TROPICAL GOLF GROUP-TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, KHAO KHEOW – St
Mashi Plays his Strengths to a Win!

What creatures of habit we are! Just how long have the Tropical Golfers been going to Khao Kheow on the first Tuesday of the month? Seems like forever. But, why not; it is a challenging layout, generally in superb condition and offers a fair price to walk. So after the torrential rains on Monday evening, 12 undaunted regulars departed “The BJ Holiday Lodge” to head up Hyway 7 to the course and hopefully a day without any weather delays.
At Tropical Golf we typically play off a Course Handicap determined from an adjustment from ones USGA Handicap Index based on the Slope Rating of the course and tees played. Routinely when we have Seniors and/or Ladies playing in the same competition we then follow the USGA recommendation for playing off different tees in the same competition. Since it is low season, with smaller groups, we decided to choose a base tee that the majority would play from and then let those who wished, play from any other tee under their calculated course handicap for that tee adjusted by the difference in Course Ratings for the different tees. No Ladies today so with the Yellow tees (6359 yds), which are our norm here, as the base, the players had their choice of playing off Silver (5049 yds), White (5780 yds), or Blue (7077 yds). Two players decided to play from the White tees and accepted a 4 to 5 shot reduction from the course handicap they would have used from the Yellow tees. Something different, a bit more work for the organizers, but with fairly wide spreads of Handicap Indexes and with multiple tees to chose from, why not let the players see if they can optimize their scoring ability with the added variable of tee selection.
Assigned to play “A” then “B”, the first thing we encountered was that the White and Yellow markers were together on A-1! Surely disappointing for those that chose to play from the shorter White yardage. And it didn’t get much better as the markers were on the same shorter tee boxes for 5 of the first 6 holes, all this due to tee box maintenance. However, after that tee markers were on the appropriate tee boxes or had a good bit of separation between the Whites and Yellows.
Playing “Lift, Clean, and Place” through the green due to the previous nights storm the pace of play while a bit slow was not unreasonable and with no weather related delays on the day, all cards were turned in and players traveling back to BJ’s for a bit of lunch and the presentation to learn how they fared against their peers, possibly playing off different tees.
Interestingly, Mashi Kaneta, with a 14.1 HI, playing off a CH of 12 from the White tees, scored an outstanding 40 points. Mashi is known for his excellent short game, so get him down to the 100 yd markers and chances are he will get up and down and score points. Following Mashi on the podium, all playing from the Yellow tees, were: John Davis (HI 9.8/CH 11), 36 pts; John Pierrel (11.2/12) and Walter Baechli (19.9/22) both with 35 points. Honorable mentions for Best 9 Hole scores, non winners, went to Reg Cochrane and Dick Warberg. Well played All!