At a busy course, it is important to test in on the professional store nicely earlier than your tee time. However there’s extra wiggle room on the opening tee.
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Paul from Skokie, In poor health., writes: A couple 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 will not be 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 may well pressure relationships. It may well additionally throw a wrench in enterprise operations.
For that purpose, most golf programs would favor that you simply not reduce it shut. Some have insurance policies requiring that you simply test in on the professional store a certain quantity of minutes earlier than your begin time (20 to half-hour prior is normally 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 good ship, it’s best to plan on checking in as early as attainable. Should 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 shifting. 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 totally different guidelines apply on the primary tee. When you’ve checked in and paid, that tee time is yours. Nobody has the correct to present 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 in the event you arrive on the opening tee field a minute or two late, nobody ought to be positioned in entrance of you. Try to be allowed to maintain your place, with the expectation that you simply’d get going quick and keep an affordable tempo for the remainder of the spherical.
Why the starter selected to bump you again is tough to say. Possibly he was having a foul day. Or reliving his previous life as a Marine drill sergeant. Or aggravated that you simply disadvantaged him of his likelihood to present you to a prolonged spiel in regards to the course. It’s additionally attainable 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 every part they do, fishing round for golf balls of their luggage, fumbling for rangefinders or taking eternally to learn their putts, and he was attempting to get forward of issues.
Are you and your group gradual pokes? Even in case you are, you didn’t deserve the remedy you obtained. However The Etiquetteist nonetheless hopes he’s by no means proper behind you on the tee.
