Medal Etiquette/Rules

[Springveldt]

That answer will be specific to your club. At mine you would be welcome to play in any comp for purposes of getting a handicap - you wouldn't be eligible for any prizes though.

As you say each club is different. When I joined mine I had to get 3 cards signed by a member and get a handicap before I could play in the Saturday competitions (played after work etc). With this season being a write off competition wise, I'd imagine new members could play on a Saturday to get a card in.

 

[davidy233]

Do not under any circumstances talk to someone else's ball

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Haha I wouldn't trust anything a member tells me about the rules.

Fair point ?. I'm thinking more along the lines of general go with the flow of the other 2. First comp for a while for the OP at a new club. You want to blend in, find your feet.

 

[Springveldt]

Do not under any circumstances talk to someone else's ball

So he shouldn't be saying "get in the bunker", "hit the tree"?

Lad I know said a guy he was playing match play against was saying that out loud as they were coming down the last 3 holes and the game was tight. He didn't offer him a drink after the game.

 

[davidy233]

So he shouldn't be saying "get in the bunker", "hit the tree"?

Lad I know said a guy he was playing match play against was saying that out loud as they were coming down the last 3 holes and the game was tight. He didn't offer him a drink after the game.

Ha ha - reminds me of the time our regular four ball got drawn against each other in a pairs comp years ago - there was an acceptance that 'sledging' was allowed - great match settled on the 18th, ultra competitive and some of the best fun I've ever had on a golf course. Totally unacceptable in any other circumstances of course.

 

[JonnyGutteridge]

Absolutely, don't be afraid to hit a provisional, but 16 / 36 holes seems excessive, especially if you didn't actually lose your original ball, most of those shots must not have been that wayward. You must have been extremely cautious and basically hitting a second ball if you couldn't actually see your ball from where you were standing.

That's 44% of holes you are taking an extra shot and quite frankly if everyone did that in a medal round it wouldn't be 4 hour rounds people were complaining about, it would be 5 hour rounds.

I personally am not afraid to NR. If I'm losing multiple balls on one hole, unless I've played very well up to that point, then I'm not going to win anything or get a handicap cut. I'm quite happy to move on and play the rest of the round. It doesn't happen very often, but my view is move on and play with less pressure. And I've never then gone on to birdie 3 or 4 holes and say 'I wish I'd just finished that hole where I carved 2 shots into a field'.

I've seen guys strangling rounds to death, losing 3 or 4 balls on a single hole and signing for 113. I don't see what you gain by that. Scar tissue is real. You are as good as last as anyone who picked up and didn't hold his partners up taking an extra 10 minutes to play a hole, looking for balls twice and writing down 10.

For the record, I'm not saying everyone should just hit 1 ball and NR if they can't find it. But there comes a point in every round where you know the game is up, and when you reach that point, out of courtesy to people in and behind your group, there's nothing wrong with NRing.

It was Club Championships so I wasn’t taking any risks. The August heather at Hindhead is brutal, and the simple rule is - you can lose it in any patch of heather on the entire course, whether it’s a yard offline or 50 yards offline, especially with only 3 minutes now. So if my drive went in the heather, I’d hit another one. I have to say though, I didn’t expect to find several of them and was very lucky to do so. The sort of shots you’d say “that’s lost” before it’s even landed ?

I shot 75/78 so was very much looking after my card, and I was struggling with the heat anyway - a 250 yard run back to the tee and back again would have killed me off.

I disagree with the ‘slow play’ argument though, if I had shot 83/86, that is 16 more shots, over 66% of the field had worse scores than that - but they managed 4 hour rounds too. Number of shots has little to no correlation with speed of play.

 

[Grant85]

It was Club Championships so I wasn’t taking any risks. The August heather at Hindhead is brutal, and the simple rule is - you can lose it in any patch of heather on the entire course, whether it’s a yard offline or 50 yards offline, especially with only 3 minutes now. So if my drive went in the heather, I’d hit another one. I have to say though, I didn’t expect to find several of them and was very lucky to do so. The sort of shots you’d say “that’s lost” before it’s even landed ?

I shot 75/78 so was very much looking after my card, and I was struggling with the heat anyway - a 250 yard run back to the tee and back again would have killed me off.

I disagree with the ‘slow play’ argument though, if I had shot 83/86, that is 16 more shots, over 66% of the field had worse scores than that - but they managed 4 hour rounds too. Number of shots has little to no correlation with speed of play.

Of course, as I said, if you've still got a score going then it's fine to protect that and make sure a double bogey doesn't become an NR.

But I also think there are people who take the threat of an NR as the end of the world. Just making the point that a fair number of anyone's rounds are not going to count for anything whether it's 5 over handicap, 10 over handicap, worse, or an NR. The result is the same. The current system it is a 0.1 increase and the new system will reduce bad holes down to a net double, so if your score is gone then there is very little point in running up a 10 and losing a couple of balls in the process.

 

[Sink92]

Thanks to everyone for all your input, definitely feel at ease now ! I have however pulled out of the medal as it I do just need to hand in 3 cards with at least 1 round off the whites. Managed to get a few half days at work so going to sneak some practice rounds in tomorrow, Sunday and Monday. I know a couple of members that will play with me to get my cards handed in so hopefully won’t be long before I’m playing in a medal to get the handicap down ?

 

[williamalex1]

While playing a seniors comp at Ladybank GC last week, our FC Irish Dave came away with a cracker. When my mate said he was going to hit another provisional, I said you wouldn't say that in Ireland, Dave said " he's hit more provisionals today than the RUC " .

 

[rulefan]

Thanks to everyone for all your input, definitely feel at ease now ! I have however pulled out of the medal as it I do just need to hand in 3 cards with at least 1 round off the whites. Managed to get a few half days at work so going to sneak some practice rounds in tomorrow, Sunday and Monday. I know a couple of members that will play with me to get my cards handed in so hopefully won’t be long before I’m playing in a medal to get the handicap down ?

Play all 3 off the whites. That might get you a nice high handicap and give you a good chance of winning the first medal you play

 

[Springveldt]

Thanks to everyone for all your input, definitely feel at ease now ! I have however pulled out of the medal as it I do just need to hand in 3 cards with at least 1 round off the whites. Managed to get a few half days at work so going to sneak some practice rounds in tomorrow, Sunday and Monday. I know a couple of members that will play with me to get my cards handed in so hopefully won’t be long before I’m playing in a medal to get the handicap down ?

As @rulefan said, I'd play all 3 off the whites since that's were the medals and comps will be played from. I know at my course the whites are only 300 yards or so longer than the yellows but it dramatically changes the par 3's.

 

[SwingsitlikeHogan]

Playing in an inter-club match away from home - and on the 18th green in front of the gathered team members of both clubs and other club members. I was all square in the match. I holed out for a 4. My opponent was 3ft away in 3. As I picked my ball out of the hole I unthinkingly turned to him and said 'You've got that to halve the match'. He missed. I got a serious glare...he may even have complained to the team captains about me playing mind-games.

Done once - never again.

 

[sunshine]

Playing in an inter-club match away from home - and on the 18th green in front of the gathered team members of both clubs and other club members. I was all square in the match. I holed out for a 4. My opponent was 3ft away in 3. As I picked my ball out of the hole I unthinkingly turned to him and said 'You've got that to halve the match'. He missed. I got a serious glare...he may even have complained to the team captains about me playing mind-games.

Done once - never again.

I don't see anything wrong with this. You were just stating a fact, and it wasn't while your opponent was addressing the ball or anything like that. He's just a bad loser.

Might have been different if you had turned to him and made the comment while jumping around the green and celebrating holing the putt with your team mates. Did you leave out those details?

(also, wrong thread I think)