Royal Dornoch Winter Newsletter 2024
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prominent club in the country allowed unlimited<br />
tee times. Rather, I explained that clubs sometimes<br />
allowed a few tee times in the future, but almost<br />
universally required members to book within one<br />
or two weeks of playing. The consequence of our<br />
open booking system was to create unavailable<br />
dates for play throughout the year.<br />
I proposed that Members be allowed no more than<br />
10 advance tee times per year and that all other tee<br />
times be booked within two weeks, exactly the same<br />
as booking available Visitor times.<br />
The Council of Management decided to make no<br />
changes. That decision resulted in the overall logjam<br />
of the tee times this year once again. As was stated<br />
in Neil's email of the 24th of May:<br />
"The previous booking system allowed members to<br />
book as many Championship member tee times as<br />
they wished at one time and this resulted in the tee<br />
sheet filling up quickly. This meant that many<br />
members could not come and play as there were no<br />
available times when they wanted to travel."<br />
The Council of Management then created a system<br />
so that 5 advance tee times could be made, with the<br />
caveat that:<br />
"From Tuesday 1st August 2023 the tee sheet will<br />
reopen for further bookings and any restrictions on<br />
these bookings will be announced nearer the time."<br />
One can only imagine that horrors that went<br />
through local membership as just three days later<br />
Neil wrote again:<br />
"As per the email on Wednesday, and the note<br />
below, we have put a small restriction in place for<br />
your initial tee time requests in <strong>2024</strong>. Hopefully the<br />
note was clear that this is just an initial restriction on<br />
booking requests and you will be able to request as<br />
many tee times as you want for <strong>2024</strong> later this year."<br />
This was nothing short of an about face. The calls<br />
to the office on both sides of the issue must have<br />
been beyond numerous. Saner heads prevailed and<br />
it is now the position of the club that any restrictions<br />
are to be announced later.<br />
Most Members know they have been able to book<br />
Member times outside two weeks by calling the<br />
office. Did you know there is a chart on the website<br />
which shows the times available to Members, the<br />
times available to Visitors, and the new to me<br />
category "White tee times." If you go to the club site<br />
and go to Play, then Tee Times, you can find a chart.<br />
The chart shows the available tee times whether<br />
Member, Visitor or White (this is blank and not<br />
listed with an M or V.<br />
https://royaldornoch.com/wp-content/uploads/<br />
2023/05/Tee-Time-Layout-2023-Members.pdf<br />
The Monday tee times is given as an example: From<br />
7-732 it is a white tee time: any member or visitor<br />
may book it. Thereafter there are assorted Member<br />
and Visitor times until 530 pm when the times are<br />
White and may be claimed by anyone. On Saturdays<br />
all tee times before noon belong to Members. Tee<br />
times after noon are White and may be claimed by<br />
both Members and Visitors. The point here is that<br />
you are not restricted to Member times. White times<br />
may be treated as member times.<br />
I have reviewed the daily tee sheets for the entire<br />
2023-<strong>2024</strong> season as well as the <strong>2024</strong>-2025 season<br />
to see how the 5 advance tee time system was<br />
working.<br />
As to the current season, please note that the daily<br />
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