Article after article, comment after comment from golfers are simply being cast aside as insignificant. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand a good portion of the golfing community is disgusted by how the management team is dealing with tee times and outside play for non-residents. It became a hot button issue last April at the first exchange meeting and ever since has been treated cavalierly by those making decisions. Apparently they simply don't care. If you think i am being unkind, so be it. It's been nearly a year and nothing has changed. They keep selling record numbers of outside full play passes and with those passes come privileges and benefits better than what those of us living here get. That makes no sense. None! I know, non-golfers don't understand the nuances of scheduling tee times, the lottery, straight sheets, small groups of 30 or more, the $2 upcharge and all the other vernacular that comes with it. Here's what they do understand: the golf courses belong to the membership, not some guy living in Peoria. We know that because in our Advocate survey virtually everyone said this: "RCSC MEMBERS FIRST!" We also know the RCSC didn't have a single question about who should be playing on our golf courses and who should get first choice over tee times. Too bad, what a great opportunity to ask the membership what they think is important. I guess they preferred not knowing. To be clear, it isn't just RCSC golfers getting screwed, it's all of us living here and subsidizing golf. I can live with that, what i can't live with or ever, EVER accept is all of us subsidizing cheap golf for non-members. That is absolute and total lunacy. We know last year the minority portion of the board tried to address it and was out voted by the majority. They let management's argument of tweaking the rates clam to be a solution. It wasn't, it never was going to be. They will never fix it because they think the RCSC is simply a business equation and those tee times are theirs to sell as they see fit. Did i mention the lunacy of this proposition? So we are clear, there is a small handful of Sun City golfers who desperately want everything to stay the same. They are the golfers that have filled out their small group of 30 or more with their friends from outside Sun City. Most of them buy the full play pass (both inside and outside) so they are buying the cheapest golf in the state and the argument from management is because they pay the $2 charge per tee time, it all works out. It doesn't, not even close. What it boils down to is, they get the pick of the best tee times and are paying the cheapest rates for the rounds they are playing. The problem is as their group has dwindled, they went outside to meet the 30 required players and they argue they should continue to get preferential treatment in spite of their group being comprised of non-residents. It's a scenario management has steadfastly fought to preserve. The $250 increase did nothing. They were told it wouldn't work and i suspect they knew that as well. Now they have argued they will try going to straight sheet scheduling and that will somehow magically fix the problems. Curious, and perhaps Larry Owens can explain the logic of why or how straight sheet scheduling would fix anything? The simple reality is this: When you sell cheap golf to non-residents and then build a structure with abuses that allow them access greater than members, nothing will change. Worse yet, every day that goes by is another year those full play passes will exist. Tragically stupid in my humble opinion. The new board needs to get their head around this as soon as possible. Golfers are angry, as well they should be. Someone wrote on the Advocates page it shouldn't be the busy-bodies who decide what happens, but the golfing community. Duh! I've argued that for years. Bring the golfers in and let them have at it. That's how Sun City was built and why it was so successful...because the powers that be weren't terrified of the membership.
Low and behold, the RCSC just today sent on these "tips" on how to better secure your preferred tee times using the lottery. Let me share them with you: RCSC Golf Lottery Tips for Success Below are some tips to improve your chances of achieving a successful draw when using the RCSC Lottery System. The RCSC Golf Calendar is your friend and should be reviewed prior to making lottery selections and is located on the RCSC website www.suncityaz.org, under the Golf Tab. The Calendar is most useful when viewed online as each day can be viewed in detail. When printed much of the detail can be lost. The Calendar shows which courses are playing straight sheets as well as which courses are hosting Small Group Bookings, Events or undergoing maintenance, allowing the user to plan their bookings around events or on the tee sheet start that best suits their needs. The calendar can support viewing and printing of 5 events per day, if there are more than 5 events on a given day a message will appear on the bottom of the day that states +2 more (for six events), +3 more (for seven events) and so on. These “+” messages are hyperlinks and when clicked will display all the events for the day. • After reviewing the calendar it is time to set parameters for your time 1. Select the Date of Play 2. Set search priority, either By Time or By Course By Time will have the lottery search for the time closest to your Desired Time, regardless of your Course Selection priorities. For example if your Desired Time is 9:00 a.m. and South has 9:07 when your name is drawn and all other courses have times outside of 7 minutes, you will be awarded South. By Course will search for courses that fall within your Earliest Time and Latest Time selections. For example if every course had times available within your window, the system would award you the first course in your Course Selection as close to your preferred time as possible even another course lower in your Course Selection has a time closer to your preferred time. In Summary if Time is most important to you set your Search Priority to By Time if your desire is to play a specific course set your Search Priority to By Course. Page 2 of 3 | 2/7/2023 • Time Selections 1. Desired Time – this is your preferred time to play 2. Earliest Time – this is earliest time you wish to play 3. Latest Time – this is the latest time you wish to play 4. How Tee Formats can affect your lottery success Crossover sheets have blocks of times when no times are available, in 2:15 blocks • Most tee time requests we see are between 9:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. • In December and January crossover sheets do not have times available between 10:00 a.m. and 12:15 p.m., the other “in season” months times are not available between 9:30 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. • If you are requesting times at only regulation courses between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. and two of the regulation courses are running Crossover starts, you have effectively reduced your Course Selection by 40%. Straight Sheet starts do not have any times that are blocked, however they will have fewer times available between 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. in January and December and between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. during the other “in season” months 5. In summary to increase your chances select a wide window of at least two hours and ideally wider, pay close attention to crossover sheets and widen your window to include times outside of the crossover times, include as many courses as possible in your selections and consider including the Executive Courses. • Break Group 1. This option appears on the # of Groups line, if 2 or more groups are selected If unchecked the lottery system will only look to book your selected number of groups in consecutive tee times If checked the lottery system will have permission to book your group around a single booking that was awarded a time earlier in the draw process. For example you requested 3 groups between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., when your number is chosen there are only 3 times available to book, 9:22, 9:30 and 9:45, with 9:37 having already been awarded to another lottery winner, by checking Break Group the system will award you the 9:22, 9:30 and 9:45 times. Break Group will not place your groups on different courses or separate your groups by more than one tee time. In summary Break Group increases chances for lottery participants that have more than one group. I'm not going to waste my time cutting in line breaks, sorry, but let's all try a little intellectual honesty here and rather than this convoluted mess above start by getting rid of the 15,000 rounds played by non-residents buying the full play pass. Seems a great jumping off point. I don't know how many of them are in the small groups of 30, but it would be great for an organization who proclaims "data is key to the decision making process" should know and publish that data for all to see. Maybe it's not so bad, but until they share that information i would assume the worst and hope for the best.
I couldn't help it - I started reading that and I went straight to The Sanity Clause from Night at the Opera.
A few thoughts come to mind: In small groups, thirty is the minimum. Is there a maximum? Can a group have 50 or more players, thus tying up even more tee times? How long have the small groups been allowed? How long has the extra fee been $2? Should that be increased? Do the small groups get the same tee times every week if they bring in the rosters six days in advance? When I look at the golf calendar, I see several groups listed two times per week for the same tee times. Could they reserve three or more times per week? How many nonresidents, with fees or just paying daily green fees, are part of small groups? There might be some new Members who would like to join a small group. Or is it by invitation only? Who invites a new person? The organizer? Is there anywhere a new Member can express interest in joining a group? What about cancellations and no shows? Earlier the Director of Golf and/or GM said no shows were the biggest problem. I haven't heard anything since. I haven't been attending the Golf Advisory Committee meetings but I read the minutes on the RCSC website. I haven't seen it addressed. Does there need to be a fee for no shows unless weather is a factor? Should there be a 24 hour cancellation policy? A small fee if cancelled after that? Caution: I needed to cancel a tee time for the next day but it was after the pro shops had closed. I couldn't do it online because it would have cancelled the other players for that tee time. Is this a policy problem or IT issue? From the January Golf Advisory Committee Minutes: SCMGA Report: President Andre Cassabonne reported that the closure of Norths front nine would cause changes for scheduling SCMGA play days and that options are still being reviewed. Discussion was had on the use of the lottery for tee times and the inequities given small groups. No firm decision was made on this topic, and it remains open for further discussion. At least the committee is discussing the issue. How many people on the Golf Advisory Committee are members of small groups? Also from the January Golf Committee Minutes: Just a reminder for the New Club Presidents in charge for 2023, please be sure to bring in your pairings for the next week’s event at least 6 days in advance to the starter so we get them in before the Lottery Draw 5 days in advance. What are New Clubs? Are they the same as small groups? Golf leagues? Not sure what this new nomenclature is. Our new RCSC President, Kat Fimmel, is the Golf Advisory Chairperson. Perhaps she will be able to get clarification on some of this. She will definitely need the cooperation of management to get anything settled.
All great questions Janet and so few answers. I know the subject came up at the meeting about trying to fix the tee times and the excessive number of non-resident full play passes and the general manager asked golfers to be patient and let moving to straight sheets solve the problem. Then they threw out the magic fix of how to better utilize the lottery and walla, everything would be fixed. Uh, duh, no. As long as small groups bypass the lottery with the $2 fee per round they get preferential treatment; doesn't matter if they live inside the walls or outside. The board and the golfing community needs answers to all of the questions Janet asked above. Playing the straight sheet/how better to get your tee times with some mythical equation is pure crap. Get rid of the non-members getting their pick of tee times and watch how well the lottery works. Make non-residents wait until the members have first choice and all of the furor dies down. Of course the cry from management is; "we need that revenue." No, we need members to be treated better than some jamoke living in Peoria, Surprise or Glendale. It's that freaking simple!
I don't understand the reluctance of Management to address the golf issues head on instead of tweaking something here and there. With a new Board, I am hoping there will be a thorough analysis of the data, the adoption of a PLAN to make golf more accessible to the Members and become less subsidized by RCSC Members who don't golf. To quote Tom M. from our Articles of Incorporation, "The general nature of the business in which the Corporation is engaged is as follows: To do anything and everything lawfully necessary in the interest of the Members of the Corporation..." Hear ye, hear ye! It says, ..."in the interest of the Members", not nonresidents. Also in the Articles of Incorporation: No membership or certificate of membership shall be transferable and no assignee or transferee thereof, whether by operation of law or otherwise, shall be entitled to membership in this Corporation or to any property rights or interest therein, except as shall be provided in the Bylaws of this Corporation.... I am thinking tee times could be considered "property rights". I know there is nothing in the Bylaws about nonresidents getting cheaper golf or preferential treatment for tee times and/or guaranteed carts to help our bottom line. More from the AOI: The Bylaws of the Corporation shall prescribe the qualifications of Members and the terms of admission to membership, provided that the voting rights of all Members shall be equal and all Members shall have equal rights and privileges, and be subject to equal responsibilities. Since all Members have equal rights and privileges, they should all have the same access to tee times. Equal responsibilities would include paying the same annual assessment and following the same rules. If Members don't have equal privileges, they shouldn't have to pay the same amount of fees. However that isn't allowed by the Articles. If prospective home buyers hear that it is difficult to get tee times in Sun City, they may decide to purchase elsewhere. That is one way that ALL residents suffer, not just golfers. At a previous Board meeting last year, there was discussion whether setting golf fees, and all the other golfing decisions, were in the domain of Management or Board. I think the Board has given Management plenty of time to straighten this out. Going to straight sheets is only going to delay any decisions another two months. All the while, Management is selling more nonresident no fee passes with guaranteed riding carts. Although I respect the Golf Advisory Committee's work and approval of this, I am reminded that committees do not make decisions. Instead they make recommendations to the Board of Directors, not Management, for decision making. The Board should direct Management to: 1. Set up the fee structure so that nonresident golfers pay significantly more than Members. 2. Members get first opportunity to book tee times. 3. Set all fees so that there is less reliance on subsidies from the nongolfing Members. Now, Management, go fix it so that these three things are happening. Set a time limit for Management to accomplish this. In early August, they increased the nonresident no pass fee $250 and said they wanted six months of data to see how that affected sales. Those six month have passed. What does the data say? p.s. I am not a golf hater. I have played for over 45 years and was a pretty decent player at one time. My best friends are my golfing buddies. For some reason, the game doesn't hold my interest as much now. Perhaps all this pettiness, rather than fairness, is part of the reason for that.
Thanks Janet for posting, lots of reasons, based on our documents, to question how the hell we got to a place where selling cheap golf to non-members is okay and worse yet, letting them have preference over members selecting tee times. It's simply not okay. Never has been, never should be. So i did as they suggested and went to my new best friend the RCSC golf calendar for the month of February; i think i found the problem. There's 28 days in that month and for those who don't know, Tuesday is women's day and Wednesday is set aside for the men's golf association. Now we are down to 20 days in the month. I didn't waste much time looking at Sunday, lots of mixers and tournaments scheduled on those days as one would expect. Basically what we are looking at are Monday, Thursday and Friday with an occasional Saturday group scheduling. If we pull out the 4 Sundays and just look at the remaining sixteen days of the month, there are 66 small group bookings on those 4 remaining days. Yikes! No wonder there is a problem. To Janet's point above, how many of those small groups are exclusively RCSC members and how many include non-residents? How many of them are paying the $2 over ride to bypass the lottery? How many of them are full play pass buyers (both member and non) and does that $2 begin to cover the right to a guaranteed tee time? My best guess is, i won't get a thank you from management for helping to identify their problem. Oh wait, they don't think the current structure is a problem do they? It's all about the revenue baby. God knows we could never make up that $319k from our members getting on the courses.
Coulda killed two birds with one stone. Raising the cost for non-residents could have reduced the increase in Members assessment?
Carol actually said this at a meeting last year and was met with silence. Cost vs quantity vs profit are related variables that can be tweaked - but for reasons unknown we are not starting in the right place: Non-members don't get preferential treatment nor rates subsidized by Members. Once we start there, tweak the formula so yes, we will probably have MORE income.
Interesting to note through all of the dialogue regarding the increase of the annual assessment, the argument was that cost of everything has been going up, any number of the items the GM mentioned were golf related. The simple reality is over the past 6 years (2017-2023) the only increases passed on to golfers were to the daily rate payers, those paying the full cost to support the courses. We've let the folks skate who play 100-300 rounds per year because all the RCSC really cares about are number of rounds played. Go freaking figure.
I learned something at today's Exchange with the Board and Management in regard to small golfing groups. RCSC Members have been told that there are numerous small groups of 30+ golfers who book tee times six days in advance to get their choice of tee times. This privilege costs each golfer $2 extra. The Director of Golf told us that most of the golfers are residents but there are some nonresidents playing in these small groups. Since we consistently hear the minimum to do this is 30 or more golfers, I started wondering if there is a maximum so I asked the Director of Golf about that today. I appreciate his honest answer to my question. I will have to watch the video of the Exchange to see his exact numbers, but I was very surprised to hear that there is one group of 80 golfers that play every Saturday. Not 32 or 35, but 80! If that group plays in foursomes, which is the standard for a group playing together, there would be 20 tee times that need to be reserved for them. Since groups tee off every seven minutes, that is 8 1/2 tee times per hour. So this group has the privilege of reserving over two hours of prime tee times at one of our golf courses. Every week! Next I started thinking about the financial impact of this. RCSC reaps an additional $160 per week for the extra $2 each golfer pays. I am assuming that most golfers in the small group buy no fee annual passes and have their own carts, but I don't know that. The Director of Golf could provide that information. I started wondering how that would compare to a Member paying full green fees which led me to the RCSC website under "Golf". A foursome of resident golfers, paying the full green fee, would generate $140. If they rent two carts, I think that would be an additional $25 or so. ( I couldn't find the cost of the rental carts on the RCSC website.) That is for just one tee time. Imagine if half of the tee times taken by this "small" group were taken by foursomes paying full green fees. That would generate $1400.00 for ten tee times, not including fees to rent carts, for one Saturday alone. At most golf courses, the green fees on Saturday and Sunday are higher than weekdays. I was surprised that RCSC doesn't do this. Green fees are the same all seven days of the week. I wonder why? All three private courses in Sun City charge $7 -$10 more to play on the weekend. I have heard our General Manager, Mr. Cook, explain how selling non resident passes is how our golf courses are making money. I think the above shows there are other avenues to consider that would increase revenue from our own Members and decrease the nongolfing RCSC Members having to subsidize as much as they currently do. I hope the Golf Advisory Committee looks at these other possibilities. Let's keep golf affordable and available for all RCSC Members.
I think more golfers need to attend the Advisory Committee meetings, and if they are not allowed to speak, be prepared to provide written comments, such as yours, Janet, either in advance or at the meeting. It's painfully obvious there are real, ongoing problems with golf. It's not just tee times - there is apparently bad behavior at the courses, poor course conditions, and lack of carts to name a few. The lack of rangers is obviously causing issues. If volunteers are an issue, maybe it's time to pay them. It's probably like a lot of other service type jobs - customers can be pretty unmanageable lately, and if we have a lot of outside play, as someone said today, they have no skin in the game. Not their home, not their problem. It's how things are these days. And, why are non-resident group members allowed to play at age 45?? That makes no sense to me. It's all hard to figure - are they just so entrenched in their ways, they can't figure out different methodologies to reach their revenue goals, or is there something else we just don't see? With so much controversy you would THINK they would want a resolution.
One thing became abundantly clear at yesterday's Exchange session; outside play on Sun City golf courses has become a hornets nest that is out of control. While management continues to try and minimize the impact and tell us they have no qualms about getting rid of it, they continue the plan to sell outside full play passes with no efforts to either slow them down or put any restraints on them getting tee times ahead of residents. The comments got heated as apparently a couple of scheduled meetings with golfers fell through and it sounded like their frustrations were in play. Why management thinks this is, and had been for a year now, no big deal is beyond my comprehension. Seriously guys, pretending residents are just sore losers because they can't get their preferred tees times is beneath you and the jobs you were hired to do. And, telling us even with no outside play everyone wouldn't get their preferred tee time is an insult to our intelligence. And let's be very clear, last years board was and still is culpable for not holding managements feet to the fire. When you watch the video from the meeting, you will see one directors rise to defend managements failed actions regarding this very matter. If you think back to last April when this all started, he was one of those who told us in no uncertain terms how convinced he was that management had his full and total faith to fix this total cluster-flock. Good God was he wrong. I have no interest in recanting their failed efforts, because literally there was virtually nothing they did that was going to stop the sale of outside full play passes. We knew that, we told them that and yet they so badly wanted the undervalued revenue from prime time tee times that equated to half price golf and half price golf cars to non-residents, they bought another 6 months of selling them. Then at the golf advisory meeting this month, they bought more time by this trial bull shit of straight sheets. It was simply smoke and mirrors. It needs to be fixed now, not next week, not next month. There need be an accounting of small group bookings that will tell us/the golfing community how many outsiders play in small groups. Yesterday we heard the lame excuse only a member can book the group; the real answers include in a group of 30 (or 80 as noted above by Janet), how many are actually Sun City residents (and more importantly how many aren't) who buy the $2 bypass and get exactly the tee times and the courses then want whenever they want. With every day that passes, those outsiders are buying another year of guaranteed tee times to golf for a fraction of what they would pay anywhere else in the Phoenix area. By joining with their "small group Sun City residents" they enjoy better benefits and privileges than those living in the community. I guess the argument is they (the RCSC) is getting more money from non-residents who buy the full play pass than they are from the residents who are buying the full play pass. Duh, does that tell you anything about your pricing structure? Here's the bottom line: The golf courses belong to the members. The prime time tee times belong to the members. End of freaking story. If they want to sell tee times, sell them after members have first choice. Sell them for closer to the market value. Golf will never be self-sufficient. The argument they are close to break-even is nonsense when you factor in depreciation of capital expenses. Golf is an important amenity in Sun City; always has been, always will be. What it should NEVER be is an amenity that is used by outsiders ahead of members and worse yet, for less money and with guaranteed tee times. Come on gang, this isn't rocket science.
That same director that defended management and their failed policies on golf and attacked the membership as being mean to the management, also said that he trusted the corporation more than he trusted the members to guide RCSC.
It's not a good look when a Board member acts like a defense attorney for the management team. They clearly know there are major issues with golf. It's no secret. The members have been stonewalled for months. Their attempts to "fix" the issues are nothing burgers. And, the failure to meet with a member, and/or communicate that there was a scheduling problem, adds insult to injury.
The Exchange was well attended. Twenty-five Members spoke. Of those, ten were about golf. A sign members are hopeful this board will not only listen, but take action. Cook and Duthu were on the hot seat quite a bit. Alan wore his invisible judge robes admonishing perceived Member “attacks” by defending management too often with targeted defensive questions. Must have a reserve of corporate kool-aid he shares with Dale. Her time on the “Are there going to be new pickleball courts at Lakeview?” hot seat confirmed what we suspected. Her back room offer to the Pickleball Club was not Board sanctioned! She said Lakeview wasn’t specifically mentioned to the club, she was at their specially called meeting to find out IF members would approve her looking into finding a location for new courts for their use during during Mountain View’s redo. She promised the club new courts would be completed before anything was done at Mountain View. Uh-huh!
Yesterday I heard many new voices of RCSC Members telling some very disheartening stories about not having much success using the lottery system for tee times and some of the poor behavior they have seen from "younger" golfers on the courses. At least a couple of the speakers live on golf courses so they see what is going on out there on a daily basis. Much of what I heard was the utter disregard for our courses. I have never personally tried to use the lottery system for tee times, and I am not a member of a small group of 30+. When I play, I pay the daily green fee and generally walk. However, I once had an injury to my Achilles tendon and my doctor told me not to put much weight on it until it healed. That is when I discovered how difficult it is for RCSC Members to get a cart. Fortunately I am no longer bothered by that injury but it took about a year and a half to heal and I was only able to get a cart a fraction of the times I asked for one. For those who don't know, an RCSC Member can only get a cart 30 minutes before their tee time. If one isn't available, tough luck. Caveat: Unless the Member buys the $1500 no fee annual pass and pays an additional $450 for a guaranteed cart. Most snowbirds aren't going to buy the annual pass with the guaranteed cart. One of Management's resolutions to the riding cart problem for RCSC Members was to go to a different golf course where there might be one available. I thought, "Sure, my foursome will arrive at our scheduled tee time, find out no riding carts are available, pack up our clubs, drive to a different RCSC course to see if we can get a tee time and riding cart, if available. If not, we would get back in our cars and head off to another course. All the while, nonresident golfers will be riding in a guaranteed cart at the course where we originally had a tee time. Sorry, that is not a feasible resolution. My own story with nonresident golfers was last year before I even knew about the nonresident passes. My better half and I were driving in our car on Del Webb Boulevard when a couple of golfers didn't slow down as we approached the crosswalk at Riverview Golf Course. Bill stepped on the brake to avoid hitting them and shrugged his shoulders indicating they should have stopped or slowed down. The golfers yelled at us and gave us the middle finger. At the time, I said, "Those guys certainly didn't look 55 years old." I would guess they were in their mid 30's. From yesterday speakers, this type of behavior is apparently being seen on our courses more often. As others have said on this site, RCSC has some serious problems with golf. It's like Pandora's Box was opened last April with more and more issues coming out all of the time. The Board will likely have difficulty getting Pandora's Box closed especially with the demonstrated resistance of Management to do anything other than "tweak" the current situation. Big problems need big solutions!
