Youth in Blind Draw Doubles Tournaments

[holsinger]

This has turned into a hot button issue in our area. Was wanting to get some outside thoughts. Should youth players be included in the main draw? Should they have their own division if enough are there? Should the parent or sibling be automatically assigned to team up? All questions that have been asked. How would you handle traveling an hour or so & drawing a youth partner? Thanks for any input.

[smitty]

Depends on the age of the kid. We have a couple of kids 8th and 9th grade that I would take on my team without skipping a beat. They both can contribute and are good players. They also both come to league and play once in a while. These same kids use to come to league with several other of their buddies a few years ago. Before they could help and contribute.

At that time we would either let them play along side us, team up and play along side us, or send them on their own way to play. Many people didn't like the idea of being teamed up with them. Those same people would be extremely happy to get them now.

I would say if they aren't going to be able to hang yet, they should be allowed to play, just not be part of the actually league.

[Schoen-hopper]

Depends on age / skill level. We keep handicaps in the ACDGC. We give 1 or 2 extra strokes depending on the skill level. Women always get an extra stroke regardless of skill level.

[Swede]

I guess I'm curious why someone who knew they couldn't contribute would want to pay to get into doubles. Smitty's recommendation to let them play along but not part of the doubles makes sense.

Otherwise you could...
establish alt tees
or a generic stroke handicap for kids or the bottom few players
or at least split the field into pros and ams??

or encourage those kids to bring their friends so they can have their own division.

[holsinger]

Thanks for the reply's! Some good thoughts and ideas there. I'll forward these on to the folks in my area who are dealing with this dilema. Thanks again.

[Boomer9time]

We have a list of generic handicaps. For example: on our simple course I have a par of 52 and the jr that plays with us is 68. When we are partnered up we combined to have a par half way between the handicaps. (60) We always have several of the holes out of 18 that play alt shot/ alt drive to make sure the handicaps are brought into play.
Handicap is always a even number and split the difference for par.

We started this to regardless of who were partnered that same would always win just cause they could shoot better by themselves. Now if you play really good that night you are in the money!