A question of etiquette, pace of play or disgust

[tpj070]

I have a question regarding a scenario I ran into a few sundays ago when I was playing a round at my club. Me and a friend grabbed a cart and headed out to the course, keep in mind for some reason the course does not feel the need to require tee times, and jumped on the first tee. We quickly caught up to the group in front of us (a threesome of some of our friends). We stayed back for a few holes and flagged down a ranger to ask about the hold up and see if there was anything he could do. His response was its just sunday you have to deal with slow play. We got a kick out of that and decided to join up with our friends and create a 5some. The was no group behind us and we decided as long as we kept up with the group in front of us and pace of play we would be fine. We played the rest of the front 9 like that and on 10 the ranger came by again and totally freaked out. He told us no 5somes on sundays and we showed him we were 10 minutes ahead of pace and had kept up the group in front of us and ahead of any groups behind us. He insisted so we did as he liked and split up and waited the rest of the round. Are the rules so rigid that there is no room for adjustment or discretion for rangers? I don't understand the problem if we were ahead of pace and not causing any issues. We were still waiting even in a 5some.

[0ldblu3]

If the marshal is responsible for enforcing the course rules and the last time he fudged on one he got chewed out, then he is probably just doing his job regardless of your good arguments to look the other way this time.

[tpj070]

That is true I guess since I don't see a marshall out there often, I forget that its his job and he has to do his job to his best ability.

[GreenB]

As long as the marshall was polite about it I guess he was just doing his job. That being said I've come across some pretty grumpy ass marshalls that seem to be on their own personal little power trips.

[Slicer219]

It's his job, granted... but seeing how the group was keeping pace it sounds like he just made the situation worse and slowed down the course, and i'm sure that's not part of his job description.

[TJBam]

"Just doin my job man"

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by tpj070

I have a question regarding a scenario I ran into a few sundays ago when I was playing a round at my club. Me and a friend grabbed a cart and headed out to the course, keep in mind for some reason the course does not feel the need to require tee times, and jumped on the first tee. We quickly caught up to the group in front of us (a threesome of some of our friends). We stayed back for a few holes and flagged down a ranger to ask about the hold up and see if there was anything he could do. His response was its just sunday you have to deal with slow play. We got a kick out of that and decided to join up with our friends and create a 5some. The was no group behind us and we decided as long as we kept up with the group in front of us and pace of play we would be fine. We played the rest of the front 9 like that and on 10 the ranger came by again and totally freaked out. He told us no 5somes on sundays and we showed him we were 10 minutes ahead of pace and had kept up the group in front of us and ahead of any groups behind us. He insisted so we did as he liked and split up and waited the rest of the round. Are the rules so rigid that there is no room for adjustment or discretion for rangers? I don't understand the problem if we were ahead of pace and not causing any issues. We were still waiting even in a 5some.

Because a course cannot have different rules for different people.  If they let you play a fivesome then they have much more trouble dealing with another fivesome that might not be in the same situation.  Discretion in applying rules is a prescription for creating disputes.

[saevel25]

Originally Posted by tpj070

I have a question regarding a scenario I ran into a few sundays ago when I was playing a round at my club. Me and a friend grabbed a cart and headed out to the course, keep in mind for some reason the course does not feel the need to require tee times, and jumped on the first tee. We quickly caught up to the group in front of us (a threesome of some of our friends). We stayed back for a few holes and flagged down a ranger to ask about the hold up and see if there was anything he could do. His response was its just sunday you have to deal with slow play. We got a kick out of that and decided to join up with our friends and create a 5some. The was no group behind us and we decided as long as we kept up with the group in front of us and pace of play we would be fine. We played the rest of the front 9 like that and on 10 the ranger came by again and totally freaked out. He told us no 5somes on sundays and we showed him we were 10 minutes ahead of pace and had kept up the group in front of us and ahead of any groups behind us. He insisted so we did as he liked and split up and waited the rest of the round. Are the rules so rigid that there is no room for adjustment or discretion for rangers? I don't understand the problem if we were ahead of pace and not causing any issues. We were still waiting even in a 5some.

1) He should have let you play through, that's crap, you can always play through and gain slight improvements on overall course pace.

2) He is right to enforce the 4 players only in a group rule. Even though your playing fast, courses usually don't allow more than 4 players per group. The guy is paid to do his job, you asked, he said no, it happens :p

On that note, i was in league night, 9 holes, and we were stuck behind a foursome in our league who were slow, i mean SLOW. So we formed up a 7-some from the 5th hole on to the 9th, all walking. We kept up with that 4-some, which had two carts and two walkers. It was just crazy.

[Fourputt]

Originally Posted by saevel25

1) He should have let you play through, that's crap, you can always play through and gain slight improvements on overall course pace.

2) He is right to enforce the 4 players only in a group rule. Even though your playing fast, courses usually don't allow more than 4 players per group. The guy is paid to do his job, you asked, he said no, it happens :p

On that note, i was in league night, 9 holes, and we were stuck behind a foursome in our league who were slow, i mean SLOW. So we formed up a 7-some from the 5th hole on to the 9th, all walking. We kept up with that 4-some, which had two carts and two walkers. It was just crazy.

1)  No so.  First, he said that the groups in front of him were keeping pace, but the pace was just slow.  Letting them play through would be stupid, because they would be playing through other groups for the entire round, and contrary to your opinion, that just slows down everything even more for everyone except the group playing through.  They have absolutely no right to do that.

At any course I've ever played, the ranger would freak out if he saw 7 players in one group, no matter how slow the course was playing.  And to be honest, I'd rather be waiting as a threesome behind a foursome than trying to play in a group that large.  I don't even like playing in a group of 5, because no matter how fast we play, I always feel like I'm doing an excessive amount of waiting.  Waiting for 4 other guys to putt or tee off just seems to take forever, and having to wait on 6 other players would drive me bonkers.

[saevel25]

Here's the thing, the 7 of us, we've been playing in the same league for over 5 years now. So we're all cool with each other, and we are fast players. For 6 out of the 7 of us, its pick club, one practice swing, hit ball. None of use stand over the ball long. Same for putting, its read line, practice stroke, hit putt.

The nice thing though is, the guy in our group who runs the league, we play on a municipality, he's the head of the civil engineering department here at the city, and he's got some pull with the course since he's played his league there for over 15 years now. When we had a storm, the guy used his cell phone, called the clubhouse, had beers delivered out to his group across the course. Fun stuff :p

The primary reason we could go as a 7-some, they have league blocked out on weekdays. So even if someone came to the course, there not allowed a tee time till after 5pm. We got tee times from 4:00-4:30, and there is no league behind us. So we have a 30 minute gap with no golfers. Our league plays fast, we consistently under 2 hours per 9, that's walking. I've been done in a 1.5 hours before, 4 players walking.

We've only done that once, so it was just a random occurence.