AWAY GAMES PROCEDURES by Paul Goodwin

Policy change - If your check is not in the envelope or my hands by the due date, your name will be removed from the sign-up sheet. I have been burned once too often with the story "my buddies put me down and I can't play" or "I can't play and forgot to take my name off" as well as many others.

12 Max Rule

We have had experiences where some days the ball just doesn’t want to be hit. Or, when hit, it just doesn’t go in the desired direction. Sometimes this happens on just one hole and we end up with an 8 or 9 or more. In fact, some members recorded 20 plus strokes on an individual hole last year. This must have taken a while to do and probably slowed down the pace of play. In order to avoid this embarrassment and to maintain a reasonable pace of play, the tournament chairmen have adopted the 12 Max Rule for all Sunnyvale Senior Sitzens tournaments.

When a player has incurred 11 strokes on an individual hole, he will pick up his ball and record a 12 for that hole.

This rule will be in effect for all tournaments regardless of format. The theory is that the most any golfer can record is a 10 and that would be on a course where he gets a handicap of 40+.

Incurred 11 strokes means that if he were to quit at some point and would record 11 on his scorecard, he has incurred 11 strokes. That is, incurred strokes include penalty strokes.

Example: On 8 at Sunnyvale Muni, the drive goes into the water (2 strokes), next drive is good, next shot goes into the water in front of the green (now has incurred 5 strokes). The next shot is short of the pond and the next one goes into the trap. Coming out of the trap, the ball goes across the green and into the water. Now at 9 strokes. Since it is a yellow stake hazard, he must go across the pond and hit again. Now he has incurred 11 strokes. Whether he makes it across the water or not, he should quit and record 12 strokes (unless the miracle occurs where his 11th pitch shot over the water goes into the hole and he would record an 11)

Lost and Found,

From time to time we all have a senior moment and leave a club somewhere on the course. Usually someone picks it up and turns it in at the proshop. This is fine for Sunnyvale as it is convenient for us to go there later and see if anyone cleaned up after us. For the away games, it could be a drag.

I would suggest that if you find a club during an away game, turn it in to me rather than the proshop. It probably belongs to one of us seniors. If you know you lost a club, tell me so when someone finds it and turns it in to me I can bring it home for you. Some times it takes another round before you are aware that you have lost a club. I will put out an email and keep the club for a week before turning it in to the away game proshop. I will also let the proshop know that I am holding a club so if someone outside the club asks them about it, they can forward the person to me.