Steven Huffstutler, CGCS said: Tell them to move on. Last time I played WW, I called Jimbo and he said just to call the proshop. It was for a round in February during the Nationals and I am sure he was swamped with phone calls. We paid a $40 cart fee and it was a helluva deal for one of the great courses in the country. I'm not surprised they are cutting back on those rounds, I think half of the rounds that day were Superintendents.
Regards,
Steve
Steve, They were probably happy because they knew you guys would fix your ballmarks.
I'm more wishy washy probably then Steve, because (and it might depend on your tee time booking policy) if they called in the normal time frame and was able to book the time, I would let them slide, and I would inform the group that if in the future they would like to book a time, in order to get comped, they need to contact you and then these are the times that are available for a comped round.
I would also work with your pro shop staff to develop a policy and I think if you have clear and established guidelines it makes it easier on everyone. If a GCSAA member or even state chapter/or superintendent asking about comped, they are directed to the course super. If PGA member, they have to contact the PGA member at the course. These people would then set-up an available tee time. If you normally take tee times 7 days in advance, maybe comped rounds can't be given until 3 days in advanced or during a set time frame that tends to be your slow time. Also maybe it can be discussed, is it greens fees only, pay for cart? Whatever you do make sure it's consistent.
When I worked at a county facility in NJ, PGA and GCSAA members could play comped, they would get a form to fill out to list their name, facility and member number (this form was for our cash drawer to make sure our player count matched bag tags and revenue or lack of, even us employees had tickets for our comp rounds). They could play when the first available tee time was, (usually 3 hours on the stand by board). Now if they contacted us in advance before our computerized tee time system started taking times, (7 days) we could contact our golf office and set up a time for them or if after they could try and find a time for us. (I don't think we ever did that, no one wanted to play our courses when there were other places they could go).
Here at our city course they will comp rounds, and it is pretty loose, specially for the front house people. When it comes to us on maintenance and we want to visit one of our other city courses, even I go to our pro shop and ask them to get a time for me, never know who is working and if a manager isn't there it's a head ache.