We are excited about the September 2019 Gaspar Invitational, dubbed NFL Madness, at Bardmoor Golf & Tennis Club because we're finally using a shotgun start!

One of the biggest challenges to running one of these group events is getting everyone started and finished at the same time.  When you have 6-8 or more foursomes teeing off 15 minutes apart, this becomes a big challenge.  We have had times where there was a 2-hole gap between foursomes, and that slows the entire field down.

We have finally arranged it so we can have a shotgun start at the next 2 Gaspar Invitationals.  For those unfamiliar, this means each foursome starts on a different hole, and finishes on a different hole.  If you start on #2, you'll finish on #1, with #1 being your 18th hole.  In theory, this will get all our groups back to the clubhouse around the same time.  However, we need all of you to do some things to speed up your pace of play.

Pace of Play

1. Always have a spare ball in your pocket in case you hit your ball out of play or it becomes lost.  Don't go back to the cart or your golf bag to get a spare ball.
2. We play "ready golf," so no matter what you scored, get to the next tee and tee off.  There is no order to teeing off in Gaspar Invitationals.
3. Cart drivers should drop off their passenger at the passenger's ball, and go to their own ball and hit the next shot.  Use discretion on this.  If the driver tops hit tee shot 50 yards, and the passenger hits a bomb 280 yards down the middle, stop at the driver's ball and hit it before going to the passenger's work of art.
4. When arriving at the green, everyone goes to their ball and marks it.  Someone can remove the flag, but the rules now allow you to putt with the flag in the hole.  Leaving it in is faster.
5. Stand by your ball marker, and line up your putt while the others are putting.  Be ready to putt when it's your turn.
6. When you can't find your ball, you now get no more than 3 minutes to search.  Under normal circumstances, it takes about 15 minutes for a group to play a hole.  If two of you are looking for balls for 5 minutes on every hole, it now becomes a 20 minute hole or longer.  This adds an hour to your golf round.  Let's look for our ball for a minute max if possible, drop another ball, and keep playing.
7. When you finish your round, immediately go to your car and drop off your clubs, and then return to the clubhouse with 2 scorecards.  Each cart should be keeping score for the entire foursome.
8. As soon as you arrive at the clubhouse, each cart's twosome should take their card, and add up the scores.  You should not write anything on the scorecardin the box for each hole except for the actual score for each player.  If you want to put your points down on the card, do it on another line.
9. After adding up the scores, figure out the points for each hole for each player.  Write the total points for each player next to their name on the scorecard.
10. Now compare scorecards with the other twosome in your group.  Everyone should confirm everyone's scores after each hole is played, but please quickly do it again in the clubhouse to make sure everything is good.  Then compare total points for each player.  If everything adds up correctly, hand in your two scorecards to either Frank Perez or Tres Fenton.
11. We have a new online scoring system that requires us to enter the score for each hole for each player, and our system will tally the points for each player automatically.  It will also figure out who won the Skins, rank the players in order of points against quota, and tell us who won (and lost!).
12. This new scoring system will also automatically adjust everyone's points for the following month, and award Gaspar Cup Points accordingly.  This is something that took several hours after every event, and it will now be done right away at each event, but we must have good scorecards to enter the data into the system.
13. Please don't leave early now that we have a shotgun start.  We realize some of you may have somewhere to go, but if you can stay for a little bit, we'd love to have everyone there to award the trophies and cash, and then take some photos!

We have added a new game to the Gaspar Invitational!  Starting in September, we will have a Sink the Putt Contest that will cost you $1 to enter.  It will be a difficult putt, and you will get one putt to make it.  There will be no practice putts.  If more than one player makes the putt, we will have a putt-off between all who sank their putt.  The putt-off will give each player 2 putts to make it.  If two or more players in the putt-off make the same number of putts (either one or two, not zero), we will go to round 2 of the putt-off, and continue until one makes and the other does not, and the person who makes their putt wins.  If no one sinks a putt in the putt-off, the pot roles over to the next Gaspar Invitational.  If no one makes a putt in the Sink the Putt Contest, the pot roles over.