More Off-Season Golf

This weekend I can only get out on Saturday morning. I'm going to book something around 9am. Perhaps Heritage Isles, a course that installed new greens this summer and they're in excellent shape. Too bad the layout is tricked up. Booked at Lexington Oaks.

If you'd prefer to play Sunday instead, I believe Gorecki is looking for a game. Make comments below!

And a bunch of you need to fill out the registration form (if anything so I can link up your account). Make your existence count!

Looks like we got 2 full groups for Saturday.

Weekend Golf - Update

Tall Mike said he'd be in for Friday and Sunday... but we need an update on those rounds:

Black Friday - We have one group booked at Buffalo Creek: Gorecki, Chandler, JW and Hartman.

Gorecki had a 2nd group booked, not sure if he cancelled it though due to lack of interest. He needs to let us know before we can add Tall Mike (and we'd need to find at least one more person).

Sunday - I got one group booked at Southern Hills at 9:30am. Gary, Chandler, Darren and Reid. If MORE of you (Tall Mike) want in, let me know now and we'll try to add another group behind it. But we can't roll up there with 5 people.

Comment away!

New Event Registration Procedure

While most people do a good job keeping me informed as to what events they're playing, there's always a bit of hunting for responses the week of tournament play. Some of you like to roll with the "I'm in unless I say otherwise" mantra. Others tell me at events, which only works if I write it down. And then you have the "I'll have to check my schedule" people, which doesn't help since we need to book events at least a week out.

The process isn't sustainable as we gain new members. We're also almost to the size where we need to book courses further in advance, which might cause financial penalties if people bail after signing up. We'll cross that bridge in a season or two... but for now we need to do something about weekly registration.

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On the right side of the blog near the top is a link that says: "Member Registration." Clicking on that link will take you to a form showing the schedule and corresponding dates. You will be required to sign in with your GoogleID... the same way you would to post a comment. If you don't have a GoogleID, you need to get one. They're free. And Gmail is awesome.

At the bottom of the form, enter your name so I can identify you and link your responses to the blog.

Once you're set up, you can edit your responses whenever you desire and they will automatically update in the list currently below the Official Golf Rankings. A week from each event, I will book enough spots for every member who said "IN." Any extra spots can then be filled with guests, people wanting to join the league next season, and those members who want to get in last minute.

The form is live and ready to go... so fill it out now! Doing so will also help work out any bugs that arise before the season starts on January 8th.

Thanksgiving Week Golf

Here's what I know:

 Thursday: 8am shotgun at Herritage Isles. Reid, myself and Tom. I think we need one more. Reid and I do this every year, and we are home well before Thanksgiving meals. Anyone want the final spot?

 Friday: 9am tee time at Buffalo Creek. Gorecki booked it and somehow convinced me to play. We need 2 more. Every time I've ever played Black Friday it has been a disaster. Buffalo at 9am shouldn't be too bad, though. I hope.

 Comment if you want in on these. I also might post a Sunday round too.

Tee it Forward

We did have a lot of fun at Juliette Falls despite some awful play by myself and some by Gorecki. I will say that playing with Gorecki is WAY better than it was a year ago, and he's driving the ball very well. Once he gets over this "can't hit a hybrid" mindset, he might become a mid-tier handicapper in this league.

As you all know, though, Gorecki has been an advocate of teeing it forward to help his game. While we do play a tee box ahead of a lot of folks due to a general lack of talent in the league, I don't know if this is what is meant by "tee it forward":

Maybe trying to catch up with Geoff in handicap has him literally trying to catch up with him on the tee box?  

Keep practicing...

2017 Schedule

Football, weddings and holidays dominate this time of year, but that will all be over soon as 2017 approaches. Scheduling the season isn't fun by any means, so keep in mind that I always follow a few rules:

1) I avoid all major holiday weekends, allowing people to go out of town without missing tournaments.
2) I try not to schedule more than 4 events in a row, giving you a break to make other plans.
3) We won't play on weekends when a large portion of the league is out. Brendan's wedding is an example of this, since 5 of the 12 guys at the time would have missed.
4) We need a few weeks off between seasons, or some of you people will get divorced.
5) We need to end the Summer season AND play the "Ryder Cup" before football starts back up in early September.

Unfortunately, applying those constraints doesn't leave a lot of remaining weekends to play 18 events and a 3-day Ryder Cup tournament. So if you're out of town for a handful of these dates... that's just the consequence of you being too popular. It's not possible for us to move the dates unless a majority of people are out for some reason. The exception is the final event, which will be moved to accommodate anyone who is still mathematically alive. We've never had to do this... but it'll happen eventually.

Put the dates below in your calendar. We need to start sooner than anticipated due to holidays and league conflicts in the summer.

Sunday, January 8th
Sunday, January 15th
Sunday, January 22nd (Major)
----Off for Gasparilla----
Sunday, February 5th
Sunday, February 12th
Sunday, February 19th (Major)
Sunday, February 26th
----Off Week / Makeup Week if Needed----
Sunday, March 12th
Sunday, March 19th (Major)
Sunday, March 26th (Makeup Week if Needed)
Sunday, April 2nd (Makeup Week if Needed)

We will also be implementing a scheduling form, which each member will use to "register" for events. More on this later, but it requires you to use a Google account. If you don't have one, you're only 12 years behind the rest of the world.

Juliette Falls

The course was excellent. Everything was in great shape and the layout is better than anything we have here in Tampa. It has some decent length to it, and a good bit of water. Tons of waste bunkers and thick woods also punish wayward drives. But for the most part it's pretty open off the tee.

Due to the difficulty (130 slope), we'd use it for Four-Ball at our event. It's a shame it's so far away, or else we'd play it in the league.

I'm going to go back up to Ocala again in a few weeks and attempt to play both Candler Hills and Stone Creek in one day. If you're interested, let me know and we'll work out a date.

Sunday Golf Trip

So there are two options for our scouting trip. Drive up and play Juliette Falls... or play 36 holes at Candler Hills and Stone Creek (they're 5 min apart).

I went ahead and booked TWO groups at Juliette Falls. 9:30am. $49 and it comes with a burger and beer.

Updated list in order of those who RSVPd:

Chandler
Geoff
Darren
Gorecki
JW
Garcia
Dave
Troy

2017 "Ryder Cup" Scouting

There are two things I'm working on this off-season involving our annual team competition. The first is a complete re-branding of the event. I got a name change / theme ready to go, and a trophy that I need to build a base for. The stupidity of it all is on par with something you'd expect from me. But we really need to call it something different, and not something boring like "The Tampa Cup" which another league does in the area.

Once I successfully get the trophy ready (hopefully this month) I'll post the details.

I'm also planning for the event to expand to 16 people, and I'm going to make an attempt at holding it up in Lecanto & Ocala. The idea is to play the final round at Black Diamond, #2 on my personal list of courses I've played in Florida.

To make the trip work, we'd rent a couple of AirBnb houses (there are a bunch of good ones) and we'd need to play two more courses in the area. I have a list of 3 highly ranked courses I need to check out this winter (ratings on GolfAdvisor) to make sure they're worthy.

1) Juliette Falls - 4.5 stars - About $50 on the weekends currently. All recent reviews are excellent. Pictures look great. Long challenging layout with our tees playing 6,269 and 130 slope.

2) Candler Hills - 4.6 stars - Top rated in Ocala area and priced around $55. Seems pretty open off the tee and rated easy: 6,110 yards with a 117 slope. I'm not sure why almost all the reviews are raving about this course, so I might as well go find out.

3) Stone Creek - 4.4 stars - $40 and reviews praise the value, conditions, and say it's easy to score well. The length is hidden in two of the par 5s, so we'd have to tee it back to 6,371 at a 119 slope.

So who wants to go try one of these on Sunday, November 13th? They're a bit of a drive but we could even knock off two of them in one trip if you are adventurous enough.

October Handicap Tracker

More rounds played this month equaled some shifts in handicaps and rankings. Here are some notes:

Dan took over the top spot of lowest handicap by.. NOT recording any rounds in October. Dave recorded 2 rounds in the mid eighties and witnessed his HC go up by almost a half point. Crazy.

Chandler played several rounds this month scoring in low eighties and a 78 which in turn drops his handicap to a personal best (I believe) 7.9. No need to compliment him on this feat given his ego.

The Gary/Darren/Faz/Buchert log jam continued with Gary and Darren slipping some and Faz and Buchery improving. Would be interesting to see how this foursome competes come next season.

Brendan played a couple courses including The Claw (why??) and shaved almost a whole point off his.

Darryl couldn't handle having me as his boss and retired (again) from the construction industry to instead pursue his card on the Senior Tour. So he's retaking lessons and as a result we see his HC go the wrong way and jump a point and a half! Well hopefully the "gotta get worse before getting better" comes true as he has some work to do before next season and Scotland.

Geoff did NOT like being in the cellar so with 2 rounds posted in the mid nineties he leap frogs JW and I. Then JW plays a couple rounds and watches his handicap slip just enough to fall below me. With me not playing or practicing at all this month (ouch) I hope my swing and play doesn't regress.

Well keep posting opportunities to play on the blog and send Chandler your scores. With Fall weather approaching we might actually be comfortable out on the links!

Sunday Outing

Lake Jovita is up next, since many of us have vouchers. However, as of right now they don't have any tee times until 11:20am. The weather will be fine so that's not an issue.

Who wants in at that time on Sunday?

It's $50 if you don't have a voucher.

Tee Time #1 - 11:21am - North Course
Chandler
Gary
Darren
JW

Second tee time added.
Dave
Reid
Katie
(one spot open) 

Sunday at Brooksville Country Club

9:30am. $30 if you don't have the voucher. I got spots for myself, Gary, Dave and JW.

If anyone else wants to go... book the time behind us and get some people.

Sunday Golf and New Members

Fall is a great reminder that the league NEEDS the long layoff. It seems most of us are out of town just about every weekend!

Who is around this Sunday? The weather is going to be excellent. I have a Lake Jovita voucher good after 10am... and Brooksville voucher good any time. I know some of you also bought those.

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As our league continues to grow, I'll be formalizing "rules" for new members. Currently, we've been requiring everyone to play a few rounds with us and report at least 5 rounds for handicapping purposes. And anyone wanting to join after week 3 needs to wait until the next season.

If we ever get to around 30 members, I will lock it down and make it extremely structured. It's no different than any other social group or golf club. I'd also consider making us an officially recognized USGA club.

Think of the possibilities: Waiting lists for new recruits and member-guest events. Gorecki attempting to blackball transgendered golfers because he acts differently around them. Yearly board meetings and expanded events. A special parking spot outside my house for the reigning club champion.

But for now, we're just some dudes playing together.

A few people have expressed a desire to officially join next season. But we need more commitment than just saying "hey that sounds fun, I want in." If the season started tomorrow, only Anthony and Crum have enough rounds recorded to play for money and points. And Crum hasn't really said he wants in (marriage and kids will do that).

Katie, Robbie and Casey have all expressed interest and played at least one round with us... but that needs to increase before we start back up in 3 months. So if you're "sponsoring" any of those (or other) people... get them out on the course! We don't ask for much... but we need our new people to 1) show up consistently 2) get involved with discussions on this blog 3) play by and get used to our league rules 4) not be a dick...

Never mind. We do ask a lot. And that's a good thing.

September Handicap Tracker

ALOT of activity this past month which means either we enjoy playing golf in 95 degree weather or the bucs just aren't that appealing to watch.

EVERY league member (except Troy *cough slacker*) played in September and reported their rounds to Chandler.

And with some decent rounds posted, there was some considerable shifting among the handicap ranks...

Starting off with a new low handicap leader! Dave has been playing lights out as of late and even with Dan's impressive low 80's rounds at difficult high-slope courses, Dave's mid and upper 70's scores dropped him to a 7.1! Are you now ready to join Dan in the back tees Dave?

Props to Chandler on this month's largest handicap drop (1.7). He's currently tied with his lowest handicap ever. Looks like he's using this time to practice and play more rounds of golf as his fiance' wants him as little involved as possible with the wedding planning. 

Darren did a little leap frogging jumping into to the 5th lowest handicapper in our league. A few other guys bundled up in the 12&13 handicap range though so he might not get to enjoy this position for long.

And yes as Chandler mentioned yours truly has moved up from the cellar for the first time in league history. After he posted that my handicap is now lower than both Geoff and JW, Dub then immediately reported some rounds that put him back ahead of me, but it's only by .2 of a point!

So props again to the continued play. Keep checking the blog as I'm sure some round invitations will be posted.

Time to Shut the League Down...

For the first time in league history... Gorecki has an official handicap lower than TWO people. His 24.9 index is well ahead of JW and Geoff, and he's close to overtaking Troy.

JW is going through a swing change (like a lot of us) so I expect him to bounce back soon.

But congrats, Mike. Only took you 40 years to consistently break 100.