dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

Metro Seniors – Year End

11/16/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

The attached PDF file at the bottom is a summary of the 2018 season for Metro Seniors. This was presented to the Board of Governors and was used for the presentation to the General Membership Meeting on Tuesday, November 13, 2018.

We have a wonderful organization in Metro St. Louis Seniors Golf Association. The organization has been blessed with strong leadership for many years. We truly stand on the shoulders of giants!

The Board and Committees are staffed by members who are dedicated and driven to make the organization stronger and better every year.

We are a volunteer organization. Many of our current leaders have been serving you for several years. Please be sure that you express your appreciation for each of them. Without them you simply would not have as much fun!

Every year we have at least 4 to 8 positions on the Board, in Committees, or in our Officers that are vacated. We are filling most roles. But, we can do more with more help. If you have ideas for improvements, you can help drive those forward. Don’t wait for us to ask. Tell your Board Directors. Tell your VP. Tell the President. Help and lead us to make your suggestions become reality.

In the next 5 years, we can expect that almost every one in current leadership will be replaced. We need some of our newer and younger members to step up NOW to be ready to lead us into the next decade.

I want a strong, viable Metro Seniors serving me and the St. Louis area in 10 and 20 years when I’m 80 and perhaps even 90.

It has been a pleasure for me to serve on the Board and as 1st VP and now President over the last 6 years. I look forward to the next few years.

The rewards are all personal:

Contributing to a exceptional organization
Making improvements for our collective future
Working with a great group of people
Extending friendships beyond your foursome

2018 YE Summary Download

Exporting Calendar

03/22/202211/07/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

CLICK HERE TO SEE MONTHLY CALENDAR

Exporting the EVENTS from the Metro Seniors Calendar to your GOOGLE Calendar is relatively easy. But like technology there are a few tricks to make sure you are getting what you want.

First – Do you have a GOOGLE account? If you do GREAT!

Perhaps you have a GOOGLE account and didn’t know. For example if you have a GMAIL account you have a GOOGLE account and you will have access to GOOGLE CALENDAR.

If you really don’t have a Google account on your PC or smartphone, STOP HERE. We will have to get another answer.

LIMITATIONS

It appears that calendar exports are limited to about 30 “events” for each export. We have 5 divisions with 26 weeks each plus Special events, and meetings and more. So if you must have a complete calendar for export, you will have to export 5 or 6 times to get everything. Essentially about once per month.

Fortunately most of you will want only 1 Division (one export) plus Special Events (1 export) . A few will want a second Division (another export).

A very few (officers?) will have a real need for the complete calendar – every event, all year. I can share the original ,cvs file(s) if you ask nicely.

SELECTING EVENTS TO EXPORT Using the FIND EVENTS and View as LIST

I only want all the weekly events for Division 1 (or any other Division) Easy. 1 export and import.

Go to the Metro Seniors Website
Click on the EVENTS menu (main menu on the page header).

By default, you will get a MONTH view calendar showing the events for the current month.

Click on the VIEW AS button and select the LIST view. You will see a list of the next 20 events (all events)
Click the SHOW EVENTS SEARCH button and as keyword type D1 (for Division 1, use D2 for Division 2 and so on)
Now Click the FIND EVENTS button
You will see a list of events (20 per page) of all events with the unique keyword D1
At the bottom of this page will be a SUBSCRIBE TO CALENDAR button, click this and 3 options are available to export the selected calendar to Google Calendar, I Calendar or Export .ics file.
Click EXPORT EVENTS and an “.ics” file will be shared to your PC. It will be in the DOWNLOADS directory used by your web browser (Chrome?, Explorer? Firefox?) The file will look something like this metro-st-louis-seniors-golf-d3e0bf2f9ba.ics

The file will have up to 30 events filtered by the keyword D1 (Division 1 Weekly) for 26 weekly events.

For Division 2, keyword is D2, Division 3 – D3, and so on including Division 9 – D9.

For Special Events, keyword is SpecEvt.

For meetings, keyword is meeting.

For Metro Plus, keyword is Metro-Plus.

NOTE – double quotes are required where sort keyword includes spaces.

You may also use the keyword to sort for courses, for example, all instances of Annbriar (search for keyword annbriar).

IMPORTING TO GOOGLE CALENDAR – you can search this in Google too.

Import events into Google Calendar
After you’ve exported your events, you can import them into Google Calendar. You can import ICS and CSV files on a computer. You can also import ICS files on an Android phone or tablet. Files exported from Metro Seniors are ICS files.

Open Google Calendar.
In the top right, click Settings Settings and then Settings.
Click Import & Export.
Click Select file from your computer and select the file you exported. The file should end in “ics” or “csv”. This will be in your DOWNLOADS directory.
Choose which calendar to add the imported events to. By default, events will be imported into your primary calendar.
Click Import.

After the import you may see a message that “xx events imported” xx = up to 30.

If you sync your smartphone with your PC these will show up on your calendars on any device.

I am not an Apple guy, but here is the description for importing into Apple.

Import ICS Calendar Files in Apple Calendar

Open Apple Calendar and navigate to the File > Import > Import… menu.
Find and highlight the desired ICS file.
Click Import.
Select the calendar to which you want the imported events added. Select New Calendar to create a new calendar for the imported schedule.
Click OK.

Events Calendar Added to Website

11/21/201811/06/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

Try this out. Make your comments and suggestions. We have some time to add more features before the 2019 season.

There is a new EVENTS menu added to the Metro Seniors Website. This is a searchable and downloadable calendar of events that currently includes:

Weekly Tournaments information for all Division 1 – 5 for 2019
Special Events Scheduled for 2019
General and Board Meetings
Notices for registration opening for Special Events

Information on each event includes:

Title (example – D1 Wk 2 Course Name, or SE – event Course Name)
Description – summary information on the event
Venue information
- Name, Address
- Cost
- Link to Google Maps
- Organizer or leader where appropriate

The staring view is the current full month calendar. To see other months simply click the next or previous month. The events will show on the date with their Title. Click on the event Title for full details of each event.

You can change the view to LIST to see the events in the current and following months.

Really powerful – the calendar is Searchable. Click FIND and put in a keyword to search all calendar events. For example, typing in Annbriar, will show all events at Annbriar (5 weekly tournaments). Type in Shotgun to see all shotgun starts listed (30 total) plus all the Special Events. D1 will find all Division 1 weekly events, D2 – Division 2 and so on.

Use quotes to search for items with spaces – example “Wk 18” will find only the events listed for Week 18 – 5 events D1 – D5. “D1 Wk18” will find only the event for Division 1 in Week 18.

In MONTH View you will see the calendar for that specific month with the searched items. In LIST View you will see the next 20 items starting with the month you selected in the Calendar. Plus you can forward to the next 20, and next 20 and so on.

The Calendar is downloadable to GOOGLE Calendars.

Having a calendar of events on your website is great. Wouldn’t it be super awesome if you could get those events into a personal calendar as well?

How to Export Events

You’re in luck. The Events Calendar PRO includes a nifty option for you to export the events on your calendar in a flash. Visit your calendar and you’ll notice a button at the bottom.

Export Events Button

Click that button and it will download the events listed on the page as an .ics file.

If you’re wondering what the heck an .ics file is, it allows you to import events into a calendar application, like Apple’s iCal or Google Calendar. For example, here are the step-by-step instructions for importing an .ics file into a Google Calendar.

Update of Forward vs Back Tees – Where is the money?

11/17/201811/04/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

Dick Jones, our Handicap Chairman, is a master at analyzing data. He just completed his annual analysis of money winnings by Forward / Back Tee Position for 2018.

The results again tell us that our handicap system does a great job of keeping the selection of Forward or Back tees fair and consistent as measured by money winnings.

In 2015 we opened tee selection for Forward or Back to all members (A-D flights). Since then the % of players moving to Forward tees has increased (as we get older?). Is more money won by Forward players? NOPE!

The data for 2015 through 2018 shows almost an identical match of % Forward Players with Money Winnings by Forward Players. This covers 8400 to almost 10,000 rounds of golf each year.

Summary Data from “Move Up Analysis”
by Dick Jones 11-2018

Year	Total Member Rounds Played	Members Playing Forward	Money Won by Forward Players
2015	8404	36.0%	39.7%
2016	8561	53.8%	49.9%
2017	9871	56.0%	53.7%
2018	9716	64.6%	62.4%

The full data includes all flights in all divisions and all courses for all these years. His database goes back to 2013.

The details for division by year show essentially the same range of %Forward, % Money Forward. As the samples get smaller the variation increases. But the trends and relationship is still very strong.

What does this mean???

You can pick Forward or Back without trying to game the system. As long as you follow the rules and report your scores correctly, your Handicap Guide will calculate a fair and virtually equivalent handicap between either of the Forward or Back tees.

Perhaps issues like weather, course conditions, and how you feel may come into play. On a cold or wet day, the ball won’t go as far; Play forward for more fun. If you have a cold, Play Forward. Just remember, your competition will be doing the same, so it is still fair.

In past posts we covered tee selection from other perspectives.

Which Tees – Forward or Back

USGA and PGA Tee It Forward program recommends tee selections by course yardage depending on your AVERAGE driving distance. Note this is not the best drive you ever made, but what you typically see on the course.

Here is a link to the PGA / USGA article. CLICK HERE

Here is some information from 2016

FYI – If you want to see ALL the data, we will be happy to share the data spreadsheet. If you like this kind of stuff, perhaps you could volunteer to analyze some of our burning questions. With 10,000 rounds each year we have a huge data base.

2018 Pace of Play Results – Divisions 1 – 5

11/17/201811/01/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

We are not seniors who play golf.

We are good golfers who happen to be seniors.

PACE OF PLAY FOR 2018

This will be a continuing process for many years. There will always be a “slowest” group and a “slowest” round. Our goals are to keep those slowest groups below 4 hours 45 minutes and to have an average pace of play of about 4:30 across all courses, starts, and players.

Tee groups and players playing at 4:30 or less are WONDERFUL!
Tee groups that stay up with the group ahead (10 minutes or less separation) are GREAT!
Tee groups that average 2:15 on each of front and back are ON TRACK!
Tee groups that are running 15 minutes per hole or less are GETTING IT DONE!
Slow groups are over 4:45 Pace AND are 15 minutes or more behind the group ahead (a hole empty ahead).
If every slow group simply played 1 minute faster per hole, everyone would have a faster round, more fun and perhaps better scores!

Ready Golf is mostly eliminating time wasters between your golf shots. Faster travel to the balls, Better cart management. Watching (and remembering) shots to eliminate ball searches. Making your shots as soon as possible and safe – no “honors”, no “order”.

2018 RESULTS
Overall Pace of Play (POP) for 2018 was quite good and still a huge IMPROVEMENT over 2016 and earlier. Our gross averages for all tee groups across all Divisions and courses to date is 4:34, slightly longer than last year (4:30) but still a 15 minute improvement as compared to 2016.

Divisions 2, 3, and 4 were at or very nearly the same POP as 2017. Divisions 1 and 5 slowed down about 5 to 10 minutes on average.

Why are we “slower” than 2017?

Wet and cold weather early in the season hurt times. Path Only conditions slow pace by about 30 minutes. Rain delays also hurt the data, but only a few outings had significant rain delays.
1 or 2 slow groups playing early in a Tee Start
Shotgun starts especially with more than 24 tee groups (lots of B tee groups).
Challenging courses (long, blind shots, deep rough, hilly) especially when coupled with shotgun starts.

2018 detailed data continues to show that an overwhelming majority of our members can and do play at pace between 4 and 4:30. All ages and physical and golf abilities have been playing quickly.

Being ready to play and staying aware are far more important than skill, age or physical capabilities in pace of play.

Only 18% of our events had average play of 4:45 of more and over 1/2 of them were Shotgun starts and difficult courses.

Unfortunately there is still a very small minority of players and groups who are playing slower than our targets. For example, only 8 players in Division 1 made up 50% of the slowest tee groups in 2018. Even they played at acceptable pace for about half of the season.

Continued effort for these members and new members added for 2019 and beyond is planned and will will be needed. Staying at pace requires continuous effort.

Each Division VP is the primary contact for his division’s Pace of Play. If you have issues or complaints especially about a slow group or player, please talk with your VP. In most cases the problems are known and action is already underway.

2019 Pace of Play Efforts

This will be a continuing process for many years. There are several improvements for handling data and reporting.

For more details by course, division, start type and more see below.

Download (PDF, 44KB)

Personnel Changes for 2019

11/17/201809/29/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

With only 1 week of play left, the 2018 18 hole season is almost in the books.

The Board of Governors and our Committees are already looking into the future for 2019. New schedules, perhaps some new courses, new opportunities, and some changes in people on the Board, Committees and in our executive positions.

Special Events Committee

Frank Mantia Retires From Special Events

Frank Mantia, Chair of Special Events for several years, has decided to leave the Chair for new opportunities, see below. With Frank in the lead, Special Events have continued to thrive and increase in quality. The Special Events Committee had developed into a strong team. We all owe Frank a big THANK YOU for his efforts.

Frank joined Division 2 in 2011 and is a member of Division 2 and also Division 5.

Frank McLaughlin New Special Events Chair

Frank McLaughin has been appointed as our new Chairman of Special Events. Frank is already getting Special Events organized for 2019. SE will continue to offer high quality outing at great courses with a focus on team play and mixing players from all divisions.

Frank joined Metro Seniors in 2013 and plays in Division 5.

The first Special Events Committee meeting for 2019 will be next week. Interested in volunteering to help a great team, contact Frank McLaughlin immediately.

Division 2 Vice President

Tom Stiern Retires

Tom Stiern, our VP of Division 2, has decided to retire as VP at the end of the 2018 season. Since 2015, Division 2 has thrived under Tom. Division 2 statistics for participation are exceptional – 70% of members are playing every week. Handicaps and net scores are the best of all divisions. Tom led the Pace of Play initiative for Division 2 getting to 4:30 in 2017 and 4:34 for 2018. Tom’s team of Starters and Scorers and his trusty assistant, Al Clarke made it all work quite well.

Tom joined Metro Seniors in 2013.

Thank You, Tom Stiern for a job well done.

Frank Mantia New VP of Division 2

Frank Mantia, quickly volunteered to take on the VP, Division 2 role. Frank will be involved immediately as part of the Tournament Committee to help guide course selections for 2019. The Tournament Committee will also guide improvements to weekly operations, including Starter/Scorer duties.

Which Tees – Forward or Back

11/17/201809/09/2018 by dlwicks@sbcglobal.net

Which tees do you chose for weekly tournaments? Does it make a difference in winning flight prizes?

Overall Metro Seniors Members have mostly chosen the FORWARD tees. 63% of rounds to date in Division 1 through 5 have been recorded from the Forward Tees.

But how did the flights choose? Summary for all Divisions:

A Flight – 33% Forward
B Flight – 60% Forward
C Flight – 75% Forward
D Flight – 87% Forward

Apparently many of you understand that FORWARD can be more fun. Compared to 2016 data, we have as much as 50% MORE members playing FORWARD in all flights. CLICK HERE TO SEE THE 2016 DATA

How about the Divisions?

Most Divisions match up closely to the overall data. The major exception – Division 2 has fewer playing forwards only 48%, Division 4 has slightly more playing forward at 71%.

If I play FORWARD, will I win more flight prizes?

NOPE! The data for prize money totals for FORWARD tees matches fairly closely to the total money distribution for each flight in each Division.

Why are prizes and net scores for Forward and Back tees so close?

The Handicap System levels the playing field. Forward Gross Scores are slightly lower as would be expected. But the Handicap is also lower.

Average Net Scores for B, C, and D Flights for Forward rounds are within 0.1 of the averages for all rounds.

Average Net Scores for A flight Forward Tees are about 0.5 more (72.8 vs 72.3). So may be a slight scoring advantage for A Flight to play from the BACK tees. This is probably due to the wider range of handicap range for A Flight (4 to 15). Significantly more 10 to 15 handicap A’s play Forward and will have higher gross and net scores.

Which Tees should I use?

Which tees make your game more fun? Which tees give you a regular opportunity for you approach shot to give you a green in regulation?

We STRONGLY recommend that all players in the C and D flights play from the FORWARD tees. You will still be competitive. You will lose fewer balls. You will have much shorter approach shots. You will have fewer trouble shots, You will play faster and feel better about your game. Is you typical drive from the tee less than 200 yards? FORWARD tees.

More FUN makes a happy player and better FELLOWSHIP!