¶ Welcome to the HAF League Wiki
HAF a league, HAF a league, HAF a league onward...
...theirs not to reason why, theirs but to golf and die.
- with apologies to Alfred Lord Tennyson
¶ Events
The December HAF League monthly outing will be held on 15 February at Desert Hawk at Pueblo West in Pueblo, CO.. If the weather doesn't cooperate, we'll be at X-Golf Colorado Springs. See the Events page for more details about this and all other upcoming outings!
¶ New (or relatively new) here?
If you're visiting the HAF League Wiki for the first time or haven't been on the site very much, there are some resources in which you might be interested to familiarize you wtih who we are, what we do and why we do it:
- The About the HAF League page will give you some background on the history of the club
- The roster page will tell you a little about our members
- The events page will give you information about our upcoming league outings
¶ News and Notes
¶ Payment for golf outings must be made in advance.**
Golf courses often require credit cards to be used to make reservations. This ensures the golf course still gets paid whether or not the reservation is used. Most golf courses will allow cancellations up to a day or two before a tee time but charge full green fees in the event of last-minute cancellations.
Going forward, when a member chooses to go to a League outing, they will need to pay the outing coordinator in advance. We have had multiple instances now where cancellations made late have cost our outing coordinators money. Because of this, we need to make a procedure change. The date for payment will be set by the coordinator for each outing. Tee times will only be made for those that have paid by the specified date. If a member needs to cancel after paying, the outing coordinator will refund the full amount paid if the coordinator has not yet paid it to the golf course or can get it back from the golf course.
¶ Adopting the USGA local rule for lost balls
The USGA defines a local rule for handling balls that a player believes to be lost or hit out of bounds. More information about the rule (called "Model Local Rule E-5" for the golf nerds) may be found on the USGA's Web site. Normally, if a ball is lost or found to have landed out of bounds, a player has to go back and play from the spot of their previous stroke with a one stroke penalty (called a stroke-and-distance penalty). With this local rule, the player can mark the spot in the fairway nearest where the ball is estimated to have been lost or gone out of bounds and drop within two club lengths of that spot for a 2 stroke penalty.
Basically, for one extra penalty stroke, with this rule the player can keep the distance of their shot and hit the next shot from the fairway. Doing so may end up being a much better outcome than hitting again from the previous spot and it will certainly save time. Accordingly, the HAF League is adopting this rule. Players may take advantage of it any HAF League outing or competition unless the tournament rules explicitly state the rule can't be used.
As described on the USGA page, it is important to note that this rule does NOT change the rules for balls hit into penalty areas (water, waste bunkers, etc.) or abnormal course conditions (immovable obstructions, standing water, ground under repair, etc.). Those situations have their own rules that have to be followed. If you have a question about this, please feel free to ask John Allen (john@zallen.org or (719) 337-6349).
¶ A Note on Handicaps
In order for us to compete with one another fairly in fun, friendly competitions, we really all need to have player handicaps. Basically, a player handicap is a way to calculate how many strokes to take off of your typical score to play at even par. If a player who is really good plays with a player that is not quite as good, the two can compete fairly if they both have player handicaps. That's because the player that is not quite as good gets to take more strokes off of their score - that player will have a higher player handicap. A minimum of 3 scores is required to calculate a player handicap. Come out and play so we can get those scores in and do some fun things (like a four ball/better ball tournament)!
¶ World Golf Handicap System and other informational videos!
For those of you for whom I have enough scores to calculate a handicap, you should already have gotten an email with your handicap under the new system. The Colorado Golf Association (the USGA association with which the HAF League is affiliated) has a video series on the changes to make all of the different handicap systems around the world into one system. There are some great changes that will affect us and the way we keep score like the net double bogey rule. Click the picture above to see the first video in this series. The CGA also has a bunch of other great videos on understanding the rules of golf, instructional videos and more. While you're on the CGA Web site, maybe check them out!
¶ Playing the right tees
To make things more fun for all of us, we've instituted a rule to decide which tees each of us should play. It is based on the distance each of us hit our 5 irons. Consistent with the USGA and PGA recommendation referred to in the article, we want to play from the right tees so we're playing to our actual abillty rather than where we think we should be. It doesn't affect handicaps at all since course handicaps are calculated based on the tees actually played. If you have questions, comments or concerns about this, please let John Allen know! Of course, in order to apply this rule, you have to know how far you hit a 5 iron, which means coming and playing. Hope to see all of you out on the links soon!
¶ Free beginner golf instruction
My (John Allen's) favorite golf instruction Web site, Me and My Golf now has a beginner basics course available for free. I reviewed it and it reminded me of a few things I had started to take for granted. For those that are still beginners (a lot of us) it has a lot of great content. If you're interested, click the image above. I've learned almost everything I know about golf from these guys. I really like their coaching style. If that's something in which you might be interested, check it out! It requires a free registration but I believe you'll find it well worth it!