[zcaveman]

Not exactly correct. The premium tee time you refer to is actually a priority membership and is only applicable on the championship courses.

Here is a writeup I sent out to my groups:

What are points? Points are used to provide golf tee times to all players on an equitable basis. Without the points system, some golfers would use up all of the tee times and some golfer would never get to play - especially in the busy months. The Golf Office provides the rules that determine points and their application in the Tee Time system.

How are points calculated? Every time you play golf in the Villages you are charged a point or a percentage of a point. If you make a request and the reservation falls outside of your scheduled time by an hour or more you will only be charged .8 or .9 points. If you make a reservation you are charged a full point. If you cancel a tee time more that 24 hours before playing, you are charged a full point (regardless of the .8 or .9 you would have been charged if you had played). If you cancel a tee time within 24 hours of the scheduled tee time, you are charged two points. If you do not show up, you are charged three points. If you get a replacement to play for you, you will also be charged three points. The one and two point charges are also enforced if you substitute a player within the above mentioned periods.

The purpose of points is to make sure that everyone has a chance to play. The additional "fines" are to make sure you are not abusing the system.

The points are assessed separately by championship and executive course play. Points are assessed for the current seven day periods.

How do points work? Whenever you put in a request for a tee time, the total number of points in your group is a factor in the scheduling. For example, there are four people in your group and between the four of you, your group has a total of 10 points. The total number of points (10) is divided by the number of players (4) and you have a group total of 2.5 points. Now let's say that there are six groups vying for a tee time. The tee time system puts the six groups in order by the group point number. If there are two teams with less than 2.5 points one of them would get the tee time over you. If there are two teams with more than 2.5 points then you would get the tee time before them. If there is another team with 2.5 points, the system "randomly" picks one of the two teams to be next.

AARRG!! What to do!!!

How do you work with the point assessment? To work with the point assessment, you need to set a large enough "window" to give you a sufficient number of tee time slots to negate the point assessment. During a one hour period, there are seven tee times on any one course (60 minutes divided by tee times scheduled 8 minutes apart). If you have a four hour window on one course, you have 28 chances of getting a tee time on that course. If you add five more courses to the mix, you now have 140 chances of getting a tee time. Remember that you still have 2.5 points in your group and you are competing against a multitude of people requesting a tee time.

As you can see, by selecting more courses and making a larger window, you improve your chances of getting a requested tee time.

If the courses are closed for inclement weather or frost, etc, no one scheduled for a tee time during that period will be assessed a point.

Hope this helps.