tee didn't mention anything about double par either, where did the coach get that number from?

The "committee" is whoever sets the conditions for the competition. It may be a standard set of conditions for all high school matches in the area (set possibly by the school district athletic committee), but if so it still applies to all competitors. Your coach has no right to single out any player or players to penalize unless he has cause (i.e. he has evidence that you were the cause of your group's slow play).

The handicap rules state that if a player fails to hole out, he should mark the score which he would most likely have made had he not picked up. This applies only to scores returned for handicap, not to competitions, but many high school outings are not run as true comptetitions anyway, so I'd be inclined to feel that the handicap rules would be a fair standard.