Today I Saw... (Slow Play Mini-Rant)

[iacas]

Today, I had to play up the first hole of my course instead of the 17th because my drive was right of Rush Limbaugh. My ball was just off the first fairway in two (17 is a par five), but three guys were coming up the hole and I deferred to them. They were about 240 yards away, but downwind. I was on the right side of their fairway.

Five minutes later, I finally got to hit my shot. None of their balls were within 100 yards of me. Here's how.

Guy #1 steps up, waggles, and takes three practice swings. He settles over the shot, waggles 10 more times, and tops it 50 yards forward. They make some comments and wait for the ball to stop rolling.

Guy #2 steps up (he had his club already chosen!), takes three practice swings after meticulously lining up, and then pull hooks it 150 yards forward. And 50 yards left.

Guy #3 also has his club out, and takes four practice swings. He settles over the ball, checks his aim about ten times, and finally pops the ball up (out of the rough).

Never mind the quality of their shots - what the **** were they doing while the other guys were hitting? They waited until the ball stopped rolling before they started their LONG pre-shot routines. Each took over one minute from "their turn to hit" to "ball hitting clubface."

Note to anyone reading this who is a bit slow themselves: frickin' start your pre-shot routine while the other guy's doing his. None of these guys were in the line of sight of any of the other players in their group. They were spread out 50 yards (25 between each of 'em), etc. No reason at all they couldn't have played three shots within two minutes or less.

[Hustle]

Today, I had to play up the first hole of my course instead of the 17th because my drive was right of Rush Limbaugh. My ball was just off the first fairway in two (17 is a par five), but three guys were coming up the hole and I deferred to them. They were about 240 yards away, but downwind. I was on the right side of their fairway.

Agreed.............

If the shot is not to win the Masters, then get freakin ready while the others are playing there shots. Reminds me of a steamy hot July. I had just finished up a round of 69 and was up on my partners about $500 bucks when one of them suggested that we play 3 more holes at $100 each. And I agreed, well on the first tee I noticed a Nike Staff bag but no one was there. So I went to tee up my drive (keep in mind we are on the back tees) when out of nowhere this guy says "Excuse me but I am teeing off right now". Well, I look back and he is squating down and he is holding a lump of grass and begins to smell it. I apologized and we stood back out of his way. Keep in mind it is at least 99 degrees and this clown is in all black, with a bright red (tiger sunday) long sleeve shirt. He begins to tell us as he is teeing it up that he takes about 5 minutes on each hole to gather himself and become one with the hole. He finally gets up and low and behold he skies one off the top of his driver and it went about 10 yards long, and it actually took about 30 seconds to come down. Needless to say I made a very smart butt comment and said something to the effect that Nike was going to come and buy their clubs back from him... And he let us play thru... lol Turns out he was a wanna be PGA Professional getting ready for his PAT...

[goblue107501]

At least you were on the 17 and not 1 tee! I would hate to be behind these guys.

My rule of thumb has always been ready golf and most of the people I play with are the same way. See ball, hit ball. I have played many times when two balls are in the air at virtually the same time.

My biggest pet peeve is the people who wait for the green to clear on par 5's even though they have no chance of hitting the green.

[Dent]

Ya that is rediculous, starting it AFTER they are shooting, I always do my practise swings while my friends are shooting, and then I do a few waggles and shoot. If they just keep topping it what are they wasting their time with their huge pre-shot pointless routine for?

[golf_junkie27]

Erik,

This sounds like you were playing a Muni in NYC. I feel your pain as there is nothing more frustrating than watching this. NYC Golf is the king of the 5 hour rounds. I'm surprised that they did not take more practice swings after each of their original shots.

Out of curiosity, how was your shot? Were you able to calm down and strike a good shot? I only ask because 50% of the time, I'll hit a crap shot. I realize your are much better than I am so I pose the question.

[iacas]

Out of curiosity, how was your shot? Were you able to calm down and strike a good shot? I only ask because 50% of the time, I'll hit a crap shot. I realize your are much better than I am so I pose the question.

Slow play usually screws me up. It's something I still haven't quite adjusted to. It puts me out of my mind or something and then I don't get back into my mind properly before hitting the shot. A slow play round is almost always three strokes higher than normal.

That being said, I hit a 3/4 6-iron from 155 into a pretty stiff wind, and apparently caught a flier because I flew the green. I thought it'd be stiff, but it flew 5 yards too far. That's one thing I haven't quite adjusted to yet again: fliers. The AP2s have the "revised" grooves that should meet the revised rules (if they're ever passed), so you can get fliers more so with them than other irons with the U grooves.

[MrKadash]

Today, I had to play up the first hole of my course instead of the 17th because my drive was right of Rush Limbaugh. My ball was just off the first fairway in two (17 is a par five), but three guys were coming up the hole and I deferred to them. They were about 240 yards away, but downwind. I was on the right side of their fairway.

Now that's good. First time I have ever heard complaining about slow play from a group 16 holes behind...

[Hustle]

Now that's good. First time I have ever heard complaining about slow play from a group 16 holes behind...

lollllllllllllllll

[lamebums]

Tell me about slow play...I get out to the course at 3:00, fully expecting to have plenty of time to make a 6:00 interview with a reporter. (He was doing a piece on hypermiling, and I helped start the first ever Northern Kentucky hypermiler's group).

Well what do you know but I get stuck behind eight hacks. At least they had the decency to hit from the men's tees, but all of their balls ended up in the ditch anyway. I'm on #5, these guys are on #6 which parallels and goes the other way (on the other side of a grove of trees).

I pull-hook mine into the mush, and when I get up there, sure enough, at least two of them are in the same crap. I ended up waiting for them to hit, which meant hiding near the cart as they'd hit a dribbler, it'd ricochet off a tree, and go God knows where...

This isn't a rant against bad golfers--it's against slow golfers. I've seen plenty of bad golfers who are fast (as well as slow), same with good golfers. I don't even consider myself good, but I hate slow play and I try to keep up the pace as courtesy to the guy behind me.

As to that interview, I missed it by a long shot. I had to call another guy from the group (while on the course) to see if he could fill in for me (He did). I didn't even get home until 6:30.

[x-forged]

how about when players start reading their putts after they watch everyone else read theirs? its amazing how long some foursomes stay on a green.

take your time but dont waste mine!

[AmenCorner]

Slow play typically seems to be more a function of experience. Not always, but most of the time from what I've seen. I have a "new golfer" friend and by golly he takes his sweet ass time out there. I think that "pace of play" radar is something you just have to develop over time. There are so many isms of the golf game, you can't learn them all at once.

For those of us who were lucky to play and learn from our parents, it was easy for them to whip us into shape and speed up play, or pickup if you're out of the hole. But you do that with friends as easily when you get older, it can be a bit taboo.

[Finn07]

Tell me about slow play...I get out to the course at 3:00, fully expecting to have plenty of time to make a 6:00 interview with a reporter. (He was doing a piece on hypermiling, and I helped start the first ever Northern Kentucky hypermiler's group).

You played 18 holes in 3.5 hours, how is that slow?

[MGP]

You played 18 holes in 3.5 hours, how is that slow?

I'm pretty sure he was only playing 9 holes. If I recall correctly he does that a lot of the times he plays.

(If not, there is no way I'd expect to play 18 in 3 hours -- not that it can't be done but I still wouldn't expect it and plan anything at 3 hours after my start time )

[Hey_Porter]

The other day I experienced the absolute worst. It was laughable. League is a two-man scramble, match play format. I knew it was going to be bad when one of our opponents pre-shot routine consisted of no practice swing, but the most waggles I've ever seen before a shot. EVERY TIME, EVERY SHOT. It was cart path only and they were in a cart, but if we were away, or even pretty equal, they wouldn't even leave their cart until we were finished, and would then take forever to discuss the shot (even if it was straightforward).

The worst of it was towards the end when we were a couple yards off the front of the green with a front pin and they were way off the back. We were at our ball before they even pulled up in their cart, and had already decided that we were going to go ahead since we were so far behind the group in front of us. THEY STAYED IN THEIR CART UNTIL WE WERE DONE. AAARRRRGGGGHHH.

[blackxpress]

The worst I've seen was a couple of weeks ago. I play in the same foursome every Tuesday at 1:00. There is a league that goes off the 10th tee at 3:00. If you don't make the turn by 3:00 the starter won't let you play the back nine. We don't usually have any trouble with that but this particular day there was a threesome in front of us that were some of the worst golfers I've ever seen. A couple of them should have spent more time at the driving range before they even attempted to play on a course. One of them was a woman who never seemed to hit her ball more than about 5 yds at a time. They obviously knew nothing about golf etiquette or even course rules as they kept driving their carts right up to the green and disregarding the no-carts signs. To make matters worse they never even considered asking us through. We put up with that for the first 4 holes before the ranger came along and I asked him to say something to them. He said he would but he didn't. We ended up skipping the 5th hole and going straight to #6 to get around them. Even skipping a hole we just barely made the turn a few minutes before 3:00.

[lamebums]

You played 18 holes in 3.5 hours, how is that slow?

Yeah, it was just nine holes. I'd give up my little toe to the vultures if I could get 18 holes in three and a half hours.

[Undr Par]

wow, I have actually been told by friends that I'm too fast between their shot and mine......normally around these parts the guys who do this type of thing (as Erik stated) are the guys who have dough on the round, but at least their shots are better then these 3 guys shots were..

[sonicblue]

A slow play experience from my league last night (9 holes, not a long or difficult course, plus we all know it well)....

In front of us at tee off is a 4some, with two 3somes in front of them. The first 3some, I know, has two females, one of which is not very good at all. That being said, it takes us about 90 minutes to play three holes! As we're waiting in the 3rd fairway, we can see that:

1) the group in front of us is VERY slow on the green. No one ready to putt, they all stare at a ball after it stops rolling, etc...

2) The 4th hole - a par 3 - is completely open. The 5th teebox also appears to be open.

We finally hit up to the 3rd and finish, and we get to the 4th tee to see this group all over the place looking for their balls around the perimeter (trees). One of our guys yells up, "can we play through? We're not going to finish in time!" You can immediately see they're stunned by the request, but agree to let us hit up once they're all on. Unfortunately, after that, they hole out and proceed to tee off on the 5th, on which teebox we come walking up before they've all finished teeing off.

We're looking at each other like, "why did they let us hit up if not to play through?" Same guy tries to get the attention of the last guy walking off the tee box to ask him, and he ignores us! As we're all standing on the tee, again, watching them look for scattered balls, they wave us up to hit our tee shots, and we then play through. As we're doing so, lots of things are being muttered under breath, but one statement was, that this group said they were playing right up on the group in front of them, it was just the one par 3 where they finally weren't waiting on them.

Uh, yeah, right, suddenly an entire hole opened up? Well, get this: we play through them on the 5th, the 6th is open so we play that quickly, too. We're off the 6th green before the other group even gets off the 5th green. We have to wait a little on the 7th b/c we've caught the 3some now, but we play it pretty quickly. We finished the 7th before the group behind us is even off the tee (and it's a par 5!), so we've separated an entire hole now. We have to wait a long while on the 8th tee, as it's a tough hole and the 3some is playing it slow. Waiting...waiting...and we still tee off before the group behind us has even hit all of their 2nd shots on the 7th!!

The bottom line is: this group claimed they weren't slow, yet we played through them and soon caught a slow-playing group in front of them, a group that had managed to get an ENTIRE HOLE ahead of the slow pokes, and then they ended up lagged behind us an entire hole. Yet they were utterly incredulous, and quite rude, at the idea of being played through.