Boston Amateur Golf Society (BAGS)

[WhosYourCaddy]

Anyone out there playing with BAGS next year (2013)?? Looks like a pretty good gig and they seem to play at some good spots (though the good ones are mostly mid week). It's $105 to join and anywhere from $50 - $100 per tourney. I like the idea and there seems to be some decent players there. Does anyone have any feedback on this? Would you recommend?

 

Thanks all, Cheers!

[DigDugDig]

I'm not, but my grandma is playing in the Houston Amateur Golf Society.

Sergio Garcia has played in Greenville Amateur Golf Society his whole career (outside the Ryder Cup)

Also, it will be a sad day when Natalie Gulbis joins the Sacramento Amateur Golf Society...

[Thrillhouse]

[quote name='aceyducey' timestamp='1356838837' post='6136969']
I'm not, but my grandma is playing in the Houston Amateur Golf Society.

Sergio Garcia has played in Greenville Amateur Golf Society his whole career (outside the Ryder Cup)

Also, it will be a sad day when Natalie Gulbis joins the Sacramento Amateur Golf Society...
[/quote]

Lol, wordplay is fun.

[PingG10guy]

[quote name='aceyducey' timestamp='1356838837' post='6136969']
I'm not, but my grandma is playing in the Houston Amateur Golf Society.

Sergio Garcia has played in Greenville Amateur Golf Society his whole career (outside the Ryder Cup)

Also, it will be a sad day when Natalie Gulbis joins the Sacramento Amateur Golf Society...
[/quote]

Wow...

[MyShortGameSucks]

I would pass on BAGS and join the rival Tour of Greater Boston aka The Tour. I played both for many years and The Tour is a significantly better run and more professional outfit. Courses played are a wash. One big differentiator is that The Tour has strict pace of play rules and because of that pace of play is way better.

www.golfthetour.com

If you have anymore questions PM me. I haven't played on it for 4+ years as I joined a private club but I still see some of the guys occasionally and next year hope to play as a guest at some of the privates they visit.

[PingG10guy]

...move down south to Florida. I heard they have an Amateur Golf Society?

[Thrillhouse]

The cast of snatch started the Dublin Amateur Golf Society.

[Imp]

BAGS is under a lot of pressure right now to not let things be as slow as they have been. Last year was my 1st, and only, year playing BAGS RI. 5.5 hour rounds just aren't my bag. (See what I did there?)

Also, BAGS CT is no longer associated with the other two BAGS groups and started up [url="http://www.ctamtour.com"]http://www.ctamtour.com[/url] and [url="http://www.riamtour.com"]http://www.riamtour.com[/url] with some fairly stout courses on their schedule(s). They are also rumored to be upping their game by going with BlueLinks.com for score and stat tracking, and a live results feed from the events, creating a toureny atmosphere.

There's also the various member days from Mass Golf Association ([url="http://www.mgalinks.org"]http://www.mgalinks.org[/url]) and RI Golf Association ([url="http://www.rigalinks.org"]http://www.rigalinks.org[/url]).

There are more and more competing travelling clubs around to choose from. The slow play that one got with BAGS was a reason I'm not re-upping. I don't care if it's tourney play or not, there's no reason for consecutive 5-6hr rounds.

--kC

[WhosYourCaddy]

Thanks kC for the legitimate feedback. I was looking at the Tour but seems pretty pricey. Though 5-6 hour rounds may be worth it. Appreciate it!

[MyShortGameSucks]

I belive that you can "Test Drive" the Tour before joining and putting down the membership fee. Also note that they usually do membership deals at the Boston Golf Expo. There never used to be a massive difference in price but yes The Tour is a bit more expensive but IMHO you get a lot more for the money in terms of organization and professionalism and obviously the pace of play issue is massive. Believe me I played on both and its no contest and I really have no stake in either other than knowing a few of the owners.

Bottom line...The Boston BAGS has a very bad rep for slow play. No amount of mony saved is worth a 5.5 to 6 hour round belive me!!

[Imp]

Just got this in from Brian at CT/RI Am Tour...

[QUOTE]All,

I've received many email questions regarding our tour and what it exactly entails so I thought I would put together a brief description of what it means to be part of the Amateur Golf Tour and what's expected of you as a member.

If you are familiar with the PGA Tour then you pretty much get what we're trying to mirror. We travel from town to town, city to city each week beginning in April and ending in October. You play tournaments to collect points, dependent on how you finish in that days tournament, and the top 24 in each division will be asked to participate in our NEW playoff system beginning in September.

The point system is displayed on our website and we mirrored the FED EX cup points exactly. We have four 2 day majors throughout the season and the points will be much higher for these events.

We will have 4 weeks of playoffs, on the weekends, and we will cut the field down each weekend until we crown the 2013 champion! even though the playoffs begin in September the tournaments are still open for anyone outside of the top 24. We will still pay out after each event and side betting will also be available.

After the playoffs we will begin our newly formed FALL SERIES. The winner of the Fall Series will receive an award.

I've been asked quite a few times what Blue Golf does and what effect it will have on our amateur golf tour. If you've been to the website and clicked on the Blue Golf temporary schedule and we will see what they offer right off the bat. Comprehensive detailed information about each and every tournament, from the course score card to driving directions to tournament news. You will also be able to view who's registered for the tournaments.

We will also have TV monitors set up at each event and we will broadcast BLUE TV during the tournament. We will have a downloadable Android and Apple App. by the end of this month. You will need to download this application so we can utilize our live scoring during each tournament. As we receive scores Blue TV will display them right away and we will display the top 10 in each division during your play.

Another neat feature is if you're unable to join us in any particular tournament you can log in to Blue Golf and view how your friends are playing hole by hole. There are still many features that I don't know about yet and I'm learning weekly as I learn the system.

We score our tournaments using the stableford system. Which means you're playing the course NOT the other members. You receive points after each and every hole. We take the total points at the end of the tournament and we usually pay out the top 6 to 10 dependent on the size of the field. We also have a stroke play division. Points awarded : 5 pts for net double eagle, 4 pts for net eagle, 3 points for net birdies, 2 points for net pars and 1 point per net bogey.

The NEAGT Players Club is a special addition application that you can purchase for $20 a season. This application is something special. You keep track of you season stats from fairways hit to putting to sand saves etc etc. You can get to this players club right from the website. There is a page setup on the left hand side of the page.

I receive many emails asking if we have a minimum amount of tournaments that you need to play and the simple answer is NO. In a perfect world we would get over 60 members at each and every event but we know you live busy lives and what we're hoping for are members who try and participate as much as possible. We are only as strong as our members participation.

This is much more than a golf league! you must obide by the rules of golf, we do not tolerate cheating or statements such as, "this isn't the PGA Tour so I'm hitting from here". The rules of golf are here for a reason. We are also trying each year to cut down on the pace of play. We've done very well during the week at the private clubs and you must realize that we very rarely get out before anyone from the public on the weekends so as long as our first group is in back of the last public group there is nothing more that we can ask for.

Our membership fee is very reasonable and we're hoping to attract golfers, men and women, for a lifetime. Like I said this is much more than a golf league.

I hope I was able to answer some of your questions and please let your friends know about the CT and RI AM Tours. Let's build a strong membership base together.
[/QUOTE]

Like I said, something different, intruiging and sounds like fun.

--kC

[MyShortGameSucks]

I like the fact they plat Stapleford - that cuts down the time to play significantly Stops people grinding over that 4ft quad bogey putt. The live scoring sound like fun, as long as players don't get too obsessed with it and end up on their iPhone all round...

[Imp]

In a sense, yes, but every putt still needs to be holed, no gimmes. Otherwise handicaps would get jacked. But you don't have to hover over it saying "I need to sink this" when you're putting for zero points.

My friday league plays stableford also, but we go into the negative and start taking away points after double bogey.

--kC

[daverain1]

I played in BAGSCT last year and would not play again, but it might work for others. My concerns were: pace of play was brutally slow; fees were too high especially for the public tracks - after you pay a $120 membership fee, you pay $17 a round up charge, plus you had to pay more to get in "side games" like skins, closest to the pin, long drive. The $17 pp wasn't paid out in prizes, a portion of it paid for the management (Brian). Lastly, the privates were almost always weekdays, the public courses on weekend afternoons. There was also cheating (gimmes, bad drops, etc.), Brian was unwilling to enforce the rules.

So if you were playing an average public track (Blackledge), you pay $51 plus a cart fee ($15)if you rode to play on a weekend afternoon. And another $20 for the side games. You could play there any weekend afternoon for much less than $76, especially with deals on golfnow.

If you had weekdays off, you could get to play some nice privates for $100 - $150. He is looking for players for TPC Boston in May -$235 for a Monday round with lunch. Sorry but that's overpriced by at least $85 IMHO.

[Imp]

How many courses did you play last year? Just curious. I haven't played with BagsCT (CT/RI AM Tour this year) and am looking for feedback. Your post is helpful in what to expect.

One thing that many of the regular CT players I've talked to disliked were the subrogation from the other Bags. If you were from RI or MA, you could play in any of the events. There were cases where some of the RI/MA members went and slowed things up. Couldn't really call them on it because he was part of BAGS. And having played with Bags RI last year, they were brutally slow. I just wonder if you went to an event that had some of the mentioned slow players from other Bags?

What's funny is BagsCT broke away this year from the other 2 BAGS because of their slow play. Brian made it clear not only to me, but to others I know that there will be an expected pace of play enforced this year.

I'm not sticking up for anyone there right now because I have yet to play with the CT crew.

One thing I will mention is you will not get a private club on a weekend with any travelling club. MGA, RIGA, (and they're the state boards!!!) etc... look at their schedules. Unless you're in an open qual or similar, it will not happen with any of them. That's a non-argument.

As far as rules, yeah, that's something I'll keep an eye out for and if you're putting on a tourney style event, the rules should be followed. Thanks for the heads up.

Lastly, and I'll put this to bed, you take your time and schedule 2-3 rounds a week for a large group of somewhat demanding people that want to play golf, show up to them, run everything. Start your own club. Find out how much time and energy it takes to make the events happen for a year. Oh,[I]and do it for free[/I]. I have no problem giving some of what I earn to help someone out so I can play golf at all these different courses. That went for Bags RI that I played with last year too. The thing that killed me was the slow play with RI. I stopped 3/4 way through the year. Couldn't take it. But then there was the problem of trying to find someplace to play golf on the weekend. Usually the nice tracks were all booked solid. I'm fine with having a calendar laid out for me and paying a little more for that convenience.

Please don't take anything there are argumentative. Emphasis and emoting is hard to read in the written word.

--kC

[daverain1]

I didn't take anything as argumentative, I'm not sensitive to what gets posted on boards, there's enough of that already. I played in about 6 or 7 events, mostly on the privates I wanted to play. When I started the comment with "it might work for others" what I could have explained further was:

If you want to play on some nice private clubs and can get away on weekdays and don't mind playing for the privilege, it's ideal. Most of the guys I was paired with were nice guys and I had a good time. One guy put my wedge in his bag on the last green (accidentally). I have club labels with my phone number on them. We he discovered it - he drove an hour from home to return the club to me.

I don't know about other Out of State players, everyone I played with was from CT or western MA.

I think it is a bad deal on weekends. It's not hard to get out in the afternoon on weekends at most public courses in CT, and you can play for a lot less than through BAGSCT, as long as you plan ahead a little.

I've run golf leagues and am a trip organizer for an annual Myrtle trip, and have done it as a volunteer. I think running the organization is Brian's job (since he's at every event), and I don't feel the need to support someone to make tees times and organize tourneys for me. I don't begrudge Brian making a living, but to me it's like having a personal shopper - thanks but I can take care of it myself.

Lastly, the guys played loose with rules - bogus drops, taking gimmes, etc. I asked Brian to send a reminder note out to putt out and confer with partners if there were any rules questions - he would not do so for fear of alienating some players.

[Dbogey]

[quote name='MyShortGameSucks' timestamp='1356840360' post='6137131']
I would pass on BAGS and join the rival Tour of Greater Boston aka The Tour. I played both for many years and The Tour is a significantly better run and more professional outfit. Courses played are a wash. One big differentiator is that The Tour has strict pace of play rules and because of that pace of play is way better.

www.golfthetour.com

If you have anymore questions PM me. I haven't played on it for 4+ years as I joined a private club but I still see some of the guys occasionally and next year hope to play as a guest at some of the privates they visit.
[/quote]

I would second this. Played the tour, good guys, well run thinking about re-joining to get my golf buddies together for a few of the privates.

[Sean2]

You may also want to look at this: http://www.nepga.com/newenglandseries/

It's hosted by the New England PGA and it's very well done.

[swgolf12]

Anyone end up doing any of the options mentioned for this year, specifically the CT/RI and how has it been?

[Imp]

[quote name='swgolf12' timestamp='1375738269' post='7610798']
Anyone end up doing any of the options mentioned for this year, specifically the CT/RI and how has it been?
[/quote]Some light reading: http://www.golfwrx.com/forums/topic/819521-ri-am-tour/

Working title: "The grass isn't always greener."

--kC

[Joe9977]

Good info here. I'm gonna try the Tour, hoping for non-slow play. It's just amateur golf. Even if I was on the PGA Tour, I'd go nuts if I had to play as slow as those guys. Anyone see how slow Padraig Harrington played at The Honda???

[Sean2]

Joe, before the snow flew, I played a round of golf with a couple of gentleman who play/played BAGS, they both told me the rounds take a long time to play. I don't know how true that is, that's what they told me though.

[Joe9977]

Thanks, that seems to be the consensus. Too bad, who has the patience for 5-6 hour rounds then sitting in traffic trying to get home afterwards.

[Joe9977]

I did the Tour of Grtr Boston, very well run, good pace of play, very nice people I always got paired up with. I did one season, glad I did, just too busy to continue.