Golf News

2019 Sun City West November Holes-In-Ones

2019 Sun City West October Holes-In-One

NOW THAT ALL THE COURSES ARE OPEN, PLEASE HELP THE COURSES TO STAY IN TOP CONDITION USING THE FOLLOWING TIPS:

With our peak golf season ramping up and Todd Patty and his staff doing a wonderful job with the overseeding, here are a few tips for us golfers in taking care of the golf course:

• Avoid wet or low areas when driving your golf cart. If you feel/see a wet area please drive your cart in a different location.  You will reap the benefits of a great conditioned golf course down the road.
• Please don’t drive too close to the greens or tee boxes. The local rule at our RCSCW golf courses is “no closer than 30’ for most of our golfers.  For those of you who have the privilege of driving to 15’ of greens and tees due to the medical flag status, please make sure you take advantage of this opportunity but refrain from driving into sand bunkers, the fringe, apron of the green and in-between the edge of green and any green side bunkers .  Remember, 15’ is five good size paces from the tee box area and green.
• While the Bermuda roughs are still green please use the rough for cart traffic as much as you can. This will help take some of the traffic off our newly overseeded fairways.  Once the roughs turn brown or go dormant, it is best to have the cart traffic in the fairways as much as possible to help the rough keep as much of the grass intact.  We’ll see the difference in the late winter and early spring.
• When using the sand/seed mix during the winter months, please fill the divot area with enough mix to run flush with the surrounding fairway area. It should not be heaped in a pile.  This will help the staff in keeping the fairways thick and smooth.  Remember to refill your personal sand bottle with the sand seed mixture that is provided at the golf course.
• Only sand tee boxes and fairways.  The rough is treated with pre-emergent; therefore, sanding/seeding these areas is not necessary.
• For those of you who might use a pull/push cart during the season, just a reminder to keep the cart off the greens and tee boxes.

My hope is to remind us all of what we can do to help keep our golf courses in the best shape possible.  It is always a pleasure to play on a well-maintained golf course and a large part of that responsibility rest on the shoulders of the golfer.  Let’s do our part and have an enjoyable golf season!

2019 Sun City West September Holes-In-One

UNDERSTANDING THE GOLF LOTTERY

Rumors abound throughout the year about the golf lottery, but when the winter season arrives, the number of golfers multiplies, and tee times are at a premium. This is our attempt to dispel those rumors! To improve understanding, within the golfing community, we thought a primer on how the lottery works would make perfect sense.
First, only RCSCW members are eligible to submit lottery requests. Lottery requests, for 18-hole play only, may be submitted up to two weeks in advance at any RCSCW golf course or online. The lottery is not drawn until seven days prior to requested time – for example, Monday tee times are selected by the lottery on the previous Monday. Lottery requests must be submitted by 1:00 p.m. 7 days in advance. Lottery slips are picked up from the golf courses at 1:00 pm and then entered into the lottery system to be run along with the lottery requests entered online. It may be well into the evening before the lottery results are available. If member numbers are provided in the lottery request, the member has an e-mail address on file, e-mail confirmations will be sent out after the lottery is awarded. The booked time will also appear in a member’s “Booked Rounds” found in the member web portal. Golfers from outside of the community may book tee times 4 days in advance by calling any one of the RCSCW golf courses.
A common misconception about the lottery is that selections are being made by a person. The lottery is a software program designed by computer professionals who are experts in golf lottery management. The only human element of the lottery is the manual entry of the paper slips.
Once all the requests are entered (this is being done for tee times that will occur 7 days later), the lottery program takes over and churns through all the information. When there are multiple requests for the same time frame and course, the program randomly selects one of the requests and pushes the rest of the requests to another time frame. The process is repeated until – hopefully – slots are found for all requests. During peak season and your parameter selections, you may be “bumped”. Just to be clear, being “bumped” does not mean that your spot is being usurped by someone who takes precedence over you. It simply means that there were too many lottery requests with similar parameters to fit on the tee sheet, and others were randomly selected before yours. When that happens, our tee time staff will contact you to let you know you did not get a tee time within your parameters and will give you other course/time options.

One final note: It doesn’t matter whether:

• You submit your request on a paper slip (slips are available at the golf courses) or online-preferred
• You submit your request 7 or 14 days out
• You submit a request for single or multiple tee times
All have equal weight when the lottery program is at work.

Lottery Features:
Singles are allowed to request a tee time in the lottery.
Email Confirmations, when email address is provided, will be available when the tee time is awarded.
Small groups up to 6 tee times (24 players) can be submitted.
Lottery Requests can be made 14 days in advance but not awarded until 7 days in advance.
All seven courses may be included in a request when available.
Closed courses will not appear in the course selection list.
Search criteria will include “desired” time, as well as “earliest” and “latest” times.
Lottery requests can be edited/deleted by the specified players.
Members must be entered using their member number.
Captain information (member number) can be changed to allow non-playing monitors to enter tee time request.

Click HERE for instructions

Mike Williams

Golf Operations Assistant

Golf Operations would like to welcome our newest employee, Mr. Mike Williams from Vancouver, Washington.  Mike is a PGA golf professional with an impressive background in tournament administration and golf operations.  “Having Mike join our staff is really exciting for us,” says Patrick O’Hara, Golf Operations Manager.  “Jolene Piaskowski did a wonderful job the last two years in raising the bar of our golf tournament offerings and I feel confident that Mike will only add to the quality and professionalism of our events.”

Mike and his wife Lorri are looking forward to warm sunny days during the upcoming golf season and may need to trade in their umbrellas and rain gear for sun screen and lip balm.

If you are in the neighborhood, please stop by the Golf Operations office and say hello to our newest team member!

 Patrick O’Hara, PGA

Golf Operations Manager

2019 SUN CITY WEST AUGUST HOLES-IN-ONE