Your club competitions during the main months

Mainly strokeplay BUT the thing is the mens don't start until three weeks after the ladies have commenced their season and have got FIVE comps in before the men have even started. I have drafted a letter that I will be sending to the club about my concerns over this. Plus we have gaps in the diary as well. the ladies DO NOT !!! Ridiculous situation. I will not be parting with my money this season unless things change.

Don't the ladies play their comps on specified ladies days, usually a Tuesday or midweek day anyway, what, if any, problem does that cause to the men's comps which are predominately at the weekend?
 
Saturdays and Wednesdays are generally set aside for medals and stablefords. With the occasional 4BBB, Am-Am or Texas Scramble for specific events (Captains, Pro's or Presidents days).
 
Medals Saturdays, Stableford Wednesdays as a rule. Maybe a Texas at start and end of season but this is more of a placeholder for if anything gets cancelled to give us capacity to re-arrange. Anything else during the main season would have our membership screaming. It's a competitive club, most join to play competition golf.....and that means "proper" golf. There's all week to have a knock about with your mates which is what pairs/team comps basically are.
 
It's interesting to read the posts in regards the general attitude towards "pairs, groups golf " and indeed anything but medal and some describing as "knock abouts and not proper golf" ?

Why does a 4BBB or foursomes etc become just a knockabout and not competitive golf ?

During studies within EGU the type of golf people want to play changes - some want just social golf , some want team golf and some want singles comps

We as a club have tried to cover all those areas - reduced the amount of weekends blocked out by comps , increased the number of team comps whilst looking to add in a singles Knockout as well. A good club would try and find that balance between all those type of golfers as best as possible
 
To me, Golf is all about me versus the course to get the lowest possible score I can on any given day. In that respect, team/pairs golf isn't that so I don't really care for it. Same as singles matchplay.

However I appreciate that's just my view and many others have a different view and it would be very selfish of me to expect my club to cater just for me and my preferences and not for everyone else as well, so I'm happy that there's a fair mix of comp types at my club even if I don't take part in some of them.
 
I'm with LP on this. Golf clubs are made up of different types of people. Clearly many on here are all out competition fiends who want endless strokeplay comps. There are lots of golfers out there who don't like that however and love social comps or less stressful team comps. At my old club they found a real decline in people wanting to play strokeplay comps so they went wild and actually asked the membership what they wanted. The cry came back more stableford, betterball, greensomes etc. They factored that in the next season and numbers participating on a comp day went up in the these non strokeplay events.
 
Usually 1 comp per weekend Saturday and Sunday mixture. One of which is a cat4 Stableford. Mostly Stablefords but perhaps 20% medal. On top of this a few 4 ball and foursomes plus various others bogey/par, Texas Scamble, 3 clubs etc. A couple of midweek medals/Stablefords per month. Plus knockouts.
 
My club runs mainly medals throughout the main months, stablefords though the winter.

Although there are a few 4BBB's and other fun comps thrown in

Like the last few posters I'm surprised at the attitude by some to any comps that aren't medals

I just enjoy being out on the course, and it's quite fun to play something different from time to time
 
We tend to have 2 month medals,2 Sunday stablefords and 2 bogey Wednesday cups, per month and at least one silver trophy. for May/June and July there is a stroke play comp every Saturday.
 
We have 2 in April, 2 in May, 2 in June, 4 in July (2 rounds in 1 weekend are the club champs), 4 in August (2 rounds in one day) 2 in September and one the first week of October. They are evenly split between Saturdays and Sundays.

So in total, at weekends we have 17. 4 of which are over 3 days. (2 rounds in a weekend for club champs and 2 rounds in a day for 36 hole trophy)

We also have a midweek comp each week that is pretty poorly supported, and inbetween the qualifiers we have several team competitions, VP / veterans day competitions.

I'd have a qualifier every weekend through the Summer, but at the very least, I'd like to have an extra weekend qualifier per month. With holidays, work travel etc, I usually play in 10/12 qualifiers per season.



 
It's interesting to read the posts in regards the general attitude towards "pairs, groups golf " and indeed anything but medal and some describing as "knock abouts and not proper golf" ?

Why does a 4BBB or foursomes etc become just a knockabout and not competitive golf ?

During studies within EGU the type of golf people want to play changes - some want just social golf , some want team golf and some want singles comps

We as a club have tried to cover all those areas - reduced the amount of weekends blocked out by comps , increased the number of team comps whilst looking to add in a singles Knockout as well. A good club would try and find that balance between all those type of golfers as best as possible

Take the point Phil but we tried having a 4BBB once on a Saturday. All we had was moaning. Basically most people see it as "if it's not for handicap it's not serious" and there's no way we would be upsetting 80% of the field so 20% could play the team comp they'd rather have on a Saturday. One thing we do though is play in 4's on a Saturday. This means most play an informal 4BBB match alongside the medal for a pound, a fiver, a drink etc. Maybe this satisfies the "variety" element? We still do singles, foursomes comps midweek and loads of team comps and novelty comps over the winter.
 
Take the point Phil but we tried having a 4BBB once on a Saturday. All we had was moaning. Basically most people see it as "if it's not for handicap it's not serious" and there's no way we would be upsetting 80% of the field so 20% could play the team comp they'd rather have on a Saturday. One thing we do though is play in 4's on a Saturday. This means most play an informal 4BBB match alongside the medal for a pound, a fiver, a drink etc. Maybe this satisfies the "variety" element? We still do singles, foursomes comps midweek and loads of team comps and novelty comps over the winter.

Interesting notion that "handicap" makes it serious ? Surely without Handicap and just scratch then it's serious :whistle:

But in all honesty you only have to look to see what's the biggest golf event in the calendar - The Ryder Cup a team event

Our team/pairs events are some of the most hotly contested comps - Winter League for example - I would get bored stiff just playing medals every week , for me that's dull and lack a competive edge. Playing against mates or as part of a pair or team really does get the competitive edge for me
 
It's interesting to read the posts in regards the general attitude towards "pairs, groups golf " and indeed anything but medal and some describing as "knock abouts and not proper golf" ?

Why does a 4BBB or foursomes etc become just a knockabout and not competitive golf ?

During studies within EGU the type of golf people want to play changes - some want just social golf , some want team golf and some want singles comps

We as a club have tried to cover all those areas - reduced the amount of weekends blocked out by comps , increased the number of team comps whilst looking to add in a singles Knockout as well. A good club would try and find that balance between all those type of golfers as best as possible

Actually, a "good club" will listen to what it's members want and provide the best they can based upon that. If it is more social/team golf etc then so be it, other clubs will be different.
 
Actually, a "good club" will listen to what it's members want and provide the best they can based upon that. If it is more social/team golf etc then so be it, other clubs will be different.

What about potential members though ?

If a club looks like they are offering every type of golf possible then it becomes an attractive club

It's something very relevant within our ladies section - they believe the ladies section works very well because it satisfies their needs - but it doesn't satisfy a potential group of golfers that they could attract ( when other clubs attract them )
 
What about potential members though ?

If a club looks like they are offering every type of golf possible then it becomes an attractive club

It's something very relevant within our ladies section - they believe the ladies section works very well because it satisfies their needs - but it doesn't satisfy a potential group of golfers that they could attract ( when other clubs attract them )

Fairly simple Phil.

If you're discussing membership with potential members you should listen to what they say, i.e. if a number are saying the structure of comps within the club is the reason they aren't joining that needs to be considered also when putting a calendar together.

People make way more of this than it warrants imo as you can't please all of the people all of the time. Plenty opportunity in the season to provide the range of comps/golf the members want, my preference is for individual comps on a weekend as I can play more social forms of the game any time. Therefore I'm the flip side of your argument, if I was looking to join a club that had few individual comps and loads of 4BBB, scrambles etc on the weekends it would probably put me off joining therefore wouldn't be "an attractive club" to me.
 
Fairly simple Phil.

If you're discussing membership with potential members you should listen to what they say, i.e. if a number are saying the structure of comps within the club is the reason they aren't joining that needs to be considered also when putting a calendar together.

People make way more of this than it warrants imo as you can't please all of the people all of the time. Plenty opportunity in the season to provide the range of comps/golf the members want, my preference is for individual comps on a weekend as I can play more social forms of the game any time. Therefore I'm the flip side of your argument, if I was looking to join a club that had few individual comps and loads of 4BBB, scrambles etc on the weekends it would probably put me off joining therefore wouldn't be "an attractive club" to me.

I think that's the issue that golf clubs face now

They need to find ways to please as many as possible - more and more people prefer to play social and team golf and then stablefords - medals it seems are becoming less and less popular but there is a still a core amount that want to play medals

For me the one area a lot of clubs don't seem to cater for are - scratch comps , we have two - a KO and club champs. I tried to suggest adding another KO at least and was denied
 
I think that's the issue that golf clubs face now

They need to find ways to please as many as possible - more and more people prefer to play social and team golf and then stablefords - medals it seems are becoming less and less popular but there is a still a core amount that want to play medals

For me the one area a lot of clubs don't seem to cater for are - scratch comps , we have two - a KO and club champs. I tried to suggest adding another KO at least and was denied

I think it is an issue and perhaps more so for attracting female members in terms of access to the course etc which probably needs more consideration in terms of the demographic (and preferences) of existing female members may be very different to potential members but that's a different debate!

I'd like a scratch KO at ours but appreciate that the enthusiasm for it would be limited, not sure I'd feel the same if I was a 20-something handicap.

In terms of attracting new members I'm not sure the type of comps is that high up on their list really, certainly below the likes of cost/quality/location, which is probably why (must stress this is only my opinion) clubs should probably listen more to existing members than potential ones when planning comps.

Also depends on the position of the club, if you're full with a waiting list then it's a different question to an undersubscribed club looking to increase membership.
 
All but a few Wednesday and Saturday medals all season are singles strokeplay, we have about 5 comps a year which are either stableford, texas scramble, a better ball 3 man or 4BBB.
 
Monthly stableford and monthly medal and weekly versions too. Extra comps during the season so I'd say about three comps per month (weekends) during the season. On top of that we have a mixture of pairs events and social comps so a full and active calendar available if you want to partake
 
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