Be on time or you will have a big problem!

Be on time or you will have a big problem!

Avie K. Utoma, Contributor, Jakarta

All sports including golf have their own rules. For instance,
missing your starting time, or tee time in the lexicon of golf,
will cause you a big problem, no matter who you are.

If you thought golf prowess would allow you to play anywhere
anytime, you're wrong! Not even golf's number one, Tiger Woods,
can get away with that. Say his tee time is 8:57 a.m. and he
arrives at the tee box one second late, he would surely get a
two-stroke penalty! Worse yet, for lateness beyond five minutes,
one would be DQ-ed (disqualified)! It's a golf rule, even when
it's only a local rule.

For golf professionals, a difference of two strokes could mean
a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars. It happened to
American Duffy Waldorf two weeks ago on the 12th hole in the
final round of the FBR Open. He would have finished the
tournament in outright second place and taken home US$540,000.
But he got himself penalized for doing what he wasn't supposed to
do. Had he repaired his ball's pitch mark after he took his shot
from the fairway, he would have gotten away scot-free. Instead,
he was penalized and finished tied with Fred Funk and Joe Durant,
each collecting $336,000. A rule is a rule.

For amateurs, it's slightly different, yet the effect can
still be the same. Although they can probably get away with
bending a few of the official rules of golf, if they miss their
tee time, it's almost like the end of the world.

What they get is a worse penalty. Either they completely lose
the chance to play, plus paying the entire green fee, or they are
put back to a later tee time, like three or four hours later,
subject to some other sucker's cancellation.

So, what's the big deal about tee time? Why is the starting
time so important? Basically, it's the old supply-demand theory.
On any given day, the maximum capacity that an 18-hole golf
course can accommodate is no more than 280 players. Provided it
isn't raining in the afternoon, and the day starts at 6:30 a.m.
Sure, you can fill in more players, but that means there'll be a
lot of unhappy customers not being able to finish their rounds.

And in planet golf, everything is about numbers.

Let's talk about some of them now. Within a one-hour drive
from Jakarta, there are 34 private or public golf clubs totaling
684 holes, or the equivalent of 38 18-hole courses. Some have
only 9 holes, others have 27 or 36 holes, while most are 18-hole
courses.

Jagorawi is the only course with 45 holes. And visit any of
these courses on a Saturday or public holiday (except when it's a
long weekend), you will find all of them are full. All of the tee
times are fully reserved. Hypothetically, that means only 10,640
players can play on that particular day.

So far, there has never been any real effort to find out the
exact number of golfers in the country, much less in Jakarta. A
good guess is that it ranges between 50,000 and 75,000,
expatriates included. Who really knows! But one thing is for
sure, whatever the numbers the tee time has definitely become a
precious commodity. That's why the green fees for Saturday and
public holidays are sky high.

I have heard stories about disgruntled members of some
exclusive clubs who never get to play at their own clubs, which
charge nauseatingly high joining fees and annual dues.

In order to reserve a Saturday morning tee time, for instance,
members must do it the preceding Monday by fax between 8 a.m. and
noon. Any reservation received before or after the prescribed
time is annulled. And the story goes that one golfer lined up 10
fax machines, each sending the reservation form and not one got
through.

I sure am glad I didn't join such an obnoxious golf club. I
count my blessings that, even if I have to wait an hour, at the
two clubs I belong to I can just walk in and join my buddies for
a great Saturday round. No hustle and bustle trying to get a tee
time in advance. And numbers are only counted after lunch, when
the pot is awarded to the winner and the bills settled.

Yet, for some expatriates the cost for playing golf here in
Indonesia is considered reasonable, unless you come from the U.S.
or Australia, where public and municipal courses are in
abundance. But not if you're a subject of Emperor Akihito or if
your national food is Kimchee. There's also a story about a
Japanese man who enjoys at least three months a year playing golf
day in day out here in Jakarta. It is believed that all of his
expenses -- airfare, housing, food and green fees -- for his
three-month golfing spree are probably equal to playing two
rounds of golf back in his home country. And he's been doing it
for the past 15 years or so!

In the meantime, from early January until the deadly Severe
Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and the Iraq war became
freaking calamities, loads of people were flying in from Asian
countries and invading Jabotabek courses.

Fate had it that SARS and the Iraq war turned the tee-time
market back to normal. Some clubs even passed a regulation
banning players from SARS-affected countries.

It's probably safe to assume that golf will continue to be
part of the trendy lifestyle. Like the continuing growth of
imported built-up cars, people will probably not even blink at
how much they have to spend to secure a ridiculously priced tee
time. For as long as they think they look good, golfers will be
out there on the 1st tee on Saturday morning.