Rancho Bernardo Inn Men’s Golf Club
Minutes of the Meeting of the RBIMGC Board of Directors
July 16, 2020
The meeting was held as a ZOOM video conference. In attendance were Jerry Canning, Ron Lacy, Norm Blades, Tom Dubuque, Tom Smith, John Kersey, Joe Walkington, Ren Halloran, Tom Christopher and Gregg Gattuso. Darryl Medders arrived at 10:03AM.
The meeting was called to order at 9:07 AM by Tom Christopher.
Clarification:
Tom Christopher clarified that Gregg Gattuso is remaining on the Board as Vice-President.
Tom Christopher’s Meeting with Evan Biundo:
Tom summarized his recent meeting with Evan Biundo, Head Pro at RBI:
- In the future, if there are President’s Cup ties after 18 holes, the staff will make every effort to squeeze the two players in on Hole #1. If this is impossible to do, they will move them to the 10th hole. If Evan gets negative feedback on this, he will come back to us.
- Regarding split tee times (starting on holes 1 and 10 simultaneously), this is difficult for the Pro Shop to do because of limited staff. There may also be an issue with larger gatherings which may be in violation of County Heath mandates. If they do it at all, they would have to increase the greens fees. The Board will not pursue this idea any further.
- Regarding Course Markings, Hole #18 yellow markers in front of creek near the green will not change. Hole #13 drop zone has been installed. Hole #11 has yellow markers next to the lake, same as always.
Report from Pro Shop – Evan Biundo:
San Diego County has mandated that golf courses must go back to individual riders in golf carts unless they are from the same family or living in the same household, effective immediately. To ensure our tournaments have enough carts, both the Club and the RBI Pro Shop will encourage walking and allow a walker’s bag on a cart.
With the 10 leased carts, the Club can count on RBI having 87 to 90 carts available. Our tournaments currently have a little over 20 walkers so, if that number stays the same, the Club should be OK for future tournaments.
Since single rider carts are now mandated, RBI will not charge an additional fee for them. Our Men’s Club fees going forward will be $41 for walkers and $49 for single rider carts.
The Pro Shop will continue with 9 minute intervals between tee times thru the month of August.
The Inn will not be doing temperature checks at this time. It is not a County mandate for golf courses, restaurants, hotels, etc.
The indoor restaurants and bar are closed due to the new County mandate. Drinks purchased on the outdoor patios must be accompanied by a food purchase – at least one food purchase per check. One food purchase and 5 beers, for example, is allowed. This does not affect the snack bar since it is a Grab & Go operation. There someone can order a beer without a food purchase. There is no seating at the snack bar area.
Fairways are in pretty bad shape. Transitioning between the cool season grass and warm season grass happened faster than expected, which caused the rough fairway conditions. Most fairways have been recently aerified. Lift, Clean and Place thru the Fairways is recommended for now.
Secretary’s Report – Tom Smith:
Tom noted that the minutes of the June 18, 2020 meeting had been circulated and posted on the website. One change was required. Joe Walkington reviewed the course markings on holes 11 and 18 with Evan Biundo and Dave Buckles, not holes 11 and 13. The correction was made to the minutes. Tom asked for a motion to approve the minutes. MSUA.
Treasurer’s Report – John Kersey:
John discussed the Treasurer’s report for the month. As of July 15, the Club has an operating cash balance of $13,323.70 and available cash of $12,564.84.
The Pro Shop was $10 short in the July 6 “sweeps” fees collected by them vs our headcount of paying members x $5.00. Evan is guessing that this may occur when a member is paying with a free round, and the staff is neglecting to collect the additional $5.00.
Membership Report – Jerry Canning:
Since the last Board meeting the Club has 3 new Full members – Dan Fauth, Tom Robbins and Bart Spitzmiller. The Club lost one member with the unfortunate death of Neil Stoebling.
Since the last Board meeting, the Club had 17 renewals and two non-renewals – David Muther and Derrick Hondo. The Club has one applicant for membership in the pipeline. His evaluation round is on July 27.
As of July 16, the Club has 192 members – 185 Full, 1 Associate and 6 Comped members.
Handicap Chairman – Norm Blades:
Despite one person’s concern about sandbagging in the runup to the President’s Cup, no one did. Given that the USGA uses the 8 best of a golfer’s last 20 rounds to calculate handicap, it would be difficult and time-consuming to do this.
Tournament Chairman – Joe Walkington:
Some members are still not aware that they must select the date of their tournament in the League Portal to see if they have signed up or who they are paired with. TD’s need to be aware of that confusion by some players.
Web Site Report – Tom Christopher:
Flushing of the cache, as discussed at the June Board meeting, is still necessary to see an update on our web site. Tom recommends that Board members bookmark the URL to flush the cache so it is convenient to do. The website does not need to be open to execute the flush.
To get the Update box in WordPress to re-appear after an edit, move the cursor to the Menu side bar on the left side of the screen. This makes the page refresh right away.
Rules Committee Report – Joe Walkington:
Joe sent an email to the BOD describing the recommended changes to the Club’s Local Rule #3.1.4. This deals with changes to the course markings on holes 11, 13 and 18 plus the new drop zone on Hole 13. The entire BOD agrees with the changes. Joe will change the web site and send out an email to the membership advising them of the changes. The changes will also be included in the next tournament’s Cart Instructions as well.
The BOD agreed that each tournament should follow the Lift, Clean and Place signage established by the Pro Shop on the morning of the Tournament, whether it be fairway only or through the green. This guideline to follow the sign should also be published in the Cart Instruction sheet.
Because of the absence of rakes, the Board agreed that a ball in a bunker may only be moved without penalty if it is in a footprint. A plugged ball may not be moved.
Special Projects – Tom Dubuque:
Banquet Services at RBI are still closed, which affects many of our Special Tournaments and Annual Dinner.
A motion was made to cancel the Member/Guest tournament for this year. It was approved. MSUA.
Having our Annual Meeting in November is still an open issue. Our bylaws require us to have one. Tom Dubuque volunteered to work on some options and bring it to the next Board meeting for discussion. He will send out some talking points ahead of the meeting.
President’s Cup – John Kersey:
There may be an issue with the Inn charging a non-playing observer for the cart he uses to marshal a match. Tom Dubuque will verify this. If true, Tom Christopher will speak to Evan.
Open Discussion:
- Joe Walkington recommended that all TD’s use the revised TD Handbook in the future and notify Tom Smith of any issues. The Handbook was not written with the changes due to COVID-19 in mind. Tom will send out an Addendum to the Handbook which will discuss the changes due to COVID so far.
- Discussion about a member who has been a repetitive No Show at recent events. Prior to this BOD meeting, Tom Christopher sent the member an email and followed up with a phone call regarding the seriousness of his actions. Subsequently, he became a No Show again, and on another occasion showed up to play without first signing up. The Board agreed to suspend him for 4 tournaments and to terminate him if it happens again. Per our bylaws, he has a right to appeal for 10 days after he receives notice of the suspension and possible termination. Tom Christopher will talk with him and send him the official notice via email.
- The Board discussed the present situation of having two divisions, Earliest and Latest. The Latest division is significantly smaller than the Earliest division and teams in the Latest division have a higher Total Team Index than those in the Earliest Division. The two divisions were created to accommodate those who wanted to play early and those who would rather play late. There has been no significant complaints from the membership about the two-division structure.
At the last Board meeting in June, Jerry Canning expressed a concern that the higher Total Team Index of the Latest Division might be favoring their teams in the winning of team awards. Tom Smith calculated that the average Total Team Index was 11.2 points higher for the Latest division than the Earliest for the last 5 team tournaments. Tom analyzed the last 5 Team tournaments to see if one division was winning more than their fair share of the team awards. For these 5 events, Tom found that the Earliest division represented 64% of the teams and they won 66% of the team awards. The Latest division represented 36% of the teams and they won 34% of the team awards. It was concluded that these differences were insignificant.
Joe Walkington also analyzed the situation in a different and more detailed way. He analyzed the last 7 team tournaments. Joe concluded there was no significant bias overall between the two divisions. The discussion was tabled.
- Ren made a suggestion regarding texting of scorecards. He recommended that the person doing the texting identify the Team number in the text message as well as his name. This will help the TD greatly in entering scores if using the photo version of the scorecard. Tom Christopher will add these two recommendations to the back of his scorecard for the upcoming tournament.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 11:05 AM.
Our next Board meeting will be on August 20 at 9AM via ZOOM. The Board agreed to have all future meetings at 9AM.
Respectfully submitted,
Tom Smith, Secretary