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SUMMARY
It has probably crossed your mind that you are in embarking on a vacation with 80 strangers. This second orientation focuses on the vacation itself. This document is not intended for your consumption until a week prior to the event. Its purpose to provide you with vacation expectations based on 20 years of event experiences.

PEOPLE
We have been told by many vendors the unique group resembles a college fraternity reunion. Our group is actually one hundred complete strangers who have repeatedly vacationed together to the point where we are very comfortable with one another.  There are a wide variety of occupations, interests, and personalities from many areas of the country attending.

ENVIRONMENT
The Carl Spackler Open is a relaxed 108-hour golf party designed with downtime between 11:00PM and 7:00AM. The event is very different from a traditional Myrtle Beach, Florida, or Las Vegas golf trip. Expect to spend 7 to 9 hours each day at the golf course, meeting dozens of people, and competing in a golf tournament. The first day will be 50 guys saying hello to 50 guys they have not seen in a year, however the most common statement made by a rookie after the trip, “I did not expect it to be so welcoming.”

COMMUNICATIONS
The preparations for the event are boring, negative, and filled with lots of process and requirements. That is all true. Those logistics are done after participant options are selected. Now it’s time to experience a crowd of people walking around for 108 hours with intent and clear direction.

You will not see a tour guide at the Carl Spackler Open. All relevant event information has been condensed into a smaller mobile website for your pocket. Tee times, itinerary, Leaderboards, scoring, golf rules, dinner options, cell phone contacts, room numbers, vehicle drivers, and more all easily accessible from all versions of smartphone.

The Carl Spackler Open occasionally grabs attention by texting 80+ cell phones. Our event website is connected to the Telegram app. This enables us to notify everyone regarding rain guidance, lost golf clubs, golf rule updates, procedure changes, vendor surprises, itinerary changes, your personalized daily itinerary, and anything necessary.  

WALLET
The Carl Spackler Open golf trip fee does not supply lunch and most dinners. It does not supply beverages except for breakfast. It does not supply gasoline for cars. With that said, the average golfer probably spends $30 during their vacation on things that are not food, beverage, and arrival/departure transportation.

HOTEL ROOM
The Carl Spackler Open pays for hotel rooms (including taxes). One member from each room provides a credit card for damage and incidentals. Roommates are available on both websites.

ROLE OF YOUR REFERRAL
Your referral should not be dumping this document on you. He is responsible for getting you acclimated into the Carl Spackler Open.  

Everyone who participates in our event is required to have someone they trust. Everyone must ultimately follow direction from someone they trust no matter the circumstance.  

GOLF COURSE
PACE OF PLAY
The average round of golf in America takes 4 ½ hours. Many golfers institute the gimmie, play familiar easy courses, and ignore ‘stroke and distance’ with the intent of finishing a round in 4 hours. The Carl Spackler Open is played on unfamiliar difficult golf courses, by hackers, by the rules, without drop zones, competitively, and rarely with a gimme. Impatient golfers must prepare themselves mentally for a 6hour round and pray for a 5-hour round. Quick golfers should stock the golf cart with food, drinks, music, newspapers, and embrace the opportunity to enjoy the outdoors and the social aspects. The fastest round in the past 15 years lasted 5 hours.  

YARDAGE
Golfers are not designed to play with the same golfer twice. Final Round pairings are based on reverse Leaderboard order. All rookies are paired with their referral once.

YARDAGE and TEES
The Carl Spackler Open has its own set of tees. Actually, two sets. The tournament tee has been set at 6,450 yards for 20 years. We also have a senior tee that plays around 6,000 yards. There is a Tee Analysis page on the website. An algorithm uses yardages played from local cards entered, age, stroke handicap, and club yardages in your golfer profile to denote which tee to play. Golfers receiving a +1 on the tee analysis page can play the Senior Tee. A rarer +2 identifies our Super Seniors. Super Seniors can play the colored golf course tee in front of the Senior Tee on each hole.

SCORING
The Carl Spackler Open scores electronically on our website using a modified stableford handicap system. Each pairing is responsible for completing an accurate paper scorecard. This scorecard is turned in and our backup to electronic scoring.

The tournament has successfully scored the event for 10 years using cell phones. Pairings are designed to have a mobile scorer. This means your score will be submitted to a real-time Leaderboard seconds after your ball drops in the hole. The real-time electronic scoring can be viewed using the mobile website. The Leaderboard shuffles multiple times a minute from updates.

BAG STORAGE (DEPENDENT ON GOLF COURSE)
The Carl Spackler Open event is held at the same golf facility for a variety of reasons. One of the many advantages can be bag storage. Golf bags stored (instead of transported back to the hotel daily) overnight add tremendous efficiency that are hard to quantify until you experience it. The event provides each golfer a personalized bag tag for easy golf bag identification. Golfers can keep a set of street shoes in their golf bag. Swap street shoes for golf shoes after their round and leave the golf course.

AWARDS DINNER & PRESENTATION
The Carl Spackler Open event holds an awards dinner on the final night to close the event. Dinner is provided. The time and location are available within the event itinerary.

GIFTS
The Carl Spackler Open distributes hundreds of gifts and purchases. Rookies will receive a logo cap and a set of golf rule cards for their golf bag.

PLAYER MEETING
A Welcome Player Meeting is our event kickoff. There is a variety of things discussed as a collective group, but it’s also an organized social. The event is structured in many ways to get rookies involved. Part of the meeting will include a rookie introduction, which provides an opportunity to break the ice with the large group.  

RED TEES
There is a Red Tee Lottery and Distribution at the Carl Spackler Open. Each golfer is assigned a hole where they can play from the red tee. Assignments are available on both websites and inside the mobile scoring system.

SYMBOLS – V, S, D
The pairings page on the mobile website will display symbols next to player names. These symbols indicate which golfers (V) drove a vehicle to Spackler, (S) have access to mobile score, and (D) assigned as a golf cart driver. Note: Being assigned a driver is not instruction to drive a golf cart. Our event does not want 80 golfers acquiring golf carts. Passengers (not assigned drivers) should not obtain a golf cart.
They should be looking for the driver who has obtained their golf cart. The driver and passenger can then figure out who drives. Remember the mobile website has an address book with cell phone numbers.  

GOLF RULES
The Carl Spackler Open has voted multiple times to play a handicapped golf tournament. We cannot do that without scorecards for handicapping and playing by a set of golf rules. We have chosen five basic rules to play. Those rules are available inside both websites. There are two or three very minor differences from the USGA Rule Book. The 3rd set of participant options confirms the understanding of each rule.

LONG PUTT POINTS
There is a 6th golf rule card that explains the rules surrounding long putts. The golfer who makes the longest putt on each hole receives a bonus of 2 points. This is a Carl Spackler Open event rule and explained during the Practice Round.

PRIZES, AWARDS, and OUTFITS
Golden Jacket – The golfer who scores the most points win a Golden Jacket for their closet. Past winners return each year wearing their jacket to socials.

Al  Czverik Outfit – The golfer in last place after Round 2 will play Round 3 on Sunday in the Al Czverik (Rodney Dangerfield) Outfit from Caddy Shack. This is a 7-hour reminder to the golfer in last place that he is in last place.

Carl Spackler Outfit – The loser of the golf tournament will wear the Carl Spackler Outfit from the movie Caddy Shack throughout the last evening and Awards Dinner.