Posted on: Thursday, December 23, 2004

BUREAUCRACY BUSTER

By Robbie Dingeman
Advertiser Staff Writer

Q. "We're sorry, all circuits are busy now, please try your call again later." This is what we golfers hear each time we try to get a tee time at a municipal course. Getting a tee time, especially at the Ala Wai, calls for some prayers and a miracle. Yet there are some people that have standing reservation times, time and time again. How can that happen?

A. City Golf Course System Administrator Garrick K. Iwamuro said tee times can be hard to get because a lot of callers want the same thing. He said about 77,000 golfers are registered to use the city's phone-in reservation system.

And he detailed the large number of people who want to golf compared to the smaller number of tee times available. He said a typical day for the golf system sees an average number of 2,500 transactions a day with 300 of them made between 6:30 a.m. and 7 a.m.

Iwamuro said the average number of calls made daily to the tee time number at 296-2000 is 60,000. And the number of 18-hole tee times available at Ala Wai is 57.

He has heard the complaint about golfers noticing that some people have the same morning tee time. Iwamuro said some people recruit a group of friends to call for tee times. "The larger the call-in group, the greater the chance of obtaining a tee time," he said.

He said some golfers who are often seen playing in the morning and not seen dialing into the reservation system obtain their tee times from friends or family members who call for them while they are out golfing.

Iwamuro said the 296-2000 reservation line can handle 24 calls at one time. Typically, the callers would select Ala Wai as their first choice, so that means the first 24 callers would end up taking the first 24 tee times. Practically speaking, that means that within 3 to 4 minutes, the morning tee times at Ala Wai are all taken.

Q. Could one solution be to have each golf course have its own phone number instead of one number for all courses?

A. Iwamuro said the idea behind the single call-in number is that golfers would have to call only one number to reserve a tee time at any of the six city golf courses. If a specific tee time was not available at a certain course, a golfer could then select another course while on the line, he said.

If each course had its own reservation number, golfers would have to call each course, he said. That would take more time and effort.

If you have a question or a problem and need help getting to the right person, you can reach The Bureaucracy Buster one of three ways:

Phone: 535-2454 and leave a message. Be sure to give us your name and daytime telephone number in case we need more information.