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One of the main responsibilities of a golf professional is to develop and maintain a “Tee Sheet” (a.k.a. Daily Tee Time Listing). I’ve been told by my staff that I’m quite the expert in designing & managing our Tee Sheet. This is probably a result of my experiences at busy daily fee, resort and private golf clubs through the years.

You’re probably thinking to yourself, what’s the big deal… it’s just a list of daily tee times…? Believe me, if this were the case I’d have a lot more free time on my hands throughout year, and I’d carry less stress! I’d like to offer some insight as to what goes into the process of developing a daily Tee Sheet and how we manage each day based on the Tee Sheet design.

I’ve already begun on the process of designing our 2017 Tee Sheets. I have three major goals in mind when designing Tee Sheets #1 – Maximize the number of available tee times, #2 – create proper on-course flow and #3 – make the Tee Sheets work for all departments involved. Here are some factors I consider when in production mode:

• Allowing ground maintenance enough time each morning to prep the course before play

  • This means meeting Head Grounds Keeper Steve Malloy on a regular basis

• Accommodating 18 & 9 hole tee times

• Split-tee days (starting off both 1^st and 10^th tee) & blocking turn times

• Afternoon 9 hole leagues that must play a different 9 each week

• Pre-booked outing shotguns & tee time groups

• Assigning green fee rates for each tee time

I encourage my golf staff to treat each day’s Tee Sheet as an empty canvas ready to be filled through proper preparation, management and eager golfers.

Now for the daily management of the Tee Sheets… Daily management of the Tee Sheet, especially on days with 250+ golfers, has a lot of moving parts and if not correctly managed can lead to a disastrous series of events. To correctly manage our daily Tee Sheet here are some steps we take:

• Printing paper copies of the Tee Sheets for the Starter and Ranger

• Ensuring the Starter is getting groups tee’d off on-time – “Staying On-Time”

• Ensuring the golf shop staff is checking golfers in correctly

• Updating the Tee Sheet with new booking taken over the phone & cancellations

• Pairing up groups with less than 4 golfers on busy days

• Tracking the pace of play based on actual starting times

• Making sure turn times are being met on-time if we send golfers off the opposite 9

• And even communicating with the F&B Department as to when golfers will start to arrive

A Tee Sheet can take many forms and they’ve been around from the start of the game. The most popular Tee Sheet type today is the Electronic Tee Sheet… using computer software.

Candia Woods & The Oaks use the same computer software to maintain our Tee Sheets. A few years back we made a change in our software provider that allowed us many new aged capabilities, such as:

• Booking tee times on either course from either location

• On-Line Tee Times with greens fee and cart fees rates published for each time

• 24/7 Tee Sheet on-line access for me when I’m not on property (this helps when I’m away fishing :).

Given our business levels at both clubs using an Electric Tee Sheet is a necessity

Next in line in popularity are the Paper Tee Sheets… paper & pencil.

The Paper Tee Sheets are more commonly used at private clubs. I remember one day during a PGM internship my Head Pro asked me to handwrite 12 months’ worth of tee sheets, that’s 365 days of Tee Sheets but who’s counting? Can you say writer’s cramp, but it was valuable experience gained!

                  Last but not least are the Ball Rack “Tee Sheets”… Ball Rack and golf balls.

                  Not widely used, the “Ball Rack” works based on a first come, first serve basis. One golfer from each group puts a ball into the Ball Rack. The order of the balls coming out of the Ball Rack determines the group order of play on the 1^st tee. Can you imagine using this at The Oaks or Candia Woods on a busy day? Hahahahaha, no thank you!

The Oaks’ Tee Sheets are always on my mind because they change constantly throughout the year, month, day, hour & minute! So call us, book on-line or stop by in person to claim your spot on one of my Tee Sheets! There’s still time to play, get out here!

Hit’em Straight, but not often!

Your Oaks PGA Pro,

Shaun Bishop