Golf at the highest level has score kept in 5 different places and every shot is tracked by a laser. At the highest level score is kept by your playing partner for you, on a tablet by walk along official, on a scoreboard carried along with the group, on scoreboards along the course and in the operations tent. Sign a bad scorecard and you get DQ'd. And at the highest level a rules official walks along with the golfers. You have never been to a golf tournament at the highest level if you don't know this. Watch what takes place at the first tee. You will see the exchange of score cards. And if golfers aren't sure of a rule they may consult the rules official walking along.

But they don't have that at the competitive Jr level. The competitive Jr circuit is all self score and they currently upload their scores on an app after each hole. They don't have rampant cheating at the jr level or really any cheating. The comparison you make is apples and oranges due to the money involved and generated on the Tour which also allows for a lot more bells and whistles.

SYO and 2 man squads are fine as they give a realistic alternative for clubs to get shooters in and strike a P/L balance for throwing an event. More people lose due to their own inconsistency and lack of practice than they do to the cheating boogeyman.

Credibility should never be sacrificed in favor of $$$. It's pretty much a wash in my area. Those that show and no show because of SYO. FYI, golfers aren't playing with friends and relatives at the higher levels.

If your main thoughts of shooting NSCA concern cheating, and how you’re being ‘screwed’ by the NSCA, move on to something like checkers. Your BP will be better off for it.

No, you just go to real tournaments. Why can FITASC,Skeet,Trap and AFS have officials and SC's resists at the so called Funny Shoots?

Yup. Totally tied up in knots about cheating and credibility. The vast majority of shooters are honest and don’t want anything they didn’t earn.

I like shooting with good trappers at a judged event but to be perfectly honest I am frequently disappointed by lack of knowledge or experience or with some interest to do it right. It is laughable when the judge asks the shooter if they broke the target and I heard that a couple times at a us open I attended. Have witnessed successful bullying by shooters as well

SYO isn’t perfect but my experience is that squadmates in a SYO event are typically more experienced in the game rules and know where to stand to see the targets and score accurately

Glad to say I haven’t felt cheated by others shooting a better score than me on a given day. Those shooters just had a better day. I gauge my day more on how I used my skill level on the targets presented than my score against other shooters.

The problem is the clubs won't spend the time and money to hire and retain good trappers. I don't go to shots and work for the club and maximize profits for the club. SYO shoots are no bargain for what you get. Try trapping a 4 day shoot and let me know if you get everything 100% right. The pro refs and umpires have instant replay, they aren't right all the time. Bottom line is if you want fair play you need to pay for it. And the cost is small compared to what you already invested.

Where I am there are no privately owned for profit facilities. All volunteer operated associations. I have to drive to Addieville in Rhode Island over 5 hours away to shoot at a for profit operation.

I volunteer a lot of my own time at my local home club

I don’t think the clubs can win as far as trapper retention. If a club hosts 10 events in a year averaging 2 days each does 20 potential days of work lock someone in? Hardly. The clubs have to deal with high turnover and blending in newbies. Some are good and others are just there.

I had a chance to chat with the guy that coordinated all the trappers for M&M for last years us open. It was an epic undertaking with a huge crew. They did their best and did several days of training prior to the event. Several of the trappers were extraordinary. Most were good, especially several days in. A few were not good at all. Overall a very well done job. But they also had well over a thousand shooters so lots of revenue to make it work.

I certainly don’t expect perfection in scoring in either a judged event or SYO. Typically if a call gets missed in either type of event there is someone on the squad that will call it out and it gets resolved.

Some shooters have lots of choices on events to attend and could choose to pay a bit extra for a judged event most every weekend. Many of us do not. The reality of it all is that the integrity of a judged event isn’t as high as some believe and integrity of a SYO event is much higher than some believe. Neither is perfect but both provide us an opportunity to get out and enjoy the shooting sports.

This is a critical point. We can only do what is available to us.

Locally, we are fortunate in that most courses leave tournament sets in place for a week after the event. So, there is opportunity to shoot more challenging targets even if we opt out of SYO.

I don't think that I've ever personally lost anything to an entrant who pencil-whipped an event, but I've shot in a bunch of tournaments where that was obviously going on. Mostly I don't like the distraction of SYO. In a tournament I prefer not to throw targets or keep score for others. With trappers, I can focus better on my own "stuff," and to me that is more than worth the additional cost - once again, personal preference and choice.

That’s swell if those are readily available to a shooter. In many places they’re not. I like to shoot, so I do both.

You still seem to harp totally out of proportion to an issue that is a lot less common than you seem to think it is. Think how much less stressful you’ll be with checkers. Pretty much keep your eyes on the board.....not many ways for your opponent to cheat you;-).

Very well said!

Where I am all clubs are for profit and they still do not have the funds for trappers (or the ability to get, train and retain them) The closest club is 1.5 hours away for me know, one of my favorites went from an hour to 2.5 hours; SYO at both clubs. have shot with folks I hadn't known in 2 man squads due to no others available and have shot in 6 man squads with folks I knew a little. A trip like that to shoot 2 100 bird events costs me almost $375 by the time you pay for targets, ammo and gas; that is already straining my budget for a monthly shoot; if it went up another $50, I'd pass...............