Re: Respectful way to play thru
Originally Posted by
MiniMoe 
But it is very important while playing through, don't dilly dally. Hit your ball and play..... even a little faster than normal just to show your gratitude. So what if you play that one hole bad.
Exactly. This can be the one draw back on asking/insisting on playing through. You've got to hustle on that hole in order to get out in front of the group and that necessarily means you aren't going to be as deliberate as you normally would on the hole. The upside to this is that this isn't any worse than jumping ahead of them (something etiquette dictates you shouldn't do). If I'm in this situation and I'm really cocking up the hole I'll simply pick up and move ahead. This way I'm not holding up the group that was nice enough to let me through, and my round isn't unduely held up either as I resume a faster pace.
Incidentally if more people would do this, insist on playing through, you wouldn't see anywhere near as many course backlogs being caused by slower playing groups.
Originally Posted by
mdl I've never understood how you're supposed to do this unless the group in front is super polite and waits for you at the next tee. My buddies and I are often riding up behind a group, but we walk, and most of the bad players drive, so it's hard to get a chance to ask, even if the group in front is a hole or two behind. Like, the group in front is taking their 2 chips and 3 putts a piece while we sit in the fairway waiting to take our second shot. Never seems reasonable to run 150 yards, ask them if they can wait for us after their tee shots on the next hole or something, then run back and finish the hole.
If this is the case then you really aren't being held up much by the group in front of you. It's when you are waiting 5 minutes or more on every shot by a slow group, then it really isn't a problem to catch them on the next tee box prior to them all teeing off. That's when you want to ask them if they don't mind if you play through. They all tee off and then your group tees off and you all go down the fairway together. They may have to wait a few minutes before they hit their next shot for you to clear the green or whatever, but usually slow groups aren't playing well and while you're hitting your second shot they may well be trying to find their errant drives. It doesn't always work out that well, but usually it isn't that hard to catch a slower group before they leave the next tee box.
In a perfect world the slower group sees that you are constantly dogging them on the course and also knows that it's open in front of them they wave you through without having to ask. It's when that doesn't happen that I will pursue a slower group so that I can ask them if I can play through. I've had it happen before where a slower group basically says no. While ackward I'll then just tell them I'm going on through because they are holding up the entire course. One time another player and I (he had joined me a couple of holes prior to confronting the slow group) faced this situation where the group was reluctant, but we simply teed off before they had a chance to drive down the fairway. They looked really indignant about it but like I said they were too busy looking around in the woods for their drives and we were off the green and teeing off on the next hole before they were even thinking about hitting into the green.
