Pace-of-Play Poll

Would like to get an understanding of pace-of-play and determine if it is widespread or limited to just certain golf courses.  If you choose to comment please include the slope rating for the course you play most often.

My home course (68.9/121) has been pretty busy the last two months. I usually play by myself (walking) and take 2.5-3 hours. I guess four hour rounds are becoming the norm for most foursomes. I think there is a fine line between fast play, and taking all the enjoyment out of a round.

In N/E PA, never had a problem with lengthy rounds.    In NJ, different story - courses are often overcrowded & rounds take much longer than they should (and cost ALOT more)  ...

It's just sometimes a problem.  I play at a lot of different courses but most often at a course with a rating/slope of 69.4/120 and 6500 yards long from the middle tees.

However I think that difficulty has less to do with pace than how busy the course is.  Busy, and particularly overloaded, courses tend to play much slower just because a golf course can only handle so much of a load before it starts to bog down.  This is true of any course, anywhere - you can only push so much water through the hose before it bursts.

I play about 20 rounds a year at Tobacco Road, 70.8/141 and 6,297 yds from the middle tees. The pace of play is a problem in spring and late fall when there are a lot of players on golf trips from out of state who have never seen the place before. With all the blind shots and forced carries, lots of sand and places to lose balls, as well as people playing the wrong tees, it can get backed up quite a bit. 5:30 rounds are the norm if you don't get out early in the day. About the best time I've ever made on the course was 4:15.

I've played with quite a few people who ignore the starter's advice about tee selection and base their choice by total yardage. It's only 6,532 from the back tees, but there are quite a few tough tee shots from the ripper tees that'll get folks in trouble they didn't count on.

With most of my rounds being played at public courses on the weekend it's harder to avoid the longer rounds.

Sometimes and only if I am out during peak hours, weekend mornings etc. Coyote Creek 6412 yards 69.3/119. It's all about how many people are out there. One or two slow groups aren't a big deal if there is an opening to get by them. A few slow groups in sucession and everyone behind them backs up regardless of what course it is.

The biggest slow play issues I see are men playng from the wrong tees and the subsequent errant shots that follow. The time wasted looking for lost balls and horrible second shots in an attempt to recover from a bad lie. All of it leads to 3-4 shots to the green and at least 2 putts. It's the double/triple bogey foursomes that bring things to a halt. Which is why I play late afternoon or early morning.

I play about half of my rounds on Public courses and most of those on Municipal courses.  Depending on what you define as slow play, I think it is anything over four hours, there is rarely a problem with the pace of play.   But sometimes the pace is slow and usually it is because the course is crowded.

71.3/126 6495yds.

I chose 'most rounds'. It's horrible how slow people are and how inconsiderate they are. Waiting on a group of 4 all 3 putting and taking time to line up every single putt even though they can never hit it..  at the tee box for 5 minutes, I think you all know the drill.

And then they walk off the green and buy a beer from the cart girl, and spend another 30 or 40 seconds tipping her.  What a-holes.

Crowded courses will be, as a rule, slow.  I've seen some courses that routinely get a lot of play that defy this rule, but those are rare exceptions (and those courses seem to always draw the same crowd of regular golfers).  I've only played one course on a regular basis that can get backed up with two groups on the course:  that's Ko'olau on Windward Oahu, but that course is a 7300 yard monster cut out of the jungle with a 150 slope rating.

Would be a better sarcastic jab if you were part of the initial discussion.

71.7 / 129

I chose most rounds.

I live in CT and play all public / municipal courses.  I've played about 35 rounds of golf this year and I finished one round in 3 hours and 30 minutes.  I finished some in 4 hours and 15/30 minutes, and most were around 5 hours.  I even played 3 or 4 rounds that were inching toward 6 hours.  At that point, the golf loses its charm and it just becomes a waiting game.  Is a 4 hour round asking too much?

How the course is managed plays a huge part. One of the busiest courses here is also one of the fastest playing. They have pace of play clocks on every tee. Get slow there and the ranger asks to see your receipt to compare your tee time to the clocks. If you're slow they will stay with you until you catch up. Other courses I've been to and haven't seen a ranger the entire summer. At one course the starter tells you to anticipate a 4.5-5 hr round on the first tee. Every course has different policies and methods of managing pace of play.

Par 71, 69.7/118/6260 yds. Typically 5 hours and 30 minute delay from original tee-time.

I answered "always", because I play most of my golf at NYC/Long Island public courses.  There are just too many people in the area and not enough courses. These courses basically have no rangers to keep the pace of play reasonable. Combine that with general cluelessness about course etiquette and pace of play, and it's a recipe for disaster.  Another issue in NYC is that as the courses have upgraded their facilities, they have been booking outings at a staggering rate.  Great for business, but as a public facility, bad for the people who are essentially providing the business the public space.

I looked at the outings calendar at my local course recently and saw that virtually every Wed-Friday through September/October were booked with outings...which just means the course is closed and public golfers have to run over to the next course, which will either have an outing of its own, or will be overcrowded with public golfers.

I enjoy a good brisk pace of play and consider myself an average-to-fast player.

However, I will say that I don't enjoy it when the pace of play is so fast that I feel like I can't spend adequate time on a shot.  If I've got a difficult chip, I don't want to just walk up and hit it so I can get it on the green somewhere quickly.  I want to evaluate it and take enough practice swings to feel confident with the shot.  That might require 3-5 practice swings, but with a chip, that doesn't take very long.  Same thing with a putt.  While I'm not going to examine it from every angle and spend 5 minutes reading it, I do at least want to walk around to the back of the hole and see it from there (which I do while others are putting), clean the ball and get comfortable over it.  I don't want to just walk up and knock it towards the hole so we can hurry.

What irritates me is slow players that are unnecessarily slow.  The guy who has to walk back to the cart because he only had a single ball in his pocket.  Or worse, the guy on a cart-path only day who only takes one club with him out to the other side of the fairway and then decides it's the wrong club.  Or the guy who has chipped across the green 3 times and still refuses to pick up his ball.  If you're prepared and use your head, you can play quickly while still having adequate time to get comfortable with your shot.

i'm in dallas.  the popular muni's (aka the closest) are easy 5+ hour 18 hole rounds during the busy season.  during the hot summer or cold winter, it's still an easy 4 hours.  if you don't mind driving a little further and spending $20 more, the courses are much nicer and pace of play is usually not that big of a deal at all.  i'm a 90s shooter but could easily walk 18 holes in 3 hours max, riding about 2.5 hours if no one was in front of me.

Unless its a round during the week when the course isnt crowded, pace of play is ALWAYS a problem.  People need to learn that just because you paid your greens fees doesnt mean that you own the course.

No. 3 and No. 4 on our course are where the logjam usually starts. A short and a mid-length par 4, both have partially blind tee shots plus "traps and trouble" both short and long of the landing area (a Nicklaus design). Hard spots on both holes produce can produce deflections that are hard to track.

Things can really slow down when a couple of "first time" foursomes are in the mix. These poor guys and gals don't know what to expect.

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Par 71... CR = 69.6 ... Slope = 130

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If I were running a tournament there, I can think of four holes where I'd post a forecaddie in the landing area to locate errant drives and speed up play.

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wadesworld identifies a problem that can happen anywhere. I take a little time to line up a shot, so I don't like being pressed to hit the ball 3 seconds after I'm out of the golf cart.

I feel pressured for "quick hits" when my cart mate is the twice-a year golfer that hits three shots between the tee and my drive, which isn't all that long.

I feel pressured to "hit quick" to make up for slow playing partners.