Golf Format Q + poles

[tuq]

Uh...I'm not even sure if this is threadworthy but I'll try.

This Saturday a bunch of friends of mine are going on a 24-man golf outing upstate (Prescott, for those of you familiar with AZ). I committed the cardinal sin of canceling on Monday, potentially blacklisting myself, we'll see, even though I'm a co-founder of this large group of guys that has been golfing together since 1999. Here's why:

- cost. I actually canceled a couple of weeks ago because the guy that puts it on wanted $275 for it. For that here's what you get: two rounds of golf, one at a muni and one at a private CC. You also get the chartered bus ride, a shirt, and booze on the bus. You do NOT get dinner paid for though, and knowing what a boozy group we are that's another $50 right there.

I did the math in my head: this is a full $100 more than last time. Why? This is the same guy who was a co-chair of the biggest tournament of the year every year back in June and honestly expected a free $625 entry because he helped coordinate it. The main chairman, who is a mutual friend of ours, is like WTF, no? We all pay, including me. So I fear he may have a profit motive. As evidence, they gave me an SOS call last Friday saying OK, we'll give you a $175 rate (what it was last time) if you agree to play (they were having a hard time filling the roster, it appears).

- format. What ultimately sunk it for me is that they monkeyed the format and I didn't know this until last Saturday, and then it took me two more days to officially cancel when I found out it wasn't up for debate. Original format was RC-style matches in the morning, one point for a win, 1/2 point for the tie. But the afternoon format is a four-man scramble set up with people of equal ability, i.e. the four best and four worst would be playing together to more evenly distribute shots (pretty sure I recently posted about this actually). I consider that a win-win because the A player isn't lugging around dead weight, and the worst players also contribute more than they're used to. You play a scorecard match against another group, one point for each hole won. This means there are slightly more points available in the afternoon, nothing crazy, but it weighs it more heavily. Last time we did this I think we were down two points after the morning but outscored them by three in the afternoon to win by one.

We also instituted the teebox rule for this round, which was a big hit: par or worse moves up a tee, birdie or better goes back a tee. This also helps balance things out as we don't handicap this round at all.

So one of the co-captains, fresh off a true RC tournament to Myrtle Beach, SC, decided to try to recreate that glory. He changed the morning round to two man scrambles vs. the other two in the group. And the afternoon round is a match play heads-up against someone else.

I lobbied unsuccessfully as follows: it's a guys trip, we're there to enjoy each other's company, get drunk, basically have fun. Why in the goddamned hell do I want to turn the afternoon round into a grinding singles match that may end several holes before the round is over? Makes zero sense to me IMO and I know how I grind in those individual matches so I said no, that wouldn't be fun for me at all, I'm out.

The proverbial cherry on the sundae is that the afternoon course is way more conducive to a scramble - a couple of drivable par 4s, all four par 5s should be reachable if someone can get off the tee well. Furthermore, the course is narrow as hell and local knowledge is a huge advantage. The first time I played there I had to do a lot of guessing.

Knowing I'm a head case people may not agree with me on this so I thought I would ask. Here's some fun poles:

[tuq]

Also, pole questions are too serious for .5 option LDO.

[tuq]

bump

[WLVRYN]

Dude, relax and quit whining. $325 for two rounds of golf, bus, t-shirt, drinking, dinner etc to hang out with your buddies does not seem excessive. P

lanning something like this sucks, so even if the guy is skimming a bit (which does suck), it doesnt seem like a reason to take your ball and go home.

Just stop crying, go play and have fun and drink a lot and dont worry about the format.

[Butcho22]

I didn't read all that but your name is green. asplain so i don't have to search around.

[BrunoThePug]

Golf nit?

I can see where you're coming from, I enjoy playing golf and I would have a hard time forking over cash to play in a format/event that I wasn't interested in.

[BrunoThePug]

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't read all that but your name is green. asplain so i don't have to search around.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yea when did the greenness happen?

[Troll_Inc]

[ QUOTE ]
I didn't read all that but your name is green. asplain so i don't have to search around.

[/ QUOTE ]

When you get to 10,000 posts, now they color up your name.

Tucks, I would only complain about the price getting raised if you would be willing to and could do a better job of doing organizing it all.

[tuq]

All,

I'm green. Tons of PM space and admission to the star chamber in exchange for my soul. Circle of life, although Phil-haters may be getting IP bans from now on. Let's get back to the topic here.

WLVRYN, I agree with you in general, but I am super annoyed that my legendarily chintzy friend may be making money off of his own friends. Here's an example of why I'm annoyed: the $625 I mentioned about that other event got me two rounds at Grayhawk, an upscale course in Scottsdale. It also got me a shirt and three meals PLUS drinks (open bar IIRC), the night before and two nights afterwards. That cost was only $400 so he threw the rest of the $225 into a prize pool.

So I'm like WTF, we're playing courses that aren't necessarily better, getting a bus ride, and paying almost half as much as that with no prize pool? Does not compute.

I should have mentioned how legendarily chintzy my friend is in order for this to make sense. Once on a trip to Pebble Beach he lost a credit card roulette on a controversial redraw and was on life tilt for like a month after that, and the tab was only like $150. And he's wealthy.

EDIT: Troll, yeah I've organized a ton of events over the years and that's what's annoying, the price doesn't even remotely add up. Making things slightly more annoying yet is that the guy hooking us up with the shirts because he has a friend who is a Nike/Taylor Made rep is a notorious con, the guy I always post about foot-wedging stuff. It's worth noting that most of my friends are awesome in every way, this is just like the perfect storm of suck for these two.

[Butcho22]

Phil sucks a fat [censored] fo sho