showing up as a single
Eric Lindholm
Most of the time that I have a window of opportunity to play, it's a spur of
the moment thing, so I can't really line friends up. Obviously if a course
is full, I can't get on. But my experience today is fairly typical of how
things tend to go:
Call the local course at 10:10. "Do you have room for a single this
morning?"
"Sure thing, come on down."
"Okay, great, I'll be there in about half an hour."
"Thanks for calling."
Get there at 10:30, guy behind the desk (now different) says he can't get me
out until at least 12:00. I tell him that I just called and was told it was
okay. "You didn't talk to me," he says snootily.
I can see the first few holes and they look empty except for a twosome in
the first fairway. No one else appears to be waiting. I stick around for a
few minutes more and no one gets called, nor shows up. The twosome is now
on the second hole. I ask the desk guy for more information and he mumbles
something incoherent about "tournaments."
Of course I'm happy to join a group. I've learned a lot about playing
etiquette in the last year and a half and consider myself a pretty good
playing partner now. I'll never have world-class speed, but the last time I
played 18 holes alone, it took me 3:15, so I'm not exactly slow.
So, are there other things I need to know about how to get on a course? Am
I expected to bribe the starter? Is there a magic word I need to say when
calling to check how full the course is?
Thanks for any insight.
Kommienezuspadt
"Eric Lindholm" <blumberg.NO....@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:4828bea4$0$20206$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
I guess I would suggest another course -- at our muni you'll have no hassles
from the staff -- I would think our staff is not that unusual.
YMMV
David Geesaman
> Simply put, are there tricks to this?
>
> I expected to bribe the starter? Is there a magic word I need to say when
> calling to check how full the course is?
Yuk, that blows.
I've always had good luck with playing as a single *if* the course
doesn't let a foursome with that one always late guy go off as 3. Or 2.
That's when I know the starter/clubhouse are morons.
Next time I'd call, instead of "30 minutes" I'd make them state a
specific time, and ask who you talked to. Then when you arrive at the
clubhouse you can find whoever vouched for the opening and make sure
some dope doesn't brush you aside.
Dave
The_Professor
Golf elsewhere. I like to take off and play some golf when I have the
time. I also don't see it as my role in the golf world to organize
groups so that golf courses can make money! If they want me to show up
with the 4somes, they had better get me on one way or another when I
show up as a single. I don't care if I play in a group or not when I
show up as a single, but I consider it to be part of the job of the
operator of the course to get me out there when I show up. No play, no
pay! Not all golf courses will oblige this though, so you have to shop
around. If they jerk you around, don't go back.
Tom Yost
Bummer about your experience. I've had pretty good luck doing this very
thing without having to bribe the starter, of course, I don't live near a
large eastern city - your mileage may vary !!(like NYC - LOL!). If indeed,
there was a tournament, perhaps the person you spoke to on the phone was
not aware. Disappointing to drive all the way there, but hopefully, that
shouldn't be taken as a normal occurance.
First of all, when you arrive, the starter is going to look at the tee
sheet and all he can do is put you in the first available spot. What I do
is ask to be put on the "standby" list to be called in the event of a "no-
show." 80% of the time, I will be able to get on within an hour. (also
helps to buy a large bucket of range balls, thus further guaranteeing they
will call you to the tee just after you've made just a couple of warm up
swings...)
Municipal courses seem to be most willing to accomodate, but I've had luck
at upscale publics as well.
Call the course first and make sure they will do that (pair you with a
group less than four or no-show standby) and also make sure there is no
tournament or other event or policy that would prevent them from sticking
you into another group.
Now if they promise to get you on and you see twosomes and threesomes
teeing off and there is no event, you need to visit the starter and ask
why. Don't be confrontational, just be friendly and ask why you couldn't
join that twosome on the tee.
I don't think you were asking but I wouldn't expect to sent out on the
course as a single anytime, anywhere.
Good luck!
Tom
Eric Lindholm
> course as a single anytime, anywhere.
I wasn't, but now that you mention it, I wonder if that's what the starter
thought I meant. I never specifically asked, "Is there anyone I can join?"
As it turns out, the last time I played there, it _was_ as a single (all
alone for 18 holes -- quite unusual, of course!), and it was the same
starter, who I know recognized me. It's possible he thought that I wasn't
interested in any other arrangement. More likely, however, he was just
being a dick.
Anyway, I like the idea of looking elsewhere, and that's what I'll do now.
Unfortunately this particular course has the best online reviews of the ones
close to me, but if they won't let me on, that's moot.
Rob Davis
> Simply put, are there tricks to this?
>
> I expected to bribe the starter? Is there a magic word I need to say when
> calling to check how full the course is?
>
> Thanks for any insight.
>
Sounds bogus to me. Most of my rounds are played as a walk-on single at
the city courses here in LA (or a couple of public course just north of
here). It's always just a simple matter of whether there's room or not
... reservations take precedence and they just fill in any holes with
whoever's waiting. Occasionally (mostly the weekends) the reservations
will be full for the next couple of hours and they start a "waiting"
list which gets called if the reservations don't show. If there's not
enough to fill a 4some they send whoever's ready to go. There's no
tricks and no secrets.
Rob
Steve Gavette
"Eric Lindholm" <blumberg.NO....@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:4828bea4$0$20206$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
> So, are there other things I need to know about how to get on a course?
Am
> I expected to bribe the starter? Is there a magic word I need to say when
> calling to check how full the course is?
>
> Thanks for any insight.
Find another course. I'm lucky that in my area there are an abundance of
course from which to choose. I have run across pro shop staff like you
describe, and have only seen them once. I do not return. Far too many
courteous, helpful shops out there to give my money to arrogant twits.
Michael Anselmo
"Tom Yost" <t...@nospamme.com> wrote in message
news:oq2dnU5KIqGQR7XV...@fishnet.com...
I agree with Tom here. When I played on Long Island I played as a walkup
single 80% of the time. I was retired when my friends weren't. I would
always go directly to the starter and ask if there were any openings for a
single. If he did, he would tell me to buy an 'un-timed' slot and he would
fit me in as soon as he could. I never had to wait very long. I was however,
prepared to go to another course. Depending on the day, sometimes I would
just hit balls and then go home.
When I was called I was always ready to go. Even if I hadn't hit one ball
from the bucked Tom told you to buy. ;-) I also never turned down a slot
when the starter offered it to me. One time I 'graciously' let another
single go out before me with a threesome of Korean ladies. I took the next
slot behind him. I could see him standing on the green holding the flag
throughout the round. I caught him at the bar after the round and we had a
great laugh. I felt so bad that I paid for the beers. He said they didn't
speak a word of English throughout. One spoke English to explain that the
other two were visiting from Korea and that was it. We had a good laugh.
Frank Ketchum
"Eric Lindholm" <blumberg.NO....@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:4828bea4$0$20206$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
>
> I can see the first few holes and they look empty except for a twosome in
> the first fairway. No one else appears to be waiting. I stick around for
> a few minutes more and no one gets called, nor shows up. The twosome is
> now on the second hole. I ask the desk guy for more information and he
> mumbles something incoherent about "tournaments."
>
Sounds like they are idiots at that course. I have walked on to many
courses as a single and they always seem happy to take my money and get me
out there. Of course, I don't try it at 9:00 Saturday morning either.
The one problem I have happen over and over is that they have a threesome
standing on the first tee and they make me go running out to join them
without any time to loosen up.
Tom Yost
<manse...@comcast.net> wrote:
>... One time I 'graciously' let another
>single go out before me with a threesome of Korean ladies. I took the next
>slot behind him. I could see him standing on the green holding the flag
>throughout the round. I caught him at the bar after the round and we had a
>great laugh. I felt so bad that I paid for the beers...
>
You are a gracious fellow indeed! LOL! Good story.
John van der Pflum
<nospa...@thanksanyway.net> wrote:
>
>The one problem I have happen over and over is that they have a threesome
>standing on the first tee and they make me go running out to join them
>without any time to loosen up.
>
That happens to me all the time too. Of course, I usually end up
hitting my best drive of the day then.
--
jvdp
Nobody fears the Chopra
http://www.rsgcincinnati.com
Zuke
the head pro? If not, I'd report him in a New York minute.
You called up, make the necessary arrangements and then he
acts like that has no bearing on your situation.
Sounds like you could have easily gone off and caught up with
the twosome.
The only thing I can think is if he had a shotgun start tournament
where he had to have the course cleared. But the person you talked
to previously would have certainly been aware of that.
The only other thing is if you have your times confused and the
time between your call and showing up was longer than 20 minutes.
Don Kirkman
<4828c097$0$26223$882e...@news.ThunderNews.com>:
>"Eric Lindholm" <blumberg.NO....@verizon.net> wrote in message
>news:4828bea4$0$20206$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
>> Simply put, are there tricks to this?
>> Most of the time that I have a window of opportunity to play, it's a spur
>> of the moment thing, so I can't really line friends up. Obviously if a
>> course is full, I can't get on. But my experience today is fairly typical
>> of how things tend to go:
>> Call the local course at 10:10. "Do you have room for a single this
>> morning?"
>> "Sure thing, come on down."
>> "Okay, great, I'll be there in about half an hour."
>> "Thanks for calling."
>> Get there at 10:30, guy behind the desk (now different) says he can't get
>> me out until at least 12:00. I tell him that I just called and was told
>> it was okay. "You didn't talk to me," he says snootily.
>I guess I would suggest another course -- at our muni you'll have no hassles
>from the staff -- I would think our staff is not that unusual.
I concur. Except for bimonthly tournaments I always go out as a single and my
worst experiences are not like the OP ran into. I call the day before to make
sure that it will be a day of open play (the courses I go to have set days for
seniors, ladies, and tournaments but there are occasional exceptions). I used
to be more specific, asking about tournaments. Once I ask to be put on the
stand-by list I've seldom been singled out or treated unfairly. The usual
starter at one course, though, is reluctant to send out singles, even if play
is very light, so I may have to wait longer than seems reasonable though even
there I have occasionally been sent out as a single.
WW
I guess I would suggest another course -- at our muni you'll have no
hassles
from the staff -- I would think our staff is not that unusual.
That would be my suggestion, find another course. I find it
uncomfortable to "walk on" to a strange course & pair up with
strangers. Mostly cause my game is not all that. But there is there is
also the issue of snobby club members & dick heads behind the desk.
Find a new course.
"R&B"
>
> Simply put, are there tricks to this?
>
I almost always play golf as a single. And no, not because I don't have
friends that play golf. Or that I don't have friends, as some here might
opine. :-)
Like you, I rarely know very far in advance when I'm going to play. It's
often a spur of the moment decision. But I do know this much: most of the
time it's on the weekend, since that's about the only time (other than
holidays) when I'm not working. And since I almost always sleep in on the
weekends (by most peoople's standards, I sleep in during the week, too), I
will most likely play late in the day.
When I lived in Smallville, you could walk on to most any course and within
20 minute or so get sent out on to the course, usually with some other
players. But sometimes, you'd go out all by yourself. A surprising number
of times, I would go play golf in Chattanooga on a perfectly beautiful
Saturday or Sunday afternoon, and there'd be NO ONE on the course. I mean
N-O-B-O-D-Y. I had the course completely to myself. Or if I saw anyone on
the course that day, I only saw them briefly. There were times in
Chattanooga when I'd play golf and mine would be one of two cars in the
parking lot, and the other one belonged to the guy in the pro shop. The
biggest fear on some of these remote courses was not whether I'd get to
finish 18 holes before dark, but whether I'd get to finish 18 holes without
being eaten by a bear.
I'm now in a major metropolitan area (Atlanta), where, by all accounts,
bears are fewer in number (we do have deer and fox), and walking on to a
public golf course without a tee time on the weekend often means there'll be
a wait. Unless you know a course where there aren't as many people. Like
maybe courses on the outer fringes of the metro area. You know, where there
are more bears.
Here's an easy rule to keep this straight: More bears = Fewer Golfers on
the walk-up list = Shorter wait.
On rare occasions, I'll call before I walk out the door and see if they have
something open for a single, and once in a while I get lucky and they find a
slot. But more often than not, I get the proverbial, "we're fully booked,
but you can get on the walk-up list," or "we don't take tee times once
Twilight begins." Yeah, whatever.
There's no real trick to it. Some courses are busier than others. Fewer
bears = More golfers. At times, I've been able to walk on without much wait
if I play late in the day, which suits me much better anyway because I'm
*so* not a morning person. Courses will usually be busiest from morning to
early afternoon. It starts to thin out after that, and you can sometimes
get on without a long wait. But of course the risk of walking on late in
the day is that you might have to wait just long enough to squeeze you out
of having enough daylight left to get in a full round. I try to get out
early enough that I've got a good chance of finishing all 18 holes. But on
occasion, it gets pretty dark on the 18th (if we get that far). I know this
much: If I'd gone out at 8 AM, I wouldn't have been awake until the back
nine. If then.
The only sure way to get on is to call ahead and make a tee time (or do it
online, if your course offers that service). And even then, some courses
won't let a single make a tee time. But some will. I guess I could do
that. But I'm just not accustomed to having to live with a schedule and
"keeping appointments" and stuff. I'd just rather not go there. I kind of
like the sponteneity of not really knowing when (or where) my next round
might be until...well...until I hop in the car and surprise myself by
driving to some course I've never seen before, or just point the car and
drive to one of my usual haunts.
Golf has taken on more of a diversionary role in my life these days. I
don't pour myself into it as I once did. But I would still rather play
decently than crappily. While I occasionally show signs of being able to do
the former, the overall trend has not been good in recent years. So when I
do go out to play these days -- less frequently of late, almost always as a
single, and almost always late in the day -- I find that sacrificing the
last two holes to darkness doesn't bother me as much as it might have in
years past when posting a score meant more to me than it does today (no
doubt because my scores suck these days). I just enjoy being out there,
trying my best to make good shots, knowing full well that without investing
more time to my game, my best attempts at shotmaking won't always come off
as planned, and resigning myself to the fact that the shots that don't
measure up to my lofty and totally unrealistic standards seem, increasingly
of late, to lead me down paths on the golf course that few have ever
visited.
But at least playing as a single, I won't have to keep hearing about it from
my golfing buddies who might otherwise have been there to witness the
carnage.
Although I'm sure the strangers in the group may be muttering later after
the round, maybe over BBQ, about what a hack "that guy we played with" was.
Like I care.
If the course we played on that day wasn't very busy, then they were lucky
they didn't get eaten by a bear.
Randy
"R&B"
news:no8j24tf8qjtoi1mi...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 13 May 2008 09:18:00 -0400, "Frank Ketchum"
> <nospa...@thanksanyway.net> wrote:
>>
>>The one problem I have happen over and over is that they have a threesome
>>standing on the first tee and they make me go running out to join them
>>without any time to loosen up.
>>
>
> That happens to me all the time too. Of course, I usually end up
> hitting my best drive of the day then.
> --
Y'know, that's really weird. I do that, too.
No sooner do I pay my money, and I'm racing out the clubhouse door to throw
my clubs on a cart and race to the first tee to join up with somebody who's
already teeing off. I barely have time to put on my glove before I'm up.
Then I'll stripe one right down the middle of the fairway.
Often, that first drive of the day will be the last good drive I hit all
day.
Yet when I go to the range, rarely is my first drive even acceptable, let
alone the best one of the day.
I don't get that.
Randy
glfnaz
""R&B"" <noneofyou...@all.com> wrote in message
news:gdidneVCy9hqBrbV...@giganews.com...
> "Eric Lindholm" wrote ...
>>
>> Simply put, are there tricks to this?
>>
> [snippage]
>
I wait until it's 110* at 2 PM.
It's easy to get out and play in @ 2 hrs, 15 min.
Joe
But why would you do that to yourself?
Joe
Eric Lindholm
> where he had to have the course cleared. But the person you talked
> to previously would have certainly been aware of that.
One would think so. I didn't ask for the specifics of the alleged
tournament, but I know they do shotguns there sometimes. Of course, you'd
think the starter would have the courtesy to explain more about the
conflict. He did blame the other guy for not knowing what was going on.
> The only other thing is if you have your times confused and the
> time between your call and showing up was longer than 20 minutes.
I may be a lousy golfer, but I can tell time with the best of them.
Thanks to all those who recommended telling this particular course to screw
themselves. For some reason I thought all of the other local courses were
very difficult and expensive, but that turns out not to be true. I called
the muni this morning and was told that everything would be fine as long as
I got there soon enough to be well in front of the tournament. (What's with
all these tournaments?) I started off as a single and eventually caught up
with a friendly threesome on the 14th. Since I am a beginner, the first
time or two through a new course is always rocky, but I had a good time.
Except for a four-hole meltdown mid-round, I played respectably well. And
no three-putts after the 5th hole, woohoo!
I saw no bears, but I did get up close and personal with a coyote, who was
unsuccessfully searching for breakfast on the 3rd tee.
Oh, one other question: On the first hole, I came across a cup and flag
smack in the middle of the fairway. It looked like maybe it was supposed to
be for a temporary green, except that nothing had been done to any of the
surrounding grass, and the normal green was fully operational (as were all
others on the course). Any ideas what this might have been?
glfnaz
"Joe" <J...@nospamwarwickDOTnet.org> wrote in message
news:482bae9b$0$7045$4c36...@roadrunner.com...
I didn't do anything to myself.
It's a game of golf.
GreyFox
noon hour is also less crowded. While I enjoy company, it is sometimes
nice to go it alone. I have played 2 balls per hole...plenty of
practice.
Howard Brazee
<blumberg.NO....@verizon.net> wrote:
>Oh, one other question: On the first hole, I came across a cup and flag
>smack in the middle of the fairway. It looked like maybe it was supposed to
>be for a temporary green, except that nothing had been done to any of the
>surrounding grass, and the normal green was fully operational (as were all
>others on the course). Any ideas what this might have been?
Odd. Sometimes a course will have such greens on the driving range
(nice).
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>I wait until it's 110* at 2 PM.
>
>It's easy to get out and play in @ 2 hrs, 15 min.
Or 20° F, where it is even easier to walk fast (and the course is just
as empty).
SG
what club do you use for a bear?
Joe
Do you two guys also belong to some quirky religious sect that practices
self-flagellation? :)
Joe
Tom Yost
wrote:
Now that's ridiculous.
However, 110* with a golf cart and plenty of water is a piece of cake.
At least in AZ with 10% humidity. You do have to beware of first
degree burns from the vinyl seats though...
Tom
Tom Yost
<noneofyou...@all.com> wrote:
>
>Here's an easy rule to keep this straight: More bears = Fewer Golfers on
>the walk-up list = Shorter wait.
>
> Fewer
>bears = More golfers.
>
Wecome to Bushwood Municipal Golf Course
Todays Conditions:
- Expected high Temp 82* 60% Humidity
- Winds: 8-10 NE
- Pin placement: "C"
- Green speed: 10
- Bear count: 4
???
Howard Brazee
wrote:
>> Or 20° F, where it is even easier to walk fast (and the course is just
>> as empty).
>
>Do you two guys also belong to some quirky religious sect that practices
> self-flagellation? :)
In Colorado the temperature doesn't always matter much. If it is
sunny out with little wind, we can be quite comfortable at 20° F
(walking - riding creates your own wind).
On a windy overcast day, a round can be miserable at 40° F.