Turning scorecards in late

[JoakimBL]

How are you as a TD supposed to enforce this rule?

All players are responsible for returning their scorecards within 30 minutes of the completion of a round, which is when the last group on the course has completed their final hole and has had reasonable time to turn in their scorecard. Failure to turn in a scorecard on time results in the addition of two penalty throws to the score of each player listed on the late scorecard.

First off: how do you know which is the last group, and at what time they finished when playing shotgun start?
Secondly: a reasonable time obviously include enough time to walk back to TC, and time to check and double check scores and handle any disputes. But was is reasonable 20 mins + walking distance?
Thirdly: by the letter of the rules, playing golf start, the first card can wait wait until the last group is done and wait and additional 30+ min. To turn in their card, and not receive a penalty.

 

[Horsman]

I have stroked people for this before. Most of the time it is because the person with the card at the end of the round forgot to turn it in and when they finally did turn it in it was past a reasonable time. In this situation all other cards were turned in and players from the group in question were done and in the clubhouse.

 

[Future_Primitive]

I could see this happening if you are missing one card and some of the people from that card are at TD central hanging out. Maybe the one person with the scorecard took off to find lunch and forgot to turn in the card. That would probably be the most obvious application of this rule.

Sometimes when we have the majority of cards turned in, and we have extra staff, we send someone out to get an update on what hole the missing cards are on. Knowing where they started we can see if they are indeed still playing and if so how many holes they have left. Always have those folks from the early in cards wanting to know when Round 2 will start.

 

[DavidSauls]

Nobody's got a stopwatch on it. When applied, the late card is usually so much later than all of the other cards that there's no doubt. Usually, for the reasons others have given---the person responsible for returning it has forgotten, and possibly left the premises.

When the next-to-last card is turned in, and ten more minutes go by, something's up. No hole is a 10-minute longer walk away.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I suspect that in the future, scores from an online scoring app will be temporarily acceptable when shown to the TD by players in the group, who didn't have the card, as long as the scorecard does get turned in sometime that day for official records. This would only be allowed for morning rounds when the leaderboard and new groups need to be quickly set for another round to be played that day.

 

[JC17393]

Nobody's got a stopwatch on it. When applied, the late card is usually so much later than all of the other cards that there's no doubt. Usually, for the reasons others have given---the person responsible for returning it has forgotten, and possibly left the premises.

When the next-to-last card is turned in, and ten more minutes go by, something's up. No hole is a 10-minute longer walk away.

Yeah, it's generally not that difficult for a TD to have a good idea of how their course plays, the longest walks involved, and the time that the missing card should have been turned in. I know I'm looking at a clock when most cards get turned in because they all inevitably want to know when the next round will start.

So if I'm missing one card and the rest are in, I know when the last one came in and if 30 minutes lapse from that point, I feel safe in assigning the late card penalty. I've only had it happen once, and the players were clearly done, so it wasn't a matter of them being slow to finish their round or anything like that. They just didn't turn it in before they left to find lunch.

 

[JoakimBL]

My question is in regards to the letter of the rule. I was on a card where the person who had the cards didn't turn them in. (I didn't care because I was dead last) now, we did most definitely deserve to get penalties according to the spirit of the rule. In actual fact, our cards was turned in just over an hour after we finished. However, in accordance to the rules, we have 30 minutes from the last group have finished play, and have had a reasonable amount of time to check scores and get back to TC. So how do the TD know when that clock starts? Because you cannot just "wing it" at say, we'll that is probably too late. You have to know for certain that it is at least 30+ minutes, to live up to the letter of the rule.

And David, it's not just a question of having 10 minutes more to walk, even though I disagree as to whether or not that is possible, I know that it is. I have also played in tournaments where some groups have been done 45+ minutes before the last groups.

My point is, in order to enforce this rule, the TD has to know not only what group is the last group to finish play, he also has to know when (almost exactly) they were done.
And then there is that elastic "reasonable amount of time" to get back and to check scores. How long is reasonable to get from the hole to TC is of course depending on the course and finishing hole, but that is pretty easy to determine. But how much time is reasonable to check the card/cards and settle any disputes? 10 minutes? Sure. 20 minutes? Maybe, if there is something that need the TD to make a ruling one or you find a scoring error and have to recount one or more players round. 30 minutes? Well now I personally begin to think it's pushing it. , but that still means we are talking about an hour all in all with walking time. And we still need to figure out when that clock starts. Should we as tds note the time each card is turned in? Should players note what time they finish?

And still, it leaves a glaring big hole in the rules when it comes to golf start rounds. I know that is mostly hypothetical, but in theory, you could stall for 30+ minutes when the lead card gets in and delay the hole thing penalty free if you wanted.

 

[DavidSauls]

Luckily for me, the only events I TD these days are at a very remote course, where few people leave for lunch. Sometimes the card's in someone's pocket, but it can be found in time. I'd rather dish out a few sarcastic comments at him, than a penalty.

 

[DavidSauls]

You have to know for certain that it is at least 30+ minutes, to live up to the letter of the rule.

And David, it's not just a question of having 10 minutes more to walk, even though I disagree as to whether or not that is possible, I know that it is. I have also played in tournaments where some groups have been done 45+ minutes before the last groups.

If you're saying it won't hold up in a court of law---you're right.

In all of the cases I've seen, the TD couldn't say exactly how long it had been, but it had clearly been well over 30 minutes. If there have been transgressions, they have probably been from TD's not assigning penalties when groups deserved them.

How would you write a rule that requires cards to be returned promptly---without knowing exactly when a group finished? But if you don't have a rule requiring cards to be returned promptly, you have a worse mess. So we have an imprecise rule.

*

As for the 10 minutes, I've seen a few groups 45 minutes later than the rest. It's hard for just 1 group to finish that late---if they're playing that slowly, they have a backup behind them. 10 minutes of walking at a normal pace is a half-mile, or 2600', which is further than any outbound hole could add to the walk.

If they've got a good excuse, I'm listening, with TD's discretion. But the only late cards I've ever dealt with were due to players forgetting to turn them in, not the time it took to finish playing and check them and carry them back to HQ.

 

[JC17393]

Unless we're talking about tournaments with few enough players to not have a group starting on every hole, no one group should be finishing more than 10-15 minutes behind the one that's trailing it. Because if the trailing group is done, the group in front can't possibly have more than one hole left to play.

Obviously it gets trickier with fewer groups than holes on the course because it's conceivable for a group to have multiple holes left to play despite everyone else being finished. However, even in those cases, if everyone else is done, it doesn't take much to send someone out to find the group and get an idea of how much longer they may be (because you know exactly what holes to find them on if they are still playing). As a TD, I'd do that just to get a better gauge on when the next round can be started more so than to determine if they're in danger of incurring penalties.

 

[JoakimBL]

I dont know how I would write a more precise rule. I think I would actually rather I did not mention 30 minutes and that I'd did not mention the last group playing. I would say that scorecards should be returned promptly and without undue delay, and that the penalty would be at the TDs discretion. That also solves the issue in regards to golf start rounds.

As it happened, we didn't get the penalty we deserved as it was argued that it was to close to be certain that it was turned in late, according to the wording of the rule, even though we were probably well over 30 minutes late. Actually, as we also used metrix, it was only a question of the physical scorecards, and it was likely possible to se when the last group entered the final scores.
Had the group actually gotten the penalty we rightfully deserved, one player would not have gotten part of the last cash. For the rest it ended up it didn't matter, except for ratings I guess.

 

[Cgkdisc]

I've seen situations where the whole card should get penalized but the whole division was in that group anyway. Made no sense to penalize them. They already knew the order on their card for the next round and just needed to find out what hole they were on.

I guess their ratings would suffer with the penalty. But as a stats person, I dislike including penalties not earned during play in a player's score for ratings. They just pad the scores to inflate the ratings for others. It might be worth it to set up a way to post these type of penalties into a separate column on the PDGA results page. The totals would add up properly, but the round scores would remain intact so the ratings could be calculated properly for the whole field and the specific players based on actual play.

 

[DavidSauls]

I've seen situations where the whole card should get penalized but the whole division was in that group anyway. Made no sense to penalize them. They already knew the order on their card for the next round and just needed to find out what hole they were on.

I guess their ratings would suffer with the penalty. But as a stats person, I dislike including penalties not earned during play in a player's score for ratings. They just pad the scores to inflate the ratings for others. It might be worth it to set up a way to post these type of penalties into a separate column on the PDGA results page. The totals would add up properly, but the round scores would remain intact so the ratings could be calculated properly for the whole field and the specific players based on actual play.

Understood, but I doubt it has enough effect, in the long run, to be worth the trouble.

 

[krupicka]

I've seen situations where the whole card should get penalized but the whole division was in that group anyway. Made no sense to penalize them. They already knew the order on their card for the next round and just needed to find out what hole they were on.

Other than they were holding everyone else up in the tournament... I would contend in this case that the ratings ding is actually a good thing, sort of like an 888.

 

[Smigles]

The only time we gave out penalties for turning in scorecards late was when we made the scores, realised that we only got the cards from 17 flights and had to go to and ask the players of flight 18 (who were back and having lunch at that point) to hand over the cards.

 

[ToddL]

Luckily for me, the only events I TD these days are at a very remote course, where few people leave for lunch. Sometimes the card's in someone's pocket, but it can be found in time. I'd rather dish out a few sarcastic comments at him, than a penalty.

Cough. Cough.