2019 Howell Park Thursday Flight
the nastiest hole at howell... good thing we hardly ever play it...

Welcome to the 2019 Howell Park Thursday flight! This package contains most of the information that you'll need to get started, including the schedule and the first week's pairings. Here are some other important details:

• In Memoriam: Tragically, we lost a good friend just as we were gearing up to hit the links again. Jim Lowing left us unexpectedly, way, way too soon. Jim and Tom joined us back in 2011 (holy crap! it's been that long?) and, frankly, we found them a little stiff. We had long since given up playing "extra holes" in favor of dashing to the bar or hanging at Andy's and Bruce's tailgate party, and along came these pretend real golfers.... Jim, anyway, spent the next eight years kicking our asses, even after they loosened up and discovered the evils of Wings and Yings. After 30 years of hacking away in Howell Park Thursday, Jim remains one of only four members in our hole-in-one club. Thanks for a great run!
• Schedule: The first night of play will be May 9th, at Howell, unless the course is closed. The first match parings are here. You can click on the value in your handicap column to see your handicap sheet. We will definitely slip July 4th.
• Web-Site: The League's official web-site is http://www.hogolf.net - feel free to drop by and look around. Weekly match results, and statistics, will get posted at the flight's web-site. I've patched up most of the previous years' pages so that results, stats, etc, are accessible, but do report dead links if you encounter them.
• League Fees/Prizes: No Fees. No Prizes. Less work for me. This option is so attractive to me that I'll pay the web-hosting fee all by myself!
• 2018 Flight Championship: The 2018 Flight Championship was won by Ken and Henry Ney. Again. Mike Patrick (after years of getting progressively worse) won the Most Improved award. It is a tried and true formula, provided you can actually improve. A small flight history is available. This includes links to previous years' pages.
• Release Forms: Release forms are still downloadable, but I just throw them out, so why bother???
• League Rules: The rules package is available at the League's web-site. Golf within the flight is governed by the USGA Rules of Golf, except as amended by our local rules. We observe several additional local rules:
  • we will not enforce the 2-stroke doubling penalty - but get subs if you can.
  • we play all the wooded perimeter and waist high fescue areas as lateral hazards.
  • we allow no more than 3 minutes to look for a last ball - this becomes the USGA rule in 2019.
  • we are allowed to remove loose impediments in sand bunkers - this becomes the USGA rule in 2019.
  • we establish quad bogey as the maximum score allowed for a hole, regardless of how it may impact a match.
  • we give putts! (within reason... don't make a mockery of the handicap system!!!)
  • we don't take handicaps down to decimal points to determine A & B players - the team with identical (rounded) handicaps gets to choose, or flip a tee!

  Remember, decisions on who are the A & B players, as determined on the 1st tee, are final - even if a subsequent review of handicaps suggests otherwise! How many arguments has this started in the past? Too many to count....

  Please Note: The rules regarding attendance and it's impact on flight selection are being strictly enforced this year!!!

• Handicaps: The maximum 9-hole handicap this year is still 19. Some of us are getting closer!
• Match Results: All I need from you is the score card after your match. You can give me the card at the course, at the bar (see below), or give me the hole-by-hole scores via e-mail (in plain text, not a spreadsheet, white-space delimited, not dashes or commas or whatever) the morning following play. If there's any doubt, make sure you indicate who played against whom!!! I'll accept legible photos of your scorecard, e-mailed to my usual account (don't try to text them, I'll just lose it!).
• Match Rescheduling: We all lead complicated lives, and occaisionally need to miss a match. Here are your options, roughly in the order you should consider them:
  • Get a substitute.
  • Partner doubles.
  • Reschedule. For all practical purposes, the window for this is 6 days before the original match date to 6 days after. Plan to play early, so you've still got options if the first date doesn't work out.
  • Available team plays as scheduled, unavailable team matches cards with next scheduled match.
  • Available team plays as scheduled, unavailable team plays on a different night.
  • Both teams match cards with next scheduled match.
  • Remember - you cannot match cards for matches 7 and 15, and you cannot match cards two weeks in a row.
• Tee Times: The county courses are using an internal park system Tee-Time Reservation System to reserve tee-times. The number is (732) 758-8383. You will need to be in possession of a vaild (unexpired) county golf I.D. card (or equivalent non-resident golf I.D. card) to use the service. Cards good for two years are available this year. It is my understanding that reservation service rules infractions (failure to show up, show up with fewer golfers than reserved, etc) will be strictly enforced this year, and will result in fines and/or loss of reservation privileges. Use the service responsibly! Fines for a no-show group are $48 ($12/person), payment required in order to play again - been there, done that! We can utilize either Howell Park's regular twilight rates, or the super-twilight rate with optional power cart and no need for a county card for $2 more.

  This year we're taking advantage of a new county park system offer for league play at some of their lesser utilitized courses. We have the tee-times between 5:00pm and 5:30pm. We are responsible to return anything we are not going to use, at least several days in advance. Our fees should be the same at the super-twilight rates that have been available for the last several years. Carts included, if you wish. Let's not screw this up. Bruce fronted the registration fee for this, please each one of you buy him a beer during the course of the season.

• Watering Holes: For the time being, Mulligans is the unofficial watering hole for the HP-Thursday flight, at least until we get tired of it, or they throw us out, or they do something stupid like Thursday night karaoke, or bring back Tinder. See you there after the matches! And be nice to Jimmy, so that he, in turn, will be nice to us! Attendance isn't mandatory, but it ought to be.

Well, that's about it for now. Let me know if there's anything else you need to get started. See you all at Howell.