Membership Information

CLUB MEMBERSHIP

Membership is open to any male member of the Recreation Centers of Sun City West.  Membership dues are currently $10 per year, reduced to $5 for those joining after July 1 of the year.  In addition, a new member pays $5 extra to defray most of the cost of his Club name badge.  A new member may join by presenting his completed Membership Application form and a check payable to SCW Men’s Putting Club for the appropriate amount or cash at the Check-In Table at any weekly putting event.  He also will want to pay the entry fee of five (5) dollars for that day’s event.  Members are urged to pay their entry fee with five (5) one-dollar bills, in order that singles will be available for pay-out after the event.

A prospective member may elect to play five times as a non-paying guest in order to decide whether to join.

Renewal dues for the next calendar year are due on or after December 1 and become delinquent after January 10, resulting in a suspended membership until the renewal dues are paid.

BULLETIN BOARD

The Club’s Bulletin Board is located at the Grandview Golf Course, on the East wall of the building, just outside the door to the Crooked Putter Restaurant.  This is adjacent to the practice green where our putting competitions are held.  The Bulletin Board contains notices of importance to the Club members, including the weekly updated handicaps, the posting of Scores & Awards results for the most recent two weeks of play and the posting of the most recent quarterly awards.

Below the Bulletin Board are two drawers for use by the Club.  The left-hand drawer is a slotted locked drawer used primarily for safe keeping.  The right-hand drawer contains an envelope of Membership Application forms and copies of materials concerning Club membership.

PRIZES AND AWARDS

The entry fee for a weekly putting event is five (5) one-dollar bills.  Of this amount, $1 is paid to the host golf course as a greens fee, a half-dollar is retained for the Club’s general operating fund, and 3-1/2 dollars are allocated to prize money, distributed back in several forms to the winning players in that day’s event.

At the conclusion of the 18-hole event, the players line up at the Pay-Out Table to turn in their score cards.  For each one-putt, a player collects $2 at the table.  Each week a particular hole is labeled as the Money Hole, and any player who one-putts the hole receives an award of $15.  The Pay-Out Table also handles the Money Hole and the Cold Putter pot.  Whatever prize money may be left over is deposited into the Awards account to be further distributed by the Scores and Awards chairman in several categories.  Although all the remaining prize money is allocated to winners of this specific event, these weekly awards are accumulated and paid out at the Club’s quarterly General Meeting and Awards Presentation (breakfast or lunch is served at these quarterly meetings).  The award categories are as follows:

• At one event per month, the President selects a secret “Lucky Hole”.  Any one-putts at the “Lucky Hole” are awarded an additional $10.
• Any player who makes 3 or more one-putts during an event is said to have made a “Slam”.  An amount of $2 is deposited in his name in the “Slam Kitty”, which grows during the quarter of play.  At the Awards presentation, a drawing is made (among those eligible) for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of the “Slam Kitty”. You “MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN”
• A player who accumulates 5 one-putts during a quarter of play is termed an “Ace”.  An amount of $1 is deposited in his name into the “Ace Pot”, which grows during the quarter of play.  A player who accumulates 10 one-putts during a quarter is a Double Ace, and another $1 is deposited in his name into the “Ace Pot”.  During the Awards presentation, a drawing is made (among those eligible) for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners of the “Ace Pot”.  You “MUST BE PRESENT TO WIN”
• The remaining prize money is awarded for low scores to “Low Net” winners in handicap-grouped flights of each event.  These weekly low-score awards are made in even-dollar amounts ranging from $1 to $9 in accordance with the amount of prize money remaining after all the above “one-putt” awards have been allocated.  If the remaining prize money for “Low Net” winners falls below an amount of $1 per paid player, the Club provides a subsidy to bring the amount up to that level.
• The “Cold Putter Award” is made after each event at the Pay-Out Table, the chairman drawing two cards from the stack of “No 1-Putt” scorecards.  The amount in the pot is determined by the number of cards in the stack, ranging from a minimum of $3 for 23 or fewer cards to a maximum of $10 for 64 or more cards.  The amounts awarded to the Winner and to the Runner-Up are made available for pick-up the following event.
• Additionally, the “Hot Putter Award” is made each quarter to the member who has played in at least half of the events in that quarter and who has the highest OPA (One-Putt Average, the ratio of total one-putts to number of events played).  The award is in the form of a perpetual plaque engraved with the winner’s name displayed on the bulletin board.  Starting with the 1st quarter in 2020 the winner of the “Hot Putter Award” will also receive a $50 cash prize at the quarterly awards luncheon. 

HANDICAP CALCULATIONS

Handicaps (in the range of -2 to 10) are recalculated and posted each week, selecting the best 5 scores of the most recent 10 games, in accordance with the following steps:

• Determine the total of over-par strokes for the 5 selected scores.
• Divide this number by 2 and round down to the nearest (lower) whole number.  This result is known as the Differential Index.
• Use the Differential Index to determine the Handicap:

After the first 5 games, a provisional handicap is calculated to allow a player to compete within one of the handicap-grouped “flights”.  Before that, the player is assigned no handicap (NH) and competes on the basis of gross scores within the NO-CAP flight.

A player’s Handicap is subtracted from his “gross score” to determine his “net score”.