What Constitutes Slow Play?

[pganapathy]

On 2/1/2024 at 4:56 AM, jsgolfer said:

I brought it up to show that 4 hours isn’t fast. In fact 4 hours is kind of slow. 

This entirely depends on the course.  For example my home course is a short one, in the region of 6000 to 6500 yards from the furthest tees (I forget the exact yardage now because they are trying to extend the tee boxes wherever possible) and relatively flat for 14 of 18 holes.  Only four holes have a rather steep climb.  One 9 was a paddy field and hence is really flat.  A 4 hour round is easy to achieve.  In fact playing single 2.5 hours is the maximum I need.  In a 4 ball on a busy day the time needed is 3.5 and generally a maximum of 4 hours.  I suppose it helps that there are few golfers who actually play except on Thursday and Sunday.  Another similar course is built on a race course and hence is totally flat.  Similar timings though you get a lot more golfers there.  On the other hand, in the city where I live, a longer course is there (at least 7000 yards) and it is always crowded.  A 4 hour round is the minimum and 6 hour rounds are common on weekends.  What holds people up there isn't the course itself but the fact the course is crowded all the time and you tend to wait on every hole, especially on weekends.

[iacas]

6 hours ago, pganapathy said:

This entirely depends on the course.

I don't know about that. I think you can just get on with it. I've played some 75-rated type courses in 3 hours in a cart, so there's no reason four isn't possible.

Players don't prioritize efficient play, and I will agree that to a point you should not "rush" or worry about pace of play at the expense of enjoyment, etc. And a lot of people have slightly different places where they draw that line.

I was behind a five some after playing the front nine on Monday in 1:30. They let the foursome ahead of us through on 10, and then didn't let us through from 13 on to 18. They were on a 4:15 pace, marking all putts (on March 4 FFS), etc. Really slow. We let them walk off the green on 16… a shorter par four before we teed off… and still had to wait on them when we got to 17 tee. Ridiculous.

[Bucki1968]

Unfortunately, the group I play with usually are "fast" players. We are also low handicaps. We all hate slow play but the posted time to play our home club is four hours so normally we play in around four hours. If we have a wide-open course in front of us, we can play in 3 hours (and that is walking). Some of the other courses we play, we can get around a little bit quicker (3:30-3:45) because the tees are close to greens, and they are not quite as challenging which I think speeds up the other groups because they are spending less time looking for lost golf balls etc. All that being said, you can pretty much throw all that out the window this time of year. The snowbirds just wreck everything. 🤐