South Island Golfers

Season of 2011-2012

Last updated: Saturday, February 4, 2012 12:10 PM

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South Island Golfers - 2012 Season Information and Rates

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Driving: To set expectations, you should plan on driving approximately once every three times you play. We tracked the drivers last season and the average was 30%. Some people have driven as much as 40-50% of the time and frankly step up more than they should. Others are below, and in some cases significantly below the average. Please keep this in mind, and sign up to drive when you can. It sure can take an uncomfortable task off of the coordinators. Thanks.

CLICK HERE to see the driving record for the 2012 season as of 2/3/2012.

To review/print the Men's signup sheet with player telephone numbers

To review/print the Women's signup sheet with player numbers

CLICK HERE to access the league roster and handicaps

This season we will be playing at the Palm Cove Golf and Yacht Club Course in Palm City on Tuesdays. On Fridays we will have reserved tee times at both Indian Hills and Gator Trace Golf Courses. All rates below include tax, tips in and out for the bag guys, and a contribution to the prize and event kitty (starts in January for Palm Cove and Indian Hills and not for Gator Trace).

The price for golf at Palm Cove (Tuesdays) will be $30 which includes greens fees with cart, bag boy tips and money for prizes. First tee time is 10:00 AM.

The price for golf at Indian Hills (Fridays) will be $43 which includes greens fees with cart, bag boy tips and money for prizes. First tee time is 11:00 AM.

The price for golf at Gator Trace (Fridays) will be the afternoon rate for the 9:00 AM starting tee times plus tips paid individually by each player.

Starting Tee times for Palm Cove will be 10:00 AM on Tuesdays and we will leave Islandia I parking lot at 9:00 AM. First tee times at Indian Hills on Fridays wii be 11:00 AM and we will leave the Islandia I parking lot at 10:00 AM. Tee times at Gator Trace will start at 9:00 AM.

Contact Carl Visscher for tee times at Gator Trace (229-7696 visscherc@aol.com), a sign up sheet is posted in the Empress mailroom. For Palm Cove and Indian Hills the sign up sheet is in the mail room at Islandia I and the mailroom at the Empress, or contact Roy Montana (229-5544, mamawello@hotmail.com.)

The plan is not to charge a membership fee this season. The scramble events and the yearend party will be priced individually to include food and prizes, and these details will be worked out during the season. Starting in January, at Palm Cove and Indian Hills, a kitty to pay for the internet handicap computer system and prizes each week for closest to the pin and longest putt for both men and woment will add $1 per round. At this point, Gator Trace will not award prizes or charge the $1 extra.

Our plan is to have two scrambles this year on 2/18/2012 (Saturday) at Indian Hills with lunch at The Inn at Ocean Village, and on 3/20/2012 (Tuesday) at Palm Cove with a breakfast before tee off.

We hope you and your friends will take advantage of this offer throughout the season.

NEW WEB BASED HANDICAP SYSTEM (Send in scores now (golphinut@gmail.com), but they will not be posted until after January 1, 2012. Include scores, course and date with players first and last names.

During the season we will keep track of and post player handicaps. If you can't drop your cards off in the Islandia I mailroom after a round, just drop me an e-mail with course name, player names, date, and scores and they will be added to the handicap program.

This season, we will be using the same web based handicap system. It allows members to have access to the league handicaps, and also allows them to update their scores online. To get to the league roster, the web address is http://live.golfsoftware.com/15565/Website/HSW/R268.aspx

Once on this page you can click to view the current handicap records. If you find a score missing or incorrect, you can change your records by signing onto your individual record. The address to sign on to update your individual record is http://www.golfsoftware.net/customerpanel/login.aspx?a=1

To sign on you enter the league number 15565 with your individual ID (example: 15565xxx where xxx is your three digit ID code from the roster). You can then edit an existing score, or add a missing one, or even add a golf course and tee if we don't yet have it on the system. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

The handicap system is available now through the end of May. We subscribe to this systems for the primary months of the season on a monthly subscription basis, so it will not be available from June through December. In January we will resubscribe and the handicaps from this year will carry over into the 2012 season. Scores from November and december will be entered in January.

Bert McConnell

golphinut@gmail.com

Click HERE for the e-mail addresses of league members (.pdf file) This file is password protected. If you have a need for this information, drop a note to Bert McConnell (golphinut@comcast.net) with a reason for having it.

Click HERE for General Rules and Contacts

Click HERE for General Rules and Contacts

Cut-off times for golf reservations:
Both Palm Cove and Indian Hills have requested that we notify them earlier about how many starting times we need to reserve each week. We will be calling in the reservation on Sunday afternoons for Palm Cove and on Wednesday afternoons for Eagle Marsh. The sign up sheets will come down around noon on those days. If you can’t get to the sign up sheet in the Islandia I mailroom, call one of the coordinators before the cutoff.

Bramble Tournament Format

Each player drives from the tee. Best drive is selected
by group consensus. All other balls are picked up and all
players hit from the best-drive location. Ball may be placed
one club-length from original lie but must remain in
the same condition (i.e., ball in rough must stay in
rough, etc.) and no nearer the hole.

From that point on, each player plays his/her own ball to the
conclusion of the hole with the team using the best
score. Minimum of three drives per player must be used.

It brings a little more of the "team" play into the equation and also
moves play along by doing best score after the initial drive.

Because handicaps will be applied, this should make the
higher handicap person a more valuable team player
because they are better positioned after a good drive to score well.

The better players would be most valuable in getting the tee shot to an optimum position.

 

Click HERE for an interesting article from the WSJ 3/29/2008 on selecting golf equipment

Ever hear or use the phrase "Hit the ball Alice"? Click HERE to read about its origin (Courtesy of Dave Bigler).

Palm Cove Bramble

On Tuesday, March 22nd, the "Bramble" at the Palm Cove Golf Course was held.

CLICK HERE for all the pictures from the course and the year end party (Click on "slideshow" or individual pictures for the best viewing). The year end party was attended by 72 members and spouses, the largest showing yet!

The awards were presented at the end of year party on Thursday, March 24th in the Islandia I Social Room.

CLICK HERE to see the final scores.

Congratulations to the team of Bert McConnell, Margie McConnell, Loretta Montana, and Roy Montana with the winning score of 46.

The scores were very close demonstrating the fairness of the "Bramble" format with handicaps. Of the 12 teams. only five strokes separated the top and bottom teams and the average score was 48, only two strokes less than the winning score. First place was determined by a match of cards between two teams comparing the most difficult holes, and third place was determined by a match of cards between four teams. It just doesn't get much closer than this.

In addition to prizes for the first three finishers, the following were presented awards for:

Longest Putt - Women: Marilyn Schwander

Closest to the Pin - Women: Eileen McLaughlin

Longest Putt - Men: Bing Bortle

Closest to the Pin - Men: Bill Healy

One final note, the party was catered by the "Sandy Hook Deli", Claire Walston. She not only provided great food but fewer than two hours before the event we determined the expected attendance had been underestimated, Claire increased the food to accomodate the additional people.

She is just starting to focus her business exclusively on the catering business so if you can use her for an event in the future we would highly encourage you to to do so.

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INDIAN HILLS GOLF COURSE SCRAMBLE

The first scramble for the year was held on SATURDAY, February 19th at the Indian Hills Golf Course. Congratulations to the team of Tony Gamboli, Kate Gamboli, Bob Tannehill, and Dollie Tannehill with the winning score of 48 in our first "Bramble". The golf was followed by a buffet lunch at "The Inn at Ocean Village" which has a beautiful location immediately on the ocean.

CLICK HERE for more pictures from the day.

(Click on "slideshow or individual pictures for best viewing)

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To make the scramble match ups as fair as possible it is important that you submit all your scores for the handicap system. You can also submit 9-hole scores and scores from other golf courses but it is important to have as many scores as you play before the next scramble. Scores can be entered online, see the instructions below on this web page, or send me an e-mail (golphinut@gmail.com), or put the cards in the envelope in the Islandia I mailroom. Please remember to date your scorecards and include last names of players. While we only have one "Bert" there are several "Joes" and "Johns"...

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Whatever you do, be careful out there... Click Here (Courtesy of Dave Bigler)

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*The Art of Golf* Courtesy of Dave Bigler Old men play golf differently than the rest of us. Some play it well and some play it poorly but, as a class, their journey from the first tee to the last is worth studying. You can both improve your score and deepen the game's pleasures by paying attention when the elders lace up their spikes. My own education began in a foursome that included three artificial joints: two hips and a knee. The orthopedic hardware was bolted to the bones of three men in their eighties, all residents of a gated community in South Carolina. I joined them for a round during an annual visit. They eyed me warily as I walked toward them with the starter. I learned later that my own age was almost a deal breaker. As a reasonably fit "kid" of fifty, they feared I might disrupt the octogenarian rhythms of their round. We exchanged greetings, handicaps, picked teams and teed off. What followed was a post-graduate education in good manners, good fellowship and, in the end, what's so good about the game.Like many retirees, they drove flamboyant golf carts: custom paint jobs, sound systems, flashy hood ornaments. There was the unmistakable echo of the Chryslers and Cadillac's they drove fifty years ago. One, apparently the group's quartermaster, had a year's supply of pencils and scorecards at the ready, wrapped in rubber bands and meticulously arranged in what, otherwise, appeared to be a medicine cabinet: Advil, prescription meds, band-aids, tubes of mentholated muscle cream, disinfectant and multiple grades of sun block. Sir Edmund Hillary conquered Everest with fewer provisions. Clearly, this would be no ordinary round of golf. This was a pilgrimage and the lessons unfolded on every fairway. Golf Cartography -- Old guys frequently have an encyclopedic knowledge of the natural world. After all, they've spent seven or eight decades walking around in it. If you're lucky, they'll map out the golf course for you, its landmarks, landscape and wildlife. Learning that your ball has come to rest under a "bougainvillea" and not a generic "bush" may be small consolation but it will better connect you to the golf course and, as the details accumulate, sharpen your appreciation of its architecture. Knowing that the bird cart-wheeling overhead is an American kestrel can turn an out-of-bounds tee shot into an occasion of wonder. Stop counting strokes and give more thought to the canvas you are playing on. There's No Swing Like An Old Swing -- Their swings are miraculously constructed. In the best of them, there's a hint of the 50's Ben Hogan; in the worst, homage to the same decade's Bob Hope. In all of them, you'll see ingenious compensations for body parts that don't work quite as well as they used to. Their swings aren't uniformly pretty but they're predictably consistent and give new meaning to the term "muscle memory". And remember, they've been tutoring their neuromuscular junctions since Ike was in the White House. Because their testosterone is taking flight, they worship at the altar of timing and tempo more than young Turks do. During your next round, genuflect with them and watch your score improve. Splendor in the Grass -- Because they grew up during America's first mass exodus to the suburbs, these guys love to landscape. They repair divots and rake bunkers unfailingly. They minister to ball marks on the green as if they were bruises on a granddaughter's arm.   They know, from the hard-won experience of guarding their own health, that living things need looking after. Whether you play at a private club or a pockmarked muni, leave every golf hole in better shape than you found it. Take a Lesson -- Remember, you're in the presence of men who have stopped punching the clock and can still afford a tee time. They have more or less successfully retired. They may not be able to lead you to the next Google, but any elder foursome can be full of sage advice on money, marriage and generally managing your life. Ask them about their lives and careers, turning points and blunders. Take notes. The Wonders of the Wager -- With their business careers behind them, a golf wager awakens a slumbering will to win. It is a kind of business deal, isn't it? Strokes are ferociously negotiated and the stakes, typically small, are agreed upon. They started playing golf when Byron Nelson ruled the sport and a buck was still a buck. It's not about the cash, it's about the contest and the unspeakable pleasure of extracting another ten spot from the flinty, New Englander they've been playing with since 1975. Bet smart, bet small, and play fiercely down the stretch. The Killer Short Game - Every golfer has had a $5 Nassau slip from his grasp as some old guy gets up and down on a crucial hole. This is their wheelhouse, where they swallow the indignity of being out-driven by seventy yards, offer a sly wink and go one-up on the match. Because they're on life's final lap, they know that how you start matters less than how you finish. Inside 20 yards, this wisdom is decisive. It doesn't hurt, of course, to have memorized every subtle swale on the golf course and they have! If you are lucky enough to meet one of these masters of the short game, share a beer with him after the round and pick up a tip or two. Enjoy the Journey -- When you tee it up with a man in his eighties, you might well be witness to his final round. As fit a fellow as he seems, the basic laws of probability insist that next week's foursome may be a man short and he knows it. I thought more than once when one of my foursome made his way to the bottom of a bunker that he may never come out. And that he might not mind that at all. This must explain, in some measure, the simple joy they take in the journey. They generally play without anger or angst and, in an age of ball caps worn backwards and brawling basketball teams, they'll connect you to a gentler time. They are the game's true historians and the keepers of its enduring civility. That golf remains such a grand, old game is largely thanks to the grand, old men who continue to play it. AMEN! Author unknown.

 

Send your e-mail address to Bert McConnell (golphinut@comcast.net) for improved golf communications.

Click on the lines below to read Consumer reports rating of golf balls

Description of the Ratings

Summary ratings

Detailed Ratings

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Click HERE for new revised golf rules for seniors

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Golf Handicap FAQ: What is Equitable Stroke Control?

From Brent Kelley,Your Guide to Golf

Equitable Stroke Control (ESC) is the system put in place by the USGA to eliminate the effect of "disaster holes." You know, that one hole per round where you put three balls in the water and then 5-putt. It's also a way to combat those pernicious sandbaggers who intentionally blow up on a hole in order to raise their handicaps.

Equitable Stroke Control puts a limit on the number of strokes you can write down on the scorecard for any one hole, based on your course handicap. For example, on that one disaster hole you might have taken 14 strokes (get to the practice range, buddy!) to get the ball in the cup. But based on your course handicap, ESC might require you to post only a "7" on the scorecard you turn in. Taking the "14" might throw your handicap index out of whack. And remember, the handicap index is not meant to reflect your average score, it's meant to reflect your best potential.

To determine the Equitable Stroke Control limits for your round, you must first know your course handicap. Once you've determined your course handicap, you can check the chart down below (which should also be available at golf courses) to determine the ESC limits.

Of course, if you have not yet established a handicap index, then you can't determine a course handicap. And without a course handicap, you can't determine ESC. But in order to establish a handicap index, you must turn in adjusted gross scores, which requires knowing a course handicap. What gives?

Don't worry, the USGA knows what to do. If you do not yet have a handicap index, then use the maximum allowable handicaps to determine course handicap and ESC. For men, that means using 36.4 as a handicap index, and for women, 40.4.

Here is the chart that shows Equitable Stroke Control limits:

Equitable Stroke Control Chart
Course Handicap Maximum Score

Note: The maximums apply to all holes, including par threes.

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General Rules and Contacts:

South Island Golfers is open for membership to all men and women in the Jensen Beach/Stuart area.
 
Reduced rates have been arranged with Palm Cove Golf and Yacht Club, for play on Tuesdays, and Indian Hills Golf Club for play on Fridays. First tee times for Palm Cove will be approximately 10:00 am, and for Indian Hills, 11:00 am. You should plan to meet in the Islandia I parking lot by 8:45 and 9:45 respectively. At that time, people will be assigned to threesomes and/or foursomes, and will depart by group at 9:00 am or 10:00 am. People willing to drive for a given week should note that on the sign up sheet.  The coordinator will contact you the evening before play to verify if you are needed to drive. If we do not have enough drivers for a given week, you may be asked to volunteer by the coordinator.

There is both a men’s and a women’s league. To sign up to play, you must either check off your name on the sign up sheet or call a coordinator BEFORE NOON OF THE DAY BEFORE PLAY. The sheets are posted in the mailroom of Islandia I. Payments should be paid in advance to South Island Golfers and given to Margaret Leonard in the Islandia I office, no later than close of business on the day before the play.

Guests: You may bring guests, however, they must be registered on the sign up sheet where you may specify the number of players.

Weekly Contests: There are contests each week for the man and the woman who are closest to the pin and have the longest putt. A sleeve of golf balls will be awarded to each winner. If the same person wins both closest to the pin and longest putt, only one sleeve will be awarded that week. Guests will not be eligible for these awards. Dave Bigler (229-3558) is the coordinator for the contests for the men, and Eileen McLaughlin (229-5846) for the women. The first group of men and first group of women will place the marker flags at the appropriate holes. The last group of men and women is asked to bring the markers back to the Islandia I office at the end of the day. Dave and Eileen will award the prizes the following week.
All scores will be recorded to establish a league handicap. Scorecards must be left in the Islandia I mailroom folder immediately following each round. Each card must have the player’s first and last names, and the date of the round to be entered into the handicap system. If you would like to post non-league scores into the handicap system, leave your scorecards in the mailroom folder.

Mixed Scrambles: Handicaps will be used to establish balanced teams for the mixed scrambles. This year there will be two mixed scramble events, one in February and the other in March. To qualify for these events players must have an established handicap, or have submitted at least three rounds into the Islandia handicap system since October 1, 2010.

Year End Gathering: We are planning to have a year-end party for all South Ocean Golfers members and spouses in the Islandia I Social room toward the end of March.

News about the golf league and current handicaps will be posted on the web site, www.islandiai.com under the “Golf” category. New handicaps will be posted following each Tuesday round of play.

Contacts for both leagues:

Click here to return to Islandia Home Page

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