Compare Local Amateur Tours

[BowmanvilleJim]

I've always been interested in playing on one of the many local am tours. Each one using it's own method of handicapping etc.

I would like to hear some reviews from people who have played on one.

Was it well run?
Were the courses worth the cost?
Was it competitive or did you feel that you where getting sandbagged?
Was it weekday or weekend?

[hogannut]

I played on Great Lakes last year. Although they did a good job running the event, their administration had issues. Out of the 5 events I played in 4 of them did not have the tee times posted by 5 p.m. on Friday for a Saturday event. Because I don't have intrenet at home I was forced to call the courses and all the course could do was to give the tee times that were blocked but didn't necessarily have my specific time, so I found myself having to show up 3 hours before my time to ensure I wouldn't be late. There was never an appology by Great Lakes for this.

The last event I played we were the first group off. They put out 3 somes except for us which was a 4 some. On the first hole we needed a ruling and it took 10 minutes for a Great Lakes official to get there to make the ruling. The next 17 holes we were practically followed by the golf course police and were told to play faster on almost every shot. Then after the round our group was read the riot act by Great Lakes regarding slow play, even though we actually made up 5 minutes on the front 9 as we were 20 minutes behind after the first hole (10 of those minutes we were just waiting for the official) and 15 minutes behind after 9.

When you put out a 4 some as the first group of the day in a tournament that is all 3 somes of course there is going to be slow play. I didn't appreciate being spoken to like a 14 year old junior getting chewed out by the local pro, considering it was Great Lakes choice to put the 4 some out first instead of last, and that it took 10 minutes for the official to drive down the first fairway. After that last tournament I decided I would try another tour, and have signed up for Duffers Dream this year.

Duffers Dream's events are weekends or weekdays. A little cheaper during the week.

[corchard]

After that last tournament I decided I would try another tour, and have signed up for Duffers Dream this year.

Duffers Dream's events are weekends or weekdays. A little cheaper during the week.

Devon does a great job with Duffers Dream tour. The events are centered around a max 40 min drive from burlington which makes it a bit of drive from the east end of Toronto. There were a few of us making the drive from newmarket, scarborough...

I'll be back in 2007.

[hogannut]

Thanks for the insight. I was truly impressed from what I saw in the web site. Looking forward to the events this year.

[BowmanvilleJim]

hogannut thanks for the eval. I'm actually surprised to hear that about The Great Lakes Tour. It appears they are trying to position themselves as a "real" tour and not just a fun tour for amateurs of all handicap levels.
I would have thought they would make every effort to be professional.

[Toughpar3]

I played almost all the events in 2006 on the Golftown Tour, which were either on a monday or tuesday. I'm looking forward to playing it again in 2007.

Was it well run?

Absolutely. I always knew who I was playing with and the tee time well in advance. They had a well organized tour, very professional. Any time I had questions via email they responded right away. There was one event where they incorrectly charged me for the tournament fee but they quickly reversed the charge.

Were the courses worth the cost?

There is definitely a premium above the regular priced green fee. However the potential to win some great prizing both if you play well or not makes it worth it. The other cool aspect is that they have a few private clubs on the schedule (Georgian Bay, Cedarbrae, Devils Pulpit, Wildfire, and Whitevale). They even publish results in Fairways magazine, which I think is a really nice touch.

Was it competitive or did you feel you were getting sandbagged?

They keep an eye on the handicaps people enter to prevent sandbagging. I was in the B flight (handicaps from 11 - 15) and I always felt it was competitive. Players in my flight would need to shoot near the 11 handicap range to be in contention, but of course this would vary depending on the course conditions.

[hogannut]

hogannut thanks for the eval. I'm actually surprised to hear that about The Great Lakes Tour. It appears they are trying to position themselves as a "real" tour and not just a fun tour for amateurs of all handicap levels.
I would have thought they would make every effort to be professional.

i went with Great Lakes last year upon a recommendation by the pro at one of the courses I play frequently. He too was surprised to hear about my experiences. I am not sure if they handle their "pro" events the same and maybe it was learning curve for Great lakes working with players of all abilities, but they should have been better prepared.

[Toughpar3]

I think another reason it can be tricky comparing tours is because you always have to compare "apples to oranges" - what I mean by this is that the course schedules you have to compare are different.

Assuming the product/service is exactly the same the only difference then becomes service and price. Having worked in an industry that is highly specialized with a handful of players offering a similar product, clients most often favored doing business with a company that provided great service over saving a few dollars. Mind you, price wise, you still have to be competitive with the market.

As an example to compare tours based on price alone, I was able to compare tournament fees on two of the Tours for the same course by using 2006 and 2007 actual data. I still admit this is not a fair comparison because the product/service offered, IMHO, is not the same on both Tours. Sponsors, prizes, draws for participation, tournament dates, courses, players you compete with and application of handicaps are all different (i.e flights).

Anyhow, here goes:

Course - Grey Silo
Golftown Tour: $115 (includes cart)
Duffers Dream Tour: $65 (cart extra)

Course - Hunters Pointe
Golftown Tour: $125 (cart ?)
Duffers Dream Tour: $100 (includes cart)

Course - Legends of Niagara
Golftown Tour: $299 (2 day event, golf, cart, range and banquet on 2nd day)
Duffers Dream Tour: $100 (1 day event, golf, cart, range)

Between the tours above, if you want to go on price alone then I'd say the decision is simple. If you value other factors aswell then you have to be able to decide for yourself if they are worth it to you. For myself, I decided against joining the Great Lakes Tour because I didn't like the course schedule, and same reason for the GAO public player tournaments schedule. I also liked the amount of prizing on the Golftown Tour tournaments and the products offered in my registration package. It made the fee I paid for registration not as painful! :D

[corchard]

Always your choice. I'll provide the Duffers Dream tour experience.

The $25 /round saving you get with Duffers dream tour is significant over a golfing season. I did the math for the 2006 season and it saved me about $300 (Can you say another 4 rounds). Duffer's dream tour always provides you the option of getting a cart, it just isn't automatically included unless specified by the course. Range balls were included for every event I can remember. The prizes for long drive, closest to the pin were good not great. The end of year banquet which is included in the registration fee is where all of the goodies really get good. I scored a free foresome at Kings Forest as well as a bunch of other stuff.

If you want to play competitively against scratch golfers all the time then Duffer dream tour isn't for you. If you want a relaxed well run Operation then I would say it is.

Charles

[Toughpar3]

If you want to play competitively against scratch golfers all the time then Duffer dream tour isn't for you. If you want a relaxed well run Operation then I would say it is.
Charles

$100 for a round at Ushers with cart, range AND the banquet (steak dinner? mmmm), and some prizes! Wow, that is definitely a great deal! I'm curious as to what you mean by "relaxed" operation though?

I would say the GolfTown Tour is competitive (in a fun way) since you are playing against others of similar handicap. Everyone plays fair and to the best of everyones knowledge of the rules including how to take penalty strokes. As far as I have seen, everyone also putts out...no 2 foot gimmies etc.. I played in one event where a player missed his 1 foot putt...and he of course counted his extra stroke, as he should.

I played in the B flight which is the 11 - 15 handicap group so there were never any scratch golfers I competed with/paired up with. I can't speak about the other Tours, but in the Golftown Tour I really liked how everyone in the same flight was always grouped together and prizes were awarded to the top 3 in each flight, at each event!

We were sent off in threesomes (at the most) and at each event we always had 25 to 40 guys competing in the B flight alone (in 2006 there were 3 flights in total). I hope you don't have the impression that only scratch golfers play on the Golftown Tour. ;)

In 2007, a 4th flight was added. The flights players can enter are:

1. Championship (hdcp 0- 5),
2. A Flight (hdcp 6 - 10),
3. B Flight (hdcp 11 - 15), and
4. C Flight (hdcp 16 - 22)

[corchard]

Cool sounds like a good tour. You won't change my mind though :) By relaxed I mean relaxed. I never saw any rules infractions. If a rules situation comes up, play two balls (one under each interpretation) to finish out the hole and let the convenor sort it out in the club house before you sign your card. No one ever though about taking or giving a gimmie.

At Whistle bear I had to take provisional balls on 7 of the first 9 holes. The only comment was "you must be getting tired by now."

[Toughpar3]

...The only comment was "you must be getting tired by now."

lol :) ....

We did a similar "play a provisional ball" rule too. They also had a paid rules guy driving around in case you wanted a ruling on something a group wasn't sure about. Ok, I guess for a second I thought somehow you meant the "scoring" was relaxed. It sounds like both tours operate similar in that aspect, no gimmies etc. :D .

Maybe when the season starts we should compare length of rounds. I'll keep a log of my start/finish times and maybe others can do the same on the other tours?

That seems to be one of the biggest complaints on amateur tour golf in general. The Golftown tour is implimenting a new system with the goal being to have all rounds completed within 4:15 and 4:30 hours. Hopefully it works.