We are about half way through the season and I think we need to talk and its not me, it really is you.

Commitment – For the most part, I have seen an improvement to the commitment of following the rules of golf.

What I have not seen is the commitment to the schedule. While it is a point of contention, you could have up to 3 weekends to get your round of golf in. The reason was – if you have something going on the weekend of the scheduled round then you could declare and play the weekend earlier. If an emergency came up just before the schedule weekend and you could not play Saturday OR Sunday then you could play the following weekend since it was another off weekend. As with most problems, the problem wasn’t because of the liberal rule, it was because people took advantage of it.

Let me be clear…

1. The rule is that you MUST play the Saturday or Sunday of the scheduled week.

1,a If you know in advance that you CANNOT play on Saturday AND Sunday of the scheduled week then you would play the weekend prior. Of course you would declare this by Sunday night prior to the week you would be playing.

1.b If an emergency comes up just prior to the scheduled weekend and you CANNOT play Saturday OR Sunday then you would play the following weekend.

You don't get a “choice” which weekend that you want to play.

This “schedule” problem also effects “Competition” and “Camaraderie”. When we all play on the same day then we play against the golfer that is closest to us either by handicap or on the Leaderboard and under the same conditions. After the round we have a chance to review the day and discuss recent events (talk smack). Right now it’s is just a luck of the draw.

Upcoming schedule:

On July 29th, we have the Chosen FORE which is a team - alternate shots tournament. This takes teams of two based on handicaps. This means that we all need to play on the same day otherwise it will become a cluster and a cluster means that the Commissioner will need to make a ruling and we all know that is not going to end well.

On Aug 26th, we have the 3 Club Challenge.

On Sept 9th, we have the Commissioner’s Trophy. I was hoping to be able to try “Match Play” but again, we NEED to play on the same day or it just will not work. (Is Steph's wedding this weekend?)

On Sept 23rd, we have the Winter Classic Championship (WCC) which is two rounds in one day. Unfortunately, the John Boyle O’Reilly Club is having their annual golf tournament. This means we need to work out the WCC schedule sooner rather than later. We can move the WCC to the week before but I would be concerned about moving it to the week after because of the number of daylight hours.

The moving of the WCC date could effect the Broken Joe Golf Championship. The good news is that both of these rounds are only one day each so we don’t need to worry about daylight like we do for the WCC.

We will have a meeting about the remaider of this year's schedule on Thursday and then talk about it as a group on Saturday.

In solidarity,

The Commissioner