Executive Courses
 

I am a full-timer. I belong to 3 different executive course golf groups - T, W, Th. I normally do not play three days a week but since I had been gone for three weeks, I decided to try to get some golf in. One group is a large singles group about 32 people. One group is a singles group about 16 people, and the third group is a foursome. All 3 groups received “not able to accommodate request” responses. And, yes they put in for several courses and 7 days ahead. Who else is seeing this?

How far ahead you put in the tee time request doesn't matter; they are all evaluated equally between midnight and 12:30AM 3 days in advance. The number of points matter; the less play in the last 7 days the greater the chances you will be assigned a tee time. Increasing the number of courses and the time window of play will also increase your chances. Adding courses that are less popular, such as Pelican, will also help. Adding the five courses south of 44 will help. There is less demand for the first 1 or 2 tee times and tee times after 4:00PM. The day of the week apparently matters; I think Sunday morning is more accessible.This time of year, if you have a group of 16, are requesting a tee time between 9:00AM and noon, and have an average of 3 points, there is a high probability that you will be denied. If your average number of points is 1 then you will probably get a tee time.

Typical for Winter.
Suggest you put in 10 or so courses. Also, in the Winter, you need to expand the test frame in which you would play, when you make your request.

Exactly! And at this time of year, I would think a group of 32 is fighting an uphill battle, the foursome not so much.

I am not at all surprised that your large groups got denied. Your foursome probably got denied because of a combination of accumulated points, and/or not enough latitude in time frame and courses.

There could be people in the group that has a lot of points. They add up all the points of everyone in the group.
So even though you may have zero points others having lots of points will spoil it for the whole group.

Whoever runs the group can be more mindful of people's points and those with more than 3 points should be left out.

I belong to golf clubs and we don't get tee times either so this time of year I usually just go out as a single which there is always something somewhere available.

Like today I playing Yankee Clipper as a single which is a hard course to get a tee time at this part of the year.

Nothing is going to stop me from feeding my golf addiction. lol.

Also, people circumvent the system by putting in people with no points and then switching the name to somebody with lots of points after they get a tee time.

The tee time system does catch up to those who abuse it but not immediately.

They could close this loophole by not allowing switching names during Jan-March.

As you stated, my understanding is that they track that type of behavior and will deal with it at some point. Some golfers also apparently purposely put in a fourth that they know is not going to play so they don't have to "play with a stranger". My wife's late spouse passed 7 years ago, yet she just found out last year that his number was still active and was being used to hold a place. She ended that post haste and hopefully the powers that be dealt with the offender.

This would not be a problem if the developer had built more courses south of 44.

It is true that anyone can play any course but if you live in Dabney and want to play at Briarwood, it is about 27 miles and will take well over 90 minutes by cart. It is a bit shorter by car but then you have to walk or rent a cart - which most people don’t do.

As far as I can tell, I think most people play within a 5 mile radius of their homes. That is unless you live south of warm springs. Then you have to travel.

I don't know how important group size is in the selection process. I suspect it is better to have smaller groups, all else being equal. However, a case could be made for selecting the larger groups first and then filling in with smaller groups, all else being equal. An analogy would be if you were trying to fit different sized objects into a box. One strategy would be to start with the largest objects first. Without seeing the actual code, it is hard to say. Regardless, if your group has a lot of points and you want to play in the morning then the probability of being denied goes up. For example, one of my groups is a foursome and an average of 3 points this time of year will get us a denial most of the time.

I believe, but not 100% sure, that the algorithm looks at average points in a group. The larger the group, the higher the chance that a few golfers have a high number of points that will bring the average up.

So, a large group would go to the front of the line and take up several prime tee times. I don't care for the sound of that.

I have been here since 2021. The only courses that have opened in those three years have been Southern Oaks and two pitch & putt courses. Not one executive course.

Does anyone know the last time they built a new executive course? I know Red and Gray Fox opened in October 2017. Were any other courses built after that?

Groundhog Day...................Must be January.

"Not enough courses"

Yeah, Loblolly, Longleaf, and Lowlands.