Greetings fellow golfers,
We had a board meeting today after the tournament and there were two main topics of discussion that came up.
The first was on the poor condition of the fairways. Even in the middle of the fairways, there are depressions, overgrown areas and bare dirt patches. On last week’s website post I indicated that we were no longer playing winter rules, but today the board decided that we would continue playing winter rules indefinitely. This only applies to the fairways. You can lift, clean and place your ball within one club length from where your ball came to rest, but no closer to the hole. If you’re off the fairway in the rough, you have to play the ball as it lies. If you’re along the border of a fairway behind a tree or against a perimeter fence which you normally don’t get relief from, you have to play the ball as it lies. The exception to this, as usual, is if your ball comes to rest on a gopher mound, or if your stance is on a gopher mound, then you can move your ball away from the gopher mounds, but no closer to the hole.
A ball that comes to rest in a bare dirt area away from the fairway, such as the dirt area by the right-side fence of hole #4, has to be played as it lies. In order to determine where the fairway ends and the rough begins, most of the time you can see the difference between the shorter, nicely mowed fairway grass and the not-so-nice longer, clumpy rough grass. Use your best judgement. A rule of thumb: if you’re extremely left or extremely right of the middle of the fairway, you’re probably not “on” the fairway.
The second discussion concerned the slow pace of play we’re seeing with some golfers. Remember, our club plays “ready golf.” If it’s not your turn to hit, but you’re ready and nobody else is, go ahead and hit, or putt. Once you’re done putting out, go to the next T-box and get ready to hit. If you’re sure you can see your ball on your drive, go ahead and hit. Also, you can only spend three minutes searching for a lost ball. After that you get penalized strokes. Additionally, when on the fairway, while someone else is hitting, you should be getting ready and taking your practice swings so that you’re ready to hit when it’s your turn. If you have to take a phone call while playing, and it’s an emergency, and you need to talk for an extended period of time, no problem; just disqualify yourself and leave the fairway. An emergency call is far more important than any round of golf. At the very least, get out of the way of those who are ready to hit and don’t forget to call a penalty on yourself for delay of game if there’s been a violation.
Today’s top gross-score golfers were John Gonzales, Earl Clark, Ron Laufer and Jack Fenelon. They all had a 91. John also had the best net score with a 67. Way to go guys.
Regards,
Robert Escobedo