A few weeks back, Dude and Riley had a meeting to discuss league topics and planning. We want to communicate some of the things we want to do to continue to improve the league.
Topics:
End-of-Year competition(FedEx type event)
Rules (and associated help to enforce, e.g. comparing scorecards w/ scrolf, etc.)
Finances
Dues
Credit on the Books
Games and Costs
Existing Options and Costs
Newly-proposed
Low Gross
Deuces
Net Payouts changing
from: (33% / 33% / 33%)
to: (25% / 30% / 45%)
End-of-Year competition
The biggest change we plan to make is introduction of a large-scale year-end event. We plan to set a minimum number of tournaments to be eligible in the event.
Beginning March 1st, players who have not played 8 events will continue to pay $5 weekly until they reach the $40 mark. Once a player reaches this level, his dues will be reduced from $5 to $3 per event.
Of the $3, $1 will go to fund Scrolf, and the other $2 will go toward the end-of-year event.
We have additional funding ideas, but at this time the bulk of the funding will be member dues.
(See more on dues below)
Rules
Although we’ve had no real problems with rules, we wanted to address a few issues that have come up and also address some potential issues before there is a question, so that everyone is on the same page.
Scoring - Every group must keep AND TURN IN a paper scorecard, and each player must sign it, consistent with USGA Rule 6-6. We will be asking one person to collect scorecards and verify that they match scrolf for each tournament. This has not been an issue yet, but we don’ want it to become an issue.
Late Policy - Under USGA Rule 6-4, if a player arrives more than 5 minutes late to his tee time, the penalty is disqualigfication. We feel that is too harsh for our league, so we have modified that rule to allow the player to join his group and skip holes, and still compete for skins on the remaining holes and low-net on the back nine. The player also has the option to replay the missed holes under penalty of 2 strokes per hole and be elligible for the front nine and total low net prizes.
Unmarked Hazards and OB - Under USGA Rule 33-2, the tournament committee is responsible for marking the course. We do not have the resources to do this, so we need to account for courses that are poorly marked. For hazards, USGA decision 26/2 states that if the ball comes to rest in what is "clearly" a hazard, but is not marked, the player should proceed as if the ball is in a hazard. If there is a question, the consensus of the group should prevail. Although ther eis no ruling, use a similar procedure for out of bounds. A more detailed procedure is provided in our rules document (see link below).
These rules and a few others are available online here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q5pyO9htTP3JQdFDXraw92oXEeOf7LZVO4_1H5SARl0/edit?usp=sharing
Please make yourself familiar with all league-specific rules.
Dues
This year we instituted a $40 fee for annual dues. While some people have opted to pay the entire $40 up front, our approach has been to add $5 fees each week until the player has reached $40. We don’t want to collect $40 dues from someone who will only play a couple times.
The impetus for the dues was Scrolf began charging for their service. But historically, we’ve also absorbed all expenses. With the time we’ve devoted to the league and these expenses, when Scrolf began charging us, we decided it was time to pass along the costs.
We also discussed compensating ourselves for our time. Although we still haven’t done this, we still see it as a reasonable prerogative.
Finally, the largest portion of dues money will be held for a year-end competition. We have yet to determine the format, but it will be funded by annual dues, and supplemented by a $3/event fee we will begin charging on March 1st.
Credit on the Books
We know people like to receive cash when they win. And ideally, the balance of the prize pot at the end of the day is $0. In other words, the amount paid out is equal to the amount paid in.
But we know that there are times when it’s convenient to run a balance. Sometimes people may not have had time to pick up cash. Or sometimes a winner might have to leave before payouts are complete. Or making change is more trouble than it’s worth. All of these make it easier to just record the shortage or surplus to a member’s credit balance.
In the past, we used to paper clip leftover money together and put a name on it. But then we had to carry a bunch of cash around and risk losing it.
So we’ve put a page in our Google doc that allows everyone to see the amount of dues they’ve paid and the amount of credit they have at any time.
You can see that at this link...
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aglahwg4sjDAdHFibEZIVC13Q2xPMmp5WG1jNTY5RWc#gid=41
Net Payouts
We use a Nassau-style payout, where winnings are apportioned equally among (Front / Back / Total)
We think paying this way is unique among leagues, and we like it for several reasons. However, we think it’s important to put a heavier emphasis on finishing strong, and on total score.
So effective on 2/16/2014 (Bluebonnet), we will make the following changes to the payout distribution.
We think this will maintain the benefits of the Nassau, and further encourage players to play their best until the 18th hole. We hope this will have a positive effect on scoring and the integrity of handicaps.
If you want to see a list of the payouts per side and per place, you can see it here... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Aglahwg4sjDAdHFibEZIVC13Q2xPMmp5WG1jNTY5RWc#gid=37