Claremont Golf Club

Northern Hobart's Premier Course

Procedures For Handling Non-Returned Score Cards in the Case of a Player who USUALLY Returns Their Card

 

This is the advice we have received from Golf Australia on how to handle the situation where a player does not return a card.

 

Where a player (who usually returns their card (ie this covers the vast majority of players)) fails to return a score after playing a competition round, their round should be processed through GOLF Link with one of the following three score status options:

 

‘No Score – Approved’

 

This option is to be chosen where a player fails to return a score as a result of the player’s experience of any of  the following being considered by the committee in charge of the competition to be of reasonable significance:

 

(a)         Illness.

(b)         Injury.

(c)         Emergency.

(d)         Bad weather. (Note: In this context, ‘bad weather’ does NOT generally need to be of such intensity as to warrant a suspension or cancellation of play. If some players are willing to continue does not mean it is necessarily unreasonable in this context for others to cease. Competition committees should be reasonably understanding in determining when weather is considered to be ‘bad’. It should be remembered that club golfers play the game as a recreation.)

(e)         Some other impinging condition or circumstance considered valid by the committee in charge of the competition.

 

‘No Score – Not Approved’

 

(a)         This option is to be chosen when the player fails to return their card for a reason which is not approved by the committee in charge of the competition and where the committee does NOT deem the player to have been likely to have had a GOOD score).

(b)         This will cover the vast majority of cases in which a player who generally ‘does the right thing’ has failed to return a score card. We believe the vast majority of golfers try to ‘do the right thing’.

(c)         This will result in GOLF Link automatically deeming the player’s handicap differential for that round to be the equivalent of the worst handicap differential of the player’s most recent (before the penalty score is added) 19 handicap differentials.

 

‘Disqualified’ (accompanied by the listing of a score)

 

(a)         This option is to be chosen when the player fails to return their card for a reason which is not approved by the committee in charge of the competition and where the committee DOES deem the player to have been likely to have had a GOOD score. (Note: A committee has complete discretion in the determination of whether a non-return will have been either a good or bad score – for a player to avoid being allocated a penalty score moving forward, they only need to return their score card at the completion of every round.)

(b)         The score the Club needs to enter for the round in question (in addition to choosing the ‘Disqualified’ Score Status option) is a value that is equivalent to the best handicap differential of the player’s most recent (before the penalty score is added) 19 handicap differentials.

(c) Whilst clubs are permitted to adopt a general rule deeming all non-returned cards to be ‘good’ scores, strong consideration should be given to the distortionary effect adding low scores can have to the handicap of a player who very rarely fails to return a card (and the vast majority of players fall into this category). Particularly as it is most likely that such a player will have had a ‘poor’ score. However, a club may consider such an outcome will serve as an effective catalyst for lessening the general incidence of failure to return scores.

(d) For handicapping purposes, the score is treated in exactly the same fashion as if the player had not been disqualified.

 

 

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