STMGC PACE OF PLAY POLICY REVISIONS

The Board continues to look at the POP Policy and make adjustments based on member feedback and data. As you know, the last modification changed the placement of the penalty determination from the 18^th Hole to the 16^th Hole. The 18^th Hole time was still recorded, but not used to determine penalties.

Member Rob Cuffia made the suggestion to use both clocks when determining penalties. A group would need bad times at BOTH LOCATIONS to incur a POP penalty. So an untimely incident that affects your time will not automatically result in a POP Penalty. With the second timed location, a group has a chance to make up for a delay beyond their control (i.e., searching for a lost ball, having a bad hole requiring a lot of time, determining a Rules situation, etc.). The Board adopted Rob’s recommendation. This overcomes the weakness of having only one snapshot of a group’s performance. If a group has two bad times, the worst time will be used to determine the magnitude of the penalty.

Coupled with this change, starting in January 2010, the clock on Hole 16 will be moved to Hole 13. This is done to provide a more accurate picture of a group’s overall pace of play during the round, not just at the end of the round.

With the use of two timed locations, any member with POP Points can now earn a Point Deduction at both locations. So a player with 2 or more POP Penalty Points can earn 2 Deduction Points in one round. This encourages a positive POP performance for those with Penalty Points.

A previous modification was to bank Reward Points for exceptional POP performance (finishing within 8 minutes of the previous group). A group can only earn 1 Reward Point per round, but the maximum ceiling for earning Reward Points has been removed (it had been capped at 2 points).

As before, any penalty can be appealed to the POP Chairman, who is identified on the tournament rule sheet.

Has the POP Policy made a difference? The charts below shows the club’s POP performance before and after the POP Policy went into effect this year. Be aware of your POP. Our performance depends on each individual taking responsibility for his group’s performance.