Solving Slow Play: A New Pace of Play Program You can Support in 2013 - Page 3

 

That is the issue.  Most who play regularly have some concept of the need for a decent pace of play.  Some of those still won't admit that they are part of the problem, but this is just an education issue.  Many who play public courses on weekends are 5 times a year players who will never be sufficiently interested in the game to take it seriously.  Give them a piece of paper and it just gets tossed.  Give them a sheet on the first tee along with verbal instructions and it's more likely to take.  The players you refer to are already serious enough about the game to shell out big bucks for a private membership.  I'm serious about the game, but I could never justify that expense.  At your club you are simply talking about a completely different demographic. I've played busy upscale public courses with a good pace of play, and they didn't need any handouts.  The rangers did the job they were hired for when necessary, and the tee sheet was set to a 10 minute interval.  That 10 minutes is a big key.  But typically they will charge in the neighborhood of $100 per round to get that interval.  

 

It costs so much to operate the course.  You make ends meet either by more players or higher green fees.   More players bogs down pace of play.  While there are some things which can help the situation, the real issue is the sheer number of players on the course at any one time.   The difference between 10 minute intervals and 8 minute intervals is 6 more players per hour on the course.  But with that interval there is no space between groups.  They start out stacked on top of each other from the first tee.  There is no time for extra strokes, for even the briefest of ball searches, or for anything that causes even the slightest delay.  We all know that this is an impossible dream.  But for that course to increase the interval to 10 minutes,  and lose 6 green fees per hour, they have to jack up the price.  In order to do that they have to offer a better overall golfing experience.  That means possibly upgrading the course, which means spending more money for the upgrade and on maintenance, and so the price goes higher.  And will the area even support an upscaled course?  Many places won't.  Most of those players will still rather pay $30 or $35 for a 5 hour round than pay $60 or more for a 4 hour round.  On my home course they pay $38 for a 4.5 hour round on an average day (with $14 more for an 18 hole cart if desired).

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Seriously, not once have i ever seen anyone stop for an hour for lunch, that is absurd, and a way to throw off the whole pace of the golf course. The most time i have spent inbetween the 9th and 10th hole is probably 10 minutes. Go grab a few snacks, use the restroom, that's about it. 



the problem with this in the United States, it would be abused because some idiot thinks no matter how fast the group in front of them is playing, there playing slow. 

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Well said.  For a typical Saturday at a busy $50 public course, if they opened at 7am and were booked through noon with foursomes, the amount they'd lose switching from 8 minute intervals to 10 minute intervals is $1800.

 

Around here, another big part of the problem is that courses like the one mentioned above frequently not only squish their tee time intervals, but they also allow 5-somes.  If its a really busy day, and you tee off at 11am, there could be as many as 150 golfers on the course ahead of you (counting the guys putting out on 18 who teed off at 7am).

 

The difference between 8 and 10 minute intervals equates to 6 players per hour, as Fourputt states. In your example, at $50/player and over a period of 5 hours, that's a loss of $1500, not $1800.  So to cover their losses the course would have to raise the rate for each golfer (120 of them over the period in question) from $50 to $62.50 (a 25% increase).

 

In Fourputt's example, the rate would only need to be increased from $35 to $43.75 (again, 25%), not to "$60 or more". So as far as that upscale course in his example charging $100, I'm sure that's more related to the quality of the course than it is to support their existing tee time interval.

 

(Btw, I know that picking noon as the last tee time was somewhat arbitrary and tat the last tee time of the day would depend on the season, but note that the length of the day doesn't change the percent increase per player required to make up the losses in changing tee time intervals - you could pick 6am and 4pm as the first/last tee times and it doesn't change that 25%.)

 

Granted, a 25% increase is not insignificant, and so you guys are making good points - I just wanted to correct the numbers.

 

Additionally, if courses can't send people out after 4pm because rounds take five hours, they could send groups out for an additional hour until 5pm if rounds took four hours. That's another way to recover income.

 

Plus any empty tee times might be more likely to fill because golfers no longer have to spend five hours playing, and participation will increase if they can spend less than "all day" away from their families, chores, etc.

Sorry, I wrote out all of the tee times for 8 minute intervals and the last one I used fell on 12:04.  That is 39 tee times total ... 156 players.  Then for 10 minute intervals, I did the math in my head at 6 tee times per hour, 30 total = 120 players.  Like a dummy, I forgot to include the noon tee time.  The last one I counted would have been 11:50.  So counting noon (and conveniently ignoring the leftover 4 minutes ) the difference is 1,600.  To be exact, I should have gone to 12:20.  (Either way, you are correct)

 

And, yes, noon was arbitrary, but I figure that since its getting dark by 5, most courses probably aren't booked fully after noon... and once you get to a point where your tee times aren't all booked up, you aren't "losing" any money due to your schedule anymore.

The example also assumes the demand is linear and that there are enough golfers during the late morning and afternoon hours to make up for  the 6 players fees they lost per hour during the earlier hours.  Most courses here on Long Island book up quick from 6:30am - 9am and then slow down as the day progresses. 

 

Right, that's what I was getting at as well.  And since a lot on here agree that the time it takes to play a round of golf is one of the biggest factors limiting the games growth, I wouldn't be surprised at all if spreading out tee times to 10 minutes actually brought in more revenue in the long run.

 

Reminds me of the saying (Yogi Berra, I believe) ... "That restaurant is sooo crowded that nobody goes there anymore."

I would never play golf under those conditions and I would find a course that charges a little more for the longer intervals. And they wouldn't have to go from $30.00 to $60.00; that's an exaggeration. But if a course has the reputation of having a better golfing experience, the players will come. I know that for a fact from the public courses in my area. If I had to quit my club, I know the places I would play. Pace of play and conditioning are paramount to serious golfers. The guys who aren't serious or don't value the quality of experience can hack it up at the $30.00 course all they want.

I have this problem a LOT the most difficult public course in the area, They have leagues there, and there are invariably a group of old duffers in front of me "playing a practice round"  The last time i played there i was 3 hours through the 8th hole, i was absolutly livid, they would not let me play through, I drove off the course to the club house and they had not a care in the world about it, i informend them id like my money back from the back 9 i didnt play, which they declined, ill be bringing this up with the county course commisioner this year
 

I will send the link to my pro. He and his staff will be at the PGA show as well later this month.

Yah but, what happens when you get stuck behind a slow group or happen to loose a half an hour behind several slow groups that eventually let you through?

 This is in response to charging groups according to how fast they play.

Pace of play is a management issue. There should be a marshal and he should be trained to approach slow groups and speed them up. Most players resist the "ready play" directive of most courses and play the honors system or a combination of both. A marshal can run herd on them and get them going. This should work most of the time because I believe there are 1 or more people in a group ready to do this but are too polite to say anything and won't step in front of a slower or unready player.

 

The other slow play issue is a lost ball. This is nearly always handled inefficiently. The player with the lost ball needs to get looking and one player or several players should get ready and hit their shots and if they aren't too far away go help and play should still keep going to the hole and the lost ball guy can catch up which means someone is always moving forward and keeping the downtime to a minimum. I hate being behind a group or assigned to a group where everyone starts looking for a lost ball and nobody is hitting their ball. Even if they eventually catch the group in front of them, a group that got held up behind them may not be fast enough to increase their speed.

 

The handicap system also slows up play. If you're keeping a handicap you hate to take a lost ball or waste a putt because you didn't look a green over good enough I thing the handicap system needs to modify the lost ball rule and the out of bounds rule to speed up play. How many times have you hit a ball OB and didn't know it till you got to the ball? On the hilly courses I play this happens fairly often. Not to mention blind shots over hills into the rough that get lost.
 

 

not very often really, i never see anybody actually take stroke and distance. I never had one person walk back to the tee box on me to hit another shot. People just don't do it, they just drop the ball. I know this is not correct, but its what happens majority of the time. 

 

The one thing i think takes up a ton of time is putting. A lot of people wont read there putts while other's are putting. When i play, i mark my ball and i will start reading the putt while i am not away. When its my turn, i do my final walk around the hole to get the read if i have to, then i go hit the putt. This takes maybe 15-30 seconds to complete for me. While other's just stand there and observe other's putting, then they finally start reading there putts. Its with other shots as well, go to your ball and get ready, its not that difficult. Hell, if your ball is 30 yards away, let the guy pick his club, then take the cart and go to your ball. 

 

As for poor play, there needs to be a limit on the number of shots you take, i know a few courses who have this on the scorecard, were they limit it to something like triple bogey, then you pick up. Honestly, if your scoring that bad, getting a 7 or a 9 really doesn't matter

 

 

when people wait for their turn it can slow things down also.  if i look around an nobodys hitting/putting, i hit/putt, regardless of if im away.

If someone wanted to go back and re-tee from my group, I would have no problems if they want to 'rule it up'. I would, however tell them to hurry up, because we won't be stopping and waiting for you to go all the way back and hit another. AND you will walk back because I'm keeping the cart. AND when the people on the tee scream and yell at you to get the f*ck out of the way, they're trying to tee off, and you try and explain "stroke and distance", I'm not responsible for their actions. So, if you want to go through that, by all means- enjoy yourself.

I played a few tournaments in a money type league that would take over a course for the morning or the day, one of the first "Local Rules" listed on the sheet was that there was no "Stoke and Distance" penalties for OB. You took a drop nearest to where you believed it crossed the line or did cross and you played your 4th shot from there. so it was a two stroke penalty that saved time for everybody. Granted there were some issues on where somebody ELSE thought it might have gone out, but for the most part people worked it out.