Here at Hittin Links, we are THE fun and competitive league built for the regular people who work hard and love the game of golf and just want to let loose on the weekend with the crew.  As such, we continue to strive to be the best for our members and we stay open to new ideas and changes.  Please see below for some of the updates we have made for the Tour in 2026!

*Note all rule changes are subject to change.  Should an adjustment/rule change prove to not be beneficial to the league we return to the board to vote on dismissal of the update and will update the league immediately.

Updates for 2026:

1. COMMUNICATION: Moving forward ALL member communication including score disputes, handicap questions, player complaints, bonus point acquisition and all other general communication needs to be sent to email “support@hittinlinks.com” only.  Please reserve contacting Commish Jerm directly via phone/text/DM for emergencies or when there are questions/concerns on tournament days only.  The new “support@hittinlinks.com” is linked to other members of the Hittin Links board so you’re questions/complaints can be addressed at a more timely and efficient manner.

2. LOWER COSTS: Cost for virtually everything in life continue to rise and golf is no exception.  As the game continues to explode in popularity so do the prices.  As we have said we want to be the golf league for EVERYONE so we listened to our members concerns with higher prices of events so we have implemented a couple changes.  1. We are hosting events at a few more cheaper but still well loved Muni courses to help keep the overall costs lower. 2.  In 2026 we are reducing costs of event registration by both continuing to negotiate lower green fee prices with courses AND we are lowering the Prize Fund amount from each registration by about $25-$35.  This will result in lower prize money giveaways, BUT it will reduce the overall costs of all events and make our events more accessible to players.  We will also continue to try to gain more awesome sponsors that provide giveaways both fiscally and via free products to better offset the lowering of the prize money per event.

3. EVERYTHING LATERAL***: To help combat global and habitual slow pace issues, Hittin Links has a new local tournament rule, no more 2 stroke OB or E5 Lost Balls penalties. We know that many courses we play don’t have the best markings for OB and many courses aren’t perfectly manicured like on the PGA Tour and so we find during the course of a round, we have many groups that run into issues with a lost ball in a area of the course where it should “easily” be found, but players can’t find it and spend tons of extra time searching for balls to avoid that 2 stroke penalty.  Instead every stake (white, red or yellow), every lost ball and every hazard is to be treated as a lateral drop. This applies across the entire course. If you hit a tee shot or any other shot OB or internal OB, no need for a provisional, confirm location with playing partners and just take your drop within 2 club lengths of where the ball last went out for 1 stroke. If you hit a shot you see bounce and was clearly in bounds but you cannot locate it, confirm the last known location with your playing partners and drop within 2 club lengths for 1 stroke.  Any and all other situations where the ball goes out or cannot be found, please consult with your playing partners for the last known location in play. Drop within 2 club lengths no closer to the hole for a 1 stroke penalty.  Again, if this rule change proves to be an advantage to certain players or cause controversy of any kind we will return to the board to abolish it, but we do feel after much discussion the pros far outweigh any cons with this adjustment.

***For D1 low handicaps only that intend on playing in scratch leagues and/or competitive USGA events, you can track the strokes gained from this ruling during a tournament and can send an email to support@hittinlinks.com with the corrections required to your round to include what would have been E5 strokes and we will adjust your USGA posted score.

Please keep track of ALL Hittin Links rules using this page: https://hittinlinks.com/tour-tournament-rules/

4. PACE OF PLAY TRACKING: As we continue to try to combat slow play issues (which are not just a Hittin Links issue, its a global golf issue as the game continues to grow), we are asking ALL members to keep updated on all our tips/tricks to help speed up play.  Above all else, just keep up with the group in front of you and if everyone does that, we won’t have any issues. But also, please reach out to our Handicap Management group at support@hittinlinks.com anytime if you need to report another player as a habitually slow player. All reporting is treated as anonymous and we will be respectful in how it’s addressed with each player individually that has been reported multiple times for slow play.  We just want to continue to work to get all events and all players to flow at a 4.30-4.45 pace for 18 holes.

In addition, we will be implementing a new rule to address Pace.  After each event we will send a breakdown of overall pace of the event and the groups that were determined to have caused the slowdowns. The players in the those groups will be subject to all future events to be moved the the last groups until pace of play increases.

Please MAKE SURE to review our “pace of play” guidelines page for more info: https://hittinlinks.com/pace-of-play-handicapping/

5. HANDICAPPING CHANGES: To bring us more in line with how the NCGA and USGA operate net events, we have made the following adjustments our events based on each format.  See below for breakdown of changes:

• Individual Stroke Play Events: All players play to 95% of Handicap.  No hard cap.
• Team Best Ball Stroke Play Events: All players play to 85% of Handicap with a hard cap of 18.4.
• Team Scramble Events: 35% of better golfer handicap + 15% of worse golfer handicap
• 4 Man Scramble is now a Net Event + 3 hole aggregate alt shot showdown. 20% + 15% + 10% + 5%.

Please MAKE SURE to review our “handicapping” guidelines page for more info: https://hittinlinks.com/pace-of-play-handicapping/

6.  New “JUST FORE THA VIBES” Bonus Rounds / Hangouts: Also, new this year we introduce the “Just fore tha Vibez” Bonus rounds where we encourage members to work together on our Discord Chat to setup casual rounds and awesome golf weekends. The points for these bonus points are standardized at 10 points when you play/hang with players from your conference and 20 points if you play with players outside your conference. See that new page here: