Craig Carothers

2019 Championship Qualification Report

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The Championship Qualification Report, listing the top 75 qualifiers in each of the 4 Metro Seniors Brackets, is now being produced after each Division’s weekly results are published. During the earlier part of the year, the report was only produced after results of all 5 Divisions (1-5) were recorded for a week.

The Qualification report is the 2nd report listed under each Division on the Weekly Results Directory. The 1st report listed will be the actual qualifiers, once the 18th week of qualifying is completely recorded. At that time, the title will be changed into a “link” that can be clicked on to get the report of the final qualifiers.

At any time, you can go directly to the Weekly Reports Directory, by entering https://ourgolfstats.com/ms_weekly_results_dir2019.php directly in your web browser, or creating a desktop shortcut for this address. Next year, the address will end in dir2020.php. Last year it ended in dir2018, etc.

Instructions for how to qualify for the Championship, are listed at the top of the report.

Roster Pictures Now Available

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Pictures taken at the March 11, 2019 Metro Seniors General Meeting have now been added to the Rosters on OurGolfStats.com for Divisions 1-5. OurGolfStats.com is the website used by Metro Seniors for Handicap Administration. We now have 311 pictures, or 48% of our Division 1-5 membership, on the Rosters. To view pictures of the other members of your Division, just log into your Division with the Metro Seniors password (which is metro) and choose menu option #1 – Member Content Roster, Handicaps and Flights.

Double check your ID on the Roster. A few getting their pictures taken gave us the wrong ID. Don’t make an error with your ID when you sign your scorecards. Additionally, a couple of times people got out of the picture taking sequence in the line, so make sure we have the correct picture with your name!!

Familiarize yourself with other members of your Division. In particular, seek out our new members, introduce yourself, and even play a few rounds with one or more of our new members. The social aspects of the game of golf are an important part of belonging to a large organization such as ours.

Division 3 vs Division 5 2-Person Scramble Challenge Results

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The results from the July 5, 2018 tournament at Columbia Bridges are in.  The course won, as only 1 team could shoot par – rare for a scramble.  Thanks to terrific money management by Tournament Committee Chairman Bill Molz, we were able to provide prize money to 2/3 of the teams playing.  Steve Tighe, Rick Hines, Craig Carothers, and Gary Maule rounded out the committee.  PRIZE MONEY WILL BE ON THE END-OF-YEAR METRO SENIORS PRIZE CHECKS.  Team finish and prize amounts are on this spreadsheet.  

Read more

Access to OurGolfStats.com – UPDATE

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Our handicap website was moved to a different hosting service over the off season and last year access problems have been eliminated.  Here is a quick reminder of how to get on this website:

  1. type ourgolfstats.com into your browser.  You can also use www.ourgolfstats.com.  And, you can use either http: at the beginning of your browser line or https:  The “s” stands for a “secure” connection.
  2. In the upper right corner, click on the “Member Login” button.  Early in 2018, this page of the website was optimized for smart phone users, so it looks a little different than in the past.  Smart phone users can get to the Menu by touching the icon that is 3 horizontal lines (also known as the “hamburger” icon).
  3. On the Log In screen, click (or touch) in the rectangle with the down arrow to get a list of leagues using these handicap services.  Choose, by clicking or touching, Metro St Louis Seniors Division _  –  which ever division you are in.  Press or click on Enter.
  4. Type the password for your Division.  This should be in the Membership Directory.  Press Enter.
  5. After the successful Login, click or press on the link to your Division’s page.
  6. Under the picture can be found the menu items:  #1 is the Roster, #2 is the Course Handicaps, etc.

Look around the website and see what all is available to you.

Photos Now Posted on Rosters on OurGolfStats.com

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57 new and existing members had their photo taken at the March General Meeting.  These photos have now been posted on each division’s Roster (Menu item #1 after logging in to the OurGolfStats.com website).  Metro Seniors uses this website for handicap administration, posting the weekly winners and posting top qualifiers each week for the Metro Seniors Championship Tournament.  Instructions for accessing OurGolfStats are not in this year’s membership Directory, but can be found on this website by clicking on the link in this sentence.

Use these photos.  Pick out new members and introduce yourself to them.  Learn who the other members of your Division are – and members of the other Divisions.  Beside having tee times set for you at a variety of courses, meeting other golfers is one of the best advantages of membership in our organization.  Again, use these photos to learn who our members are and make everyone feel welcome.

Division Challenge – Team Competition

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For several years, Division 3 and Division 5 have played a tournament as a “Division Challenge”.  This Division Challenge, or team format, explained below, uses the same scoring process as high school and college cross-country team competitions.  Applied to golf, this can be used to pit an unlimited number of teams against each other.  The teams can be made up of individual competitors, 2-person scrambles, 4-person scrambles, best ball, “Ryder Cup”, or any other golf competition.

Scoring is simply as follows.  The top finisher gets a score of 1.  The 2nd place gets a score of 2;  3rd place a 3, etc.  Before the event, it is decided how many finishers on each team make up the team score.  If there is a tie, for example for 15th place, then both get a 15 and the next finisher gets a 17.

In the attachment of the results of the 2017 Division 3 and Division 5 competition, we counted the top 10 finishers from each team (in this case, the teams were 2-person scrambles).  Two finishers tied for 15th.  We then added up the scores of the top ten finishers and Division 5 won with only 102 points to Division 3’s 107 total – very close.

One of the interesting features of this type of scoring is that finishers from one team, who do not count in the scoring, can actually push the other teams scoring higher.  In the example above, Division 5’s 10th finisher got a score of 19 and Division 3’s 10th finisher got a score of 20.  If Div. 3’s 10th finisher had finished 19th and pushed the Division 5 finisher to 20th, the total score would have been 103 to 105 – extremely close.  Additionally, if Division 3’s 11th, 12th and 13th finisher had beaten Division 5’s 10th place finisher and pushed that person’s score on up to 23rd, Division 3 would have won 105 to 106.

One of the terrific and unique qualities for this team scoring is that these 20th to 30th finishers are just as important to the final score as 1st and 2nd.  It truly is a team event.

If you are interested in adding a Metro Seniors Special Event for 2019 that would be team based like this – maybe 5 Divisions? – then let your Special Event Committee representatives know your thoughts on this.

Download (PDF, 237KB)

 

2018 Championship Tournament Brackets

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The Championship Tournament for Metro Seniors is split into 4 “Brackets”, each one representing 25% of the total membership in Divisions 1 through 5 as of January 31.  All Metro Seniors members are required to renew their membership for the next year by December 31.  Then, each year on January 31, after all the renewals have been processed, the handicap index (or handicap guide as it is called in OurGolfStats.com) for all members are reviewed, and the lowest 25% determine the range for Bracket 1, the next lower 25% determine Bracket 2 range, etc.

These Brackets, unlike the Flights in each Division, do not change each week.  They are set for the year.  Golfers handicap guides may change after each time that they play, but these ranges for identifying the Brackets for qualifying for the Championship Tournament, do not change during the year.

Where one stands in qualifying for the Championship Tournament can be found by accessing the Weekly Results Directory for 2018 and clicking on the Championship Qualification link.  The top 75 qualifiers in each Bracket are listed on that report.  The report is updated weekly after the results of the Division tournaments are posted.  One must play at least 10 times in the first 18 weeks of the season in order to actually qualify.

For 2018, the handicap guide ranges for the 4 Brackets are as follows:  

Download (PDF, 93KB)

2018 Schedule now on OurGolfStats.com

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The 2018 schedule for each of the 5 Metro Seniors 18 hole Divisions has now been entered into the OurGolfStats database. You can review (and print, if you wish) your Division’s schedule after you sign in to your Division and select menu option #5 (Schedule) on your Division specific page.

Until January 1, the Schedule will contain dates for both 2017 and 2018. The Schedule on OurGolfstats documents:

  1. which golf course you play on what date
  1. the time the tournament starts
  1. whether that tournament is a “shotgun” start – or not. For the shotgun tournaments, all golfers start at this time (but, be at the course no later than 45 minutes before the time as all golfers are checking in with the Starters at the same time). Also, for non-shotgun tournaments, checking in with the Starters ends 1 HOUR after this posted time. This 1 hour window is new this year so remember this change.
  1. which tees are the “regular”, “forward” and “ladies” tees for the day
  1. what the yardage, tee rating and slope are for each of the tees being played. All tee ratings and slopes are reviewed before the season starts by the Metro Seniors Handicap Committee. Changes will be made at that time as the Committee determines.

If you are interested in how many strokes are subtracted from your score to calculate your “Net Score”, you can find that information from menu option #2 (Course Handicap) on your Division specific page. This number may change every week since the tee rating and slope changes each week and each golfer’s handicap is updated after every round.

Results – Div 3 vs. Div 5 2-person Scramble

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The much anticipated Division 3 vs. Division 5 2-person scramble was played July 6, 2017 at Columbia Golf Club. Mark Christian, Fred Horner and Bob Zaruba coordinated a fun event, including a terrific meal afterwards. Pitchers of beer flowed freely thanks to Ron Pierson’s hole-in-one on #16.

By the most narrow margin, Division 5 managed to squeak by Division 3 in the Division competition. Strong finishes by Div 5 “B” flight golfers provided the difference in an extremely close match, where a change in 3 or 4 strokes from the 88 golfers could have changed the outcome of the match. Results of the Division competition and the 2-person scramble competition, prize money and closest-to-pin winners, are shown in the pdf spreadsheet attached to this post.

A short note about the Div vs. Div scoring: Essentially, all scramble teams are ranked by their net score. The team the finishes first, gets a 1, the team finishing second gets a 2, etc. until at least 10 teams from each Division has been given their overall ranking. These numbers are then added for each Division and the LOWEST total wins. This scoring is how cross-county teams compete. It works with any number of competitors and teams. One result of this scoring is that the 20th place finishing team is just as important in winning overall as the first place finishing team – resulting in real team competition, not just reliance on the top finishers. For our Div 3 vs. Div 5 competition, we decided arbitrarily to just score the top 10 teams from each Division. Div 5 won with a 102 total to Division 3’s 107 total. If we had determined to score the top 15 teams from each Division, Div 3 would have won, 221 to 254. In this “cross-country” scoring, the more 2-person scramble teams that you have, the greater chance you have at winning. Perhaps next year, we will have more than 44 scramble teams.

Download (PDF, 18KB)

Handicaps in 2 Metro Seniors Divisions

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A number of golfers play in 2 18-hole Divisions of Metro Seniors. If you do this, you will have a separate handicap for each Division. You do not have to establish the handicap in the 2nd Division with 3 rounds played before you are eligible for Net Score prize money.

When you first sign up for the 2nd Division, either let Membership know, or let CustomerService@OurGolfStats.com know, that you would like your Metro Seniors handicap “grandfathered” into the new Division. Since we already have a record of how you play, we will use that history to set you up with a handicap and flight in the new Division.

To enroll in another Division, you will need to pay another membership fee. If you are interested in this, the Membership Committee can assist in answering any questions on the details of enrollment.

If you are just transferring from one Division to another, that needs to take place before the season starts. Again, Membership can handle that for you.