You are playing as a threesome, competitively against each other. A single approaches on the 12th hole (or any hole in the middle of a round) and asks to join you. You say sure. On the first hole you all play together, even though the single is playing his own game, and he birdies the hole while the three of you get par or worse. All four of you are playing from the same set of tees. Since he is not part of the original group, is it proper to hit before him on the next tee even though he had the best score and might technically have the honor? I have been that single on a number of occasions (though rarely do I get a birdie) and have always deferred to the guys I joined up with and felt they had the first rights to tee it up no matter what my score, since I joined up with them. I'm curious to how you all handle this.

As soon as you join them, you become part of their flight and thus you should hit first if you scored better than the others.

jev wrote:

As soon as you join them, you become part of their flight and thus you should hit first if you scored better than the others.

Agreed.

good question.
i usually just tag onto their group too, and dont intrude.

Sometimes they'll call me through to tee off if i had a good hole.
Then again, most people are just hackers like me and dont know the rules.

Nice to know the answer.

I'm similar to DougE, if I join u with a group and I get a hint that they're playing at all competitively, I'll usually defer to teeing off last.

I'm with letting them hit first. Unless they are tee'ing off from a closer tee box or offer to let me hit first. As long as I'm not making someone upset or breaking some huge rule I'm pretty much game for anything on a typical round.