Starting Time

[YandaB]

On the 10 minutes thread rulfan just posted the rule on ensuring people start their rounds on time:

5.3 Starting and Ending Round​

a. When to Start Round​

A player’s round starts when the player makes a stroke to start his or her first hole (see Rule 6.1a).​

​

The player must start at (and not before) his or her starting time:​

• A starting time set by the Committee is treated as an exact time (for example, 9 am means 9:00:00 am, not any time until 9:01 am).

This last bit troubles me a little, no-one can plan their pre-shot routine (however long or short) so that the club starts its forward motion for a stroke at exactly 9:00:00, there must be some leeway, but the rule goes on to specifically take out any leeway. What's the reality of things that referees actually enforce, is it 1/2 a second, 2 seconds, 10 seconds ?

 

[IanM]

Don't be troubled because I think you may have misinterpreted it. Your starting time is when you have to be there ready to play, not an exact second when you have to hit the shot. What about the other 2 (or 3) players with the same starting time???

E.g. You get a time of 9:04.... all players playing with you have that same time on their card... (no seconds specified )

 

[rulefan]

I omitted the following clause as it wasn't relevant in that thread

This means that the player must be ready to play at the starting time and starting point set by the Committee.

The reference to the player's round starting is specific to each player in the group and is concerned with penalties etc associated with playing the round.

 

[YandaB]

I omitted the following clause as it wasn't relevant in that thread

This means that the player must be ready to play at the starting time and starting point set by the Committee.

The reference to the player's round starting is specific to each player in the group and is concerned with penalties etc associated with playing the round.

Reading this on its own confused me further as it seems to ignore what the definition of start is as set out at the start of the rule (in my mind I mistakenly added the clause to the end of everything. However reading it in context and it position within the whole rule does indeed make sense and something I could/should have done before asking the questions. Thank you (always trying to learn!).

 

[Colin L]

9 am means 9:00:00 am, not any time until 9:01 am

All this means is that a player can't arrive up 1 to 59 seconds after 0900 and claim he is on time. Anything from 1 second after 0900 is late.