I was playing in a non money tournament when this happened. (The signal to start play was a car horn.) My group walked to the tee box, waited for the other groups to reach their tees when this happened. The husband of the lady tournament dir. was in my 4some said alright go ahead and throw. I did and I parked a difficult shot 2 feet from the basket. T.D.s husband is next, throwing his in the woods. His buddy whom was also in our foresome spoke up and said SHE HASN'T HONKED YET and you guys need to re tee. Of course the husband laughed and agreed. We did and the results were just the opposite. I wasn't happy! Should I have ben O.K. with this? ANYONE, PLEASE RESPOND <font color="red"> </font>

So you have a TD who doesn't follow her own announced procedure, tells you to go ahead and do the same, then penalizes you for it by making you re-tee and disregarding your first shot.

My first reaction would be to let her know what a lackadaisical, lame-brained idiot she is, then walk off into the sunset and go play on my private course with my friends from Mensa.

This has happened many times when a group mistakenly believes what they heard was the starting horn not the 2-minute warning. Also, there are some courses where just hearing the horn might be difficult due to traffic noise near the tee or just distance from HQ. So you rely on a sense of timing and whether you see other groups teeing off. I have never seen a TD or official rule that players need to retee if in fact they started playing the hole ahead of time if they thought they were playing their official throws. I realize the rule book isn't totally clear on this but it seems like the appropriate way to handle it is to give everyone who threw early a courtesy warning for throwing out of turn and continue playing.

Note: TD was not any where near my group. She was in her car on the other side of the park. It was her husband who was playing with our group.

I've seen worse, A pro tired of waiting for the call to start yelled out "Start". The call was carried across the course and it wasn't til later anyone knew the wiser, when the TD wanted to know who started the call since, it wasn't him.

Anyway, Since you were making your Official throws, to the best of your knowledge. I think it would have counted.

This has happened many times when a group mistakenly believes what they heard was the starting horn not the 2-minute warning. Also, there are some courses where just hearing the horn might be difficult due to traffic noise near the tee or just distance from HQ. So you rely on a sense of timing and whether you see other groups teeing off. I have never seen a TD or official rule that players need to retee if in fact they started playing the hole ahead of time if they thought they were playing their official throws. I realize the rule book isn't totally clear on this but it seems like the appropriate way to handle it is to give everyone who threw early a courtesy warning for throwing out of turn and continue playing.



Unfortunately, I witnessed one of these situations. My group teed off to begin play after we heard what we thought was the shout-shout start. One of the players in our group aced the first hole. We were then told by a marshall that we had started too early. We completed the hole using the original shots and continued on.

When we made the turn at 18 there was a quick discussion with the TD, who ruled that our start was invalid. His compromise was for us to re-play the initial hole with no penalty.

Needless to say, I felt really bad for my friend who had his 1st tourney ace erased.

Gomez yelled start!

I was playing in a non money tournament when this happened. (The signal to start play was a car horn.) My group walked to the tee box, waited for the other groups to reach their tees when this happened. The husband of the lady tournament dir. was in my 4some said alright go ahead and throw. I did and I parked a difficult shot 2 feet from the basket. T.D.s husband is next, throwing his in the woods. His buddy whom was also in our foresome spoke up and said SHE HASN'T HONKED YET and you guys need to re tee. Of course the husband laughed and agreed. We did and the results were just the opposite. I wasn't happy! Should I have ben O.K. with this? ANYONE, PLEASE RESPOND <font color="red"> </font>



This is covered in the Q&amp;A under "Premature start of play". Now the situation was played correctly according to the Q&amp;A but I know I would be a little miffed if I made a nice shot and didn't get to count it.

I have started one tournament too early and from that point on, I won't start until I hear a clear signal. Sometimes people get a little jumpy to start but they just need to wait for the signal.

I was playing in a non money tournament when this happened. (The signal to start play was a car horn.) My group walked to the tee box, waited for the other groups to reach their tees when this happened. The husband of the lady tournament dir. was in my 4some said alright go ahead and throw. I did and I parked a difficult shot 2 feet from the basket. T.D.s husband is next, throwing his in the woods. His buddy whom was also in our foresome spoke up and said SHE HASN'T HONKED YET and you guys need to re tee. Of course the husband laughed and agreed. We did and the results were just the opposite. I wasn't happy! Should I have ben O.K. with this? ANYONE, PLEASE RESPOND <font color="red"> </font>



This is covered in the Q&amp;A under "Premature start of play". Now the situation was played correctly according to the Q&amp;A but I know I would be a little miffed if I made a nice shot and didn't get to count it.

I have started one tournament too early and from that point on, I won't start until I hear a clear signal. Sometimes people get a little jumpy to start but they just need to wait for the signal.



This was not premature. The husband of the TD is in the group and tells the guy to tee off. Who is kidding who? If the first poster originally went into the woods and the husband parked his shot do you really think they would have shot again? I am normally very civil on the course. If I had been asked to re tee I would have indeed been teed off. This is unconscionable and unsportsmanlike. I would never play in that TD's tournaments again.

In this example, following the advice of the Q&amp;A, I would just have said, "Gee, I wonder why someone's honking their horn," and continued playing assuming our group just never heard the start signal...

"husband of the TD" is not an official position.

He might be an Official though.

"husband of the TD" is not an official position.



Nor is the "guy at the merch table" nor the "gal at the registration desk" However, if they told me to tee off I would have assumed that this was official enough. I think this situation smells a sandwich from last week's tournament found in my bag today.

That being said I question the logic of the Q &amp;A. If players prematurely tee off and then get to do it again, they have an advantage over the rest of the field as they got a permitted practice shot on that tee. Notwithstanding the disc in the woods on the original post both he and the TD's husband got an extra shot and that is unfair. I think the Q &amp; A should state that they have to wait for everybody else to tee off (assuming this was inadvertent) and play their original shots where they lie.

In my years of experience, whenever "the Wife" is TD, that usually means the Husband is also a TD "in spirit" who wants to compete in the event. The Husband had probably done much of the preliminary work for the event, and probably a lot of work the morning of the event. With that being understood, it's easy to see why a "start" call from him would be qualified as OFFICIAL.

I think the Q&amp;A solution is inconsistent with other rules also. The whole idea is for everyone to start together for flow purposes. It's not a timed race. If it's so magical that players precisely start at the same moment, then stagger starts with tee times would not be allowed. If players tee off with the intention that it be their shot, it should be their shot. The only question would be what the penalty should be for doing so "early?"

When a player plays from a wrong lie, they continue play, get a 2-shot penalty and don't get a do-over from their correct lie. If they play out of turn from the correct lie, they get a warning at most if another player gives one. Seems like giving those who teed off early a warning makes sense. If anything, a group starting early will help speed play. If that group comes up on another group faster than they would have, well then that's an additional small penalty for their early start. Going back to retee per the Q&amp;A slows play contrary to idea of keeping things moving and, as pointed out, provides bonus practice throws with no penalty.

I have been in groups a before where the we thought the two-minute warning was called by horn blasts (mistakenly) or voices, but we wre in a more remote part of the course, and then when it was actually called, thought it was the start and began playing. We then heard the start signal after driving and realized our mistake. The end result? We just kept on playing and no one said a thing about it other than "oops".

I guess the difference in this case is that not all four player teed off before the mistake was realized. I would almost garauntee that the guy who called you in this instance would have said nothing had he shot as well.

This has happened many times when a group mistakenly believes what they heard was the starting horn not the 2-minute warning. Also, there are some courses where just hearing the horn might be difficult due to traffic noise near the tee or just distance from HQ. So you rely on a sense of timing and whether you see other groups teeing off. I have never seen a TD or official rule that players need to retee if in fact they started playing the hole ahead of time if they thought they were playing their official throws. I realize the rule book isn't totally clear on this but it seems like the appropriate way to handle it is to give everyone who threw early a courtesy warning for throwing out of turn and continue playing.


Another reasonable rational approach to uncomplicated play.
Careful Chuck or you'll ruin your reputation. ;)

Yes, but it does fly in the face of the Rules Q&amp;A. ;)

I try to remember to say every time, but forget half the time, "When you hear the two minute warning yell 'two minutes' and when you hear the tee off yell 'tee off.' The people on the back of the course won't be able to hear the horn but if every group yells, they'll hear that." When I remember to say it, it works.

I try to remember to say every time, but forget half the time, "When you hear the two minute warning yell 'two minutes' and when you hear the tee off yell 'tee off.' The people on the back of the course won't be able to hear the horn but if every group yells, they'll hear that." When I remember to say it, it works.



Except when someone decides it would be a good idea to yell out "ten minutes" and half the course repeats it as "two minutes" and you have people sprinting to their holes thinking they are horribly late...

I was at my hole and just stopped putting and after a couple minutes we started discussing the rules about the guy who wasn't there yet... only to see him throwing an upshot on the hole before our starting hole... That's when I looked at my watch and it was 6 minutes before the scheduled start...