Tee sheet questions

General Discussion
#1

Quick question here.

The tee sheet has been pretty crazy since covid. Obviously, people are trying to get outdoors and enjoy the club. Good thing overall.

Issue I have is that the weekend tee sheet fills up in about 5 mins after it opens on the app for Saturday and Sunday. I see lots of the older guys who play 4+ times per week grabbing tee times and essentially creating blocks. While I am not sure how to make more fair, it chafes me a bit that the people who get the most benefit from the club in general clog up the tee sheet on the weekend.

As they get their games set, you can watch people add/drop. They typically hold onto the tee time until they are 100% they won’t use it. Most weekends I would guess they cancel 10-20% day of

Have you ever come across a system that makes the tee sheet more of a lottery? Or maybe something that would disincentivize this strategy?

Just seems that a few rules to even the playing field would help out the 80% of the membership that is not retired and mostly confined to playing Saturday and Sunday.

#2

Our club blocks out all of Saturday morning… you submit your foursome and get a tee time via lottery… it’s block through 12.

Seems like there needs to be a cost to reserving a tee time if people are holding it and cancelling late. That’s just selfish.

Your club pro should be managing it better. That’s their job.

3 Likes
#3

I’m with craigers here. My club blocks out weekend times and then distributes via lottery for the morning tee times. Usually opens up around 4 PM Thursday for Saturday for member editing. Usually keeps it pretty fair.

We’re also 27 holes right now so there tends not to be any issues getting on. Although the club is in the process of developing some of the land and it will drop to 18 in a couple of years

1 Like
#4

Similar problem at my club, which they really need to resolve. Since COVID we’re down to 2-balls only. Tee sheet opens to members a week in advance. You go on 07.00 and the whole Saturday-week is fully booked within 5mins. 50% of those slots are single players. If I go on I can book a 2-ball slot on my own. Due to data protection they don’t show you who’s got which slots booked.

Only saving grace is they’ve formally added the option to play the back-9 only, 08.00-09.30, which I had to do twice around new year.

1 Like
#5

Our club actually moved to teeing off both sides in the morning during the summer…

8-10 tee times, 10-12 was basically people making the turn, 12 on was back to normal tee times… some negatives, but I believe it allows more full rounds on crowded days.

You can also see who is signed up for tee times, but it’s behind a login… you can set your group to open, closed or please join me…

I don’t play a ton of Saturday morning rounds as they are usually 4.5 hours.

1 Like
#6

After retirement my Grandpa and Great Uncle used to play golf Monday thru Friday, usually 36 per day. They rarely played weekend rounds, usually only when my Dad and I could play. The reasoning my Grandpa gave was, weekend golf is for the working man.

The world needs more people like my Grandpa.

8 Likes
#7

My club implemented a ballot/lottery system a few years ago to combat exactly this kind of behaviour. It’s provided by a third party company and integrated into the club’s website. Under this system, you can request the tee times you want (max one per day), and the system generates a tee sheet based on an algorithm. So if you want to book at the most popular times of the day, you’ll sometimes get the times you want, and sometimes will get earlier/later times instead. The algorithm is supposed to try to maintain the lowest average delta between the time you request and the time you actually get. The ballots are submitted 5-10 days in advance and the tee sheet is generated 5 days in advance (Saturday tee times are released Tuesday evening). Once the tee sheet is released, people can edit their own times and grab unused slots, but they still can’t own more than one tee time per day.

This has eliminated a lot of the shenanigans you are describing, but it’s not perfect. There’s still a bit of people trying to game the system by using other people’s names to hold tee times and such, but it’s way better than a free-for-all. Especially for someone like me who doesn’t have time to start calling the starter as soon as the phone lines open like the retired members do.

Also, this season was so busy, there were times when the algorithm couldn’t find a tee time for everyone and you’d get no time at all. Prior to this year, the worst-case was just a terrible time. That made some members angry, but another nice feature of this system is that you can’t accuse the starters of playing favourites.

2 Likes
#8

Thanks for the responses.

Sounds like some good reasons/ammo to start a discussion with the pro.

As a junior member, I am not eligible to be on the board until I become a full member in 3 years. Definitely going to start talking to the young guys about getting presence on the board and the various committees that can help influence some of this stuff.

Overall, this is a minor annoyance at what is an all around great club

4 Likes
#9

Clubs and boards are interesting places… My wife’s mentor is on our board, but the current president doesn’t like me (shockingly, I have lots of opinions and am willing to share them)… It’s hard to get things to change at a club, but it’s worth trying… I assume this summer will be less crowded, but who knows?

That said, it’s probably not a bad idea to start the ball rolling on the idea overall… just talk to fellow members and see if people agree with you, and discuss possible fixes… it will probably take at least one season to get it implemented… If you can somehow get the board to agree with you, it will happen tomorrow…

Country clubs are WEIRD places… lots of people who have their own ideas and think they know what’s best for the course… I’ve seen some weird stuff happen at my club and a ton of stuff where there were too many chiefs and we kept missing on little details (we were in a trailer during a remodel and ran electrical across a cart path… instead of buying a rubber mat ramp to protect the conduit, they just put 2x4s down… they ended up tearing up the golf carts… good times!)

2 Likes
#10

Good stuff.

Good news is the club is member owned and has a strong club pro. Based on Austin real estate, which is going absolutely crazy and available courses, the club should be on a great financial trajectory ceterus paribus

Good mix of old Austin and young folks who are moving here.

Property values around the club have appreciated nearly 40% in last 5 years. It’s truly crazy here right now on the RE side

1 Like
#11

Yeah, Austin is freaking crazy… My uncle is the P in P. Terry’s… I lived with him one summer around 2002 (before he started his restaurants) and Austin was such a fun city… I haven’t been back much since then, but have heard it’s gone absolutely nuts… Similar to Nashville, another city I love that has changed dramatically.

1 Like
#12

My club’s booking system opens one day at time except for weekends with Saturday opening 1530 the Friday a week before and Sunday opens 15 mins later at 1545. You log on and next to the date is a timer counting down saying enter draw. You click it and when the timer expires the page refreshes and you are either in to choose a time or it tells you where you are in the queue. When it is busy you can be 31st in the queue as well as getting lucky and being first in. I think it is run by Miclub and TeeNet

1 Like