Too many qualifiers?

[pokerjoke]

I must have played in over 80 qualifiers this year?
Every weekend we have qualifiers,our course never closes.
Even though my handicap is as pure as it can be,im now getting a bit peeved.
We even have had qualifiers in a conditions,incuding frozen greens.
The worst thing is we only have 12-15 regulars every week.
Other members play there own hustle,so only enter enough comps to keep there handicaps,
surely this cant be fair.
Your thoughts please.
I know i dont have to enter the comps every week,but im supporting the club.

 

[Junior]

From what you have written previously about your club PJ, your doing the right thing by entering the comps each week to support the club. Has the comps committee ever tried to run more social comps like scrambles, 3 man teams etc in winter to try and get everyone to join in as opposed to playing their own swindles etc ? This way you get a break from the qualifiers and still put money into the club.

 

[pokerjoke]

From what you have written previously about your club PJ, your doing the right thing by entering the comps each week to support the club. Has the comps committee ever tried to run more social comps like scrambles, 3 man teams etc in winter to try and get everyone to join in as opposed to playing their own swindles etc ? This way you get a break from the qualifiers and still put money into the club.

Yes they have had a few scrambles,however mostly we have pair comps.
The only problem is with such few members, getting the right numbers for those comps
are a lottery.

 

[Hobbit]

The more qualifiers the more accurate the handicap. Can't see a problem with it in that respect. However, week in week out it can be a bit boring. We play about 2 or 3 a month but as far as I'm concerned its a game of golf.

But it does sound like your place needs to mix it up a bit and get more people playing. Maybe one of the committee needs to be on the 1st tee a few Saturdays and ask the members what they like to play...

 

[tarmac]

to me, seeing as there are so few playing in the qualifiers your club should be looking as stopping them over the winter and trying to draw the guys from the hustles in and playing non qualifiers.
in the borders here i dont think any clubs play full qualifiers over winter and just try to relax things a bit playing scrambles,4bbb's,4-ams and the like.myself i like to have a break over winter just getting out and swinging the clubs.gives you a chance to work on things on the course with not much at stake.

dont see much point in going up .1 when youve nae chance on frozen ground or sodden fairways but good on you for giving it a go each week and trying to support the club and keep your handicap genuine.we get cut a shot over winter if you are in a winning team or win a comp and if in the first three places twice thats another shot away and revert to summer handicaps in march when our season starts

 

[RichardC]

We only get 3 a month, but would love to have more.

 

[rickg]

Our place is the same PJ.....loads of qualifiers, (and i enter as many as I can), but they are not always well supported, especially as you would suspect, the midweek ones.

This year our club are moving to the CONGU recommendations of 7 qualifiers minimum in order to be able to win (previously 5). Hopefully this will encourage more to enter the comps and not just play in the swindles.

 

[rosecott]

This year our club are moving to the CONGU recommendations of 7 qualifiers minimum in order to be able to win (previously 5).

I can't find any such CONGU recommendation. Can you tell me more?

 

[BTatHome]

I played around 26 last year (missing only about 3 due to holidays). Would love to have more but I can see the issue with so few players. We have 600 members but rarely get over 100 players in a comp !!

 

[TXL]

This year our club are moving to the CONGU recommendations of 7 qualifiers minimum in order to be able to win (previously 5).

Rick, I thought CONGU only recommend the minimum number of qualifyers to maintain an active handicap, not to be able to win.

 

[rickg]

Rick, I thought CONGU only recommend the minimum number of qualifyers to maintain an active handicap, not to be able to win.

I'll have to take a copy of the letter from our noticeboard that had the references and details....I'll try and get it tomorrow

 

[TXL]

I'll have to take a copy of the letter from our noticeboard that had the references and details....I'll try and get it tomorrow

Of course, if your place is like mine, you need to have an active handicap to win any prize money. So you could say that a player needs to enter a minimum number of qualifiers to be able to win, just not strictly correct.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

My club normally holds a midweek medal and stableford and a monthly version of each and then tags the prestigious honours board events, captains day etc onto the free weekends in between. We certainly don't have qualifiers every week and to be fair I think I'd get bored of playing them very quickly and would soon be rattling back around th 18 mark if I had to hand a card in every weekend.

We have a few sections who rarely play comps, certainly not off the whits and who do enough to get their qualifiers in per rolling year and are happy to play amongst themselves. Comps don't interest them.

From October - February we don't play medal events and so it is down to a midweek and monthly stableford with a things like Christmas comps and turkey trots chucked in. At this time of year for me its about getting out and just playing and seeing how the work I've been doing on my game stacks up. Is there any specific reasoning behind Pokerjokes club holding qualifiers every weekend. The size of the fields don't seem to make it a viable thing to be doing especially if there are prizes for winning

 

[GB72]

I think this is one of the reasons why my soon to be previous club was so anti officially sanctioned roll ups. They hold a medal or stapleford QC every week, sometimes 2 and at busy times there can be 3 a week (1 midweek and 1 on each of the Saturday and Sunday). I would rather that they had put the odd 'fun' comp in a each month so have some Texas Scrambles, 3 club challenge or even some fourball or foursomes comps. Instead, because of the preference of those who run the club, they were becoming mostly medals and, more of a concern, the medals were increasingly becoming 18 handicap restricted.

 

[Bigfoot]

Medals restricted to 18 handicap max !! I can understand a restriction for competitions that are off scratch but not those where you use a handicap.

 

[GB72]

Medals restricted to 18 handicap max !! I can understand a restriction for competitions that are off scratch but not those where you use a handicap.

I know but if you get enough people off lower handicaps that have the ear of people in power complaining that it is always a high handicapper that wins competions and suddenly you start seeing comps all over the calender with 'max handicap 18' marked against them. Anyone can enter but higher handicaps cannot win. There was only 1 or 2 a couple of years ago, far more last year but I am not going to hang around to find out how many are on the calender this year.

 

[Mike_j_golf]

Why not have a time for comps say first tee time to 10 that way if you want to play you have to play the comp.
We have 3 comps a week April to October most stableford 1 medal a month and the Majors once maybe twice a month there will be some sort of team comp.
Mike

 

[MashieNiblick]

80 seems like a lot. Just had a quick look at our fixture list and counted up about 40 qualifiers for this year (not including ones just for juniors, seniors or ladies).

January to March is mostly non-qualifiers.

We have a weekly mid-week stableford or medal qualifier through the season and at least one major comp every month with extras such as the President's and Captain's events on top. Lots of club matches too.

Most weekend golf is roll ups on Saturdays and 4 BBB matches on Sunday mornings.

I think it's a good balance and handicaps at our place always seem pretty fair and we rarely get winners of big events with crazy scores.

November to Dec again mostly social golf and non-qualifiers.

 

[pokerjoke]

Some good ideas there chaps.
Im definately going to suggest more non qualifiers,this could help get the ones
that play there own hustles playing more.
I also like the idea of Ricks club saying you have to play in a certain number of
comps to qualify for prizes.
Playing the same 10 -12 players every week can get tedious.

 

[rickg]

Rick, I thought CONGU only recommend the minimum number of qualifyers to maintain an active handicap, not to be able to win.

I found the letter on our notice board..I could have worded my original post better....what it says is;

"CONGU state that a minimum of 7 handicap qualifying scores per calendar year are needed to provide an accurate reflection of playing ability.

Following discussion and approval by the Gents and Ladies Committees, the APGC Members Committee have agreed that from 1st July 2012, the number of handicap qualifying competitions required (to win competitions) during a rolling 12 month period will be increased from FIVE to SEVEN.

Please monitor your number of qualifiers and maintain it at a "healthy" level throughout the year to avoid disappointment to both yourself and your team members."

Definitley designed to encourage members to play more qualifiers and should reduce the chances of a bandit walking off with the spoils.