At a busy course, it is vital to verify in on the professional store effectively earlier than your tee time. However there’s extra wiggle room on the opening tee.
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Paul from Skokie, Ailing., writes: A number of days in the past, my group confirmed as much as the primary tee at 9:47 for a 9:49 tee time. As we pulled up, the starter was shaking his head after which scolded us for being “late.” By then, he’d already let the group behind us go forward since they had been already there ready. I used to be livid. We’d already paid within the professional store and we’d been warming up on the vary earlier than our tee time. Was I proper to be mad?
Pricey Paul:
Lack of punctuality is just not a profitable trait, however by all appearances, this appeared like an encounter with an excessively uptight starter who overstepped his bounds.
That’s a fast summation. However it deserves some context.
In golf, as in life, we owe it to ourselves and others to indicate up on time. Failure to take action is disrespectful throughout. It could possibly pressure relationships. It could possibly additionally throw a wrench in enterprise operations.
For that motive, most golf programs would favor that you just not reduce it shut. Some have insurance policies requiring that you just verify in on the professional store a specific amount of minutes earlier than your begin time (20 to half-hour prior is often the vary), although most golf equipment deal with issues on a case-by-case foundation. If it’s a quiet day with an empty tee sheet, it’s, naturally, simpler to grant wiggle room. At a crowded course, although, the place administration must run a decent ship, you need to plan on checking in as early as doable. In case you depart it to only minutes previous to your time, you shouldn’t be stunned if the professional store swaps you out for the group behind you. Programs owe it to their clientele to maintain issues transferring. They’ll’t afford to let one bunch of laggards trigger a backlog.
It’s on you to be punctual within the professional store.
Barely completely different guidelines apply on the primary tee. When you’ve checked in and paid, that tee time is yours. Nobody has the fitting to offer it away earlier than it expires. Whether or not you present up 10 minutes or one minute early, it shouldn’t matter. The Etiquetteist would argue that even should you arrive on the opening tee field a minute or two late, nobody must be positioned in entrance of you. You ought to be allowed to maintain your place, with the expectation that you just’d get going quick and preserve an inexpensive tempo for the remainder of the spherical.
Why the starter selected to bump you again is difficult to say. Possibly he was having a nasty day. Or reliving his previous life as a Marine drill sergeant. Or aggravated that you just disadvantaged him of his likelihood to offer you to a prolonged spiel concerning the course. It’s additionally doable he figured that any group that turns up last-minute on the primary tee can be the kind of group that tends to dilly-dally in all the pieces they do, fishing round for golf balls of their luggage, fumbling for rangefinders or taking without end to learn their putts, and he was making an attempt to get forward of issues.
Are you and your group sluggish pokes? Even if you’re, you didn’t deserve the therapy you acquired. However The Etiquetteist nonetheless hopes he’s by no means proper behind you on the tee.
