ranger/club pro out of line?

[golfdad]

ok, without naming names, would like to get some comments from you guys on this.

my kids play in a junior tour and took part in a competition in central/northern jersey a month ago. may be 30-40 kids in the field, divided by age into different flights and scores ranked and to be submitted nationally.

one group of 4 kids, age 12-13 (on feet, carry bag, 6000 yards) were falling behind a group of 3, older kids. ranger came by and issued warning to keep up. couple holes later, the same ranger again demanded faster pace, for falling half a hole behind.

finally, at the tenth tee, he blocked the tee box and asked the group of 4 kids to play shorter tee ahead. the group followed the direction, not knowing what else to do (tour director was not around right there, no cell phone to reach him).

turns out of all kids in the tour, only that group was asked to play shorter tees starting 10th tee.

the tour director was furious afterwards upon hearing what has happened. when conferring with the club pro, he stated his stand: the ranger did nothing wrong to make the group to keep up the pace, regardless of the format and the nature of the competition.

turns out that there are no regular club members immediately following the entire junior group, per last group's spectator.

is the ranger and the club pro out of line in this case, you think?

[Jay-Bird]

You think he should've penalized the group for slow play, but kept them at their designated tees?

[kennay92]

You think he should've penalized the group for slow play, but kept them at their designated tees?

no i think his thinking was more along the lines of the ranger should have givin the group a break on slow play seeing they are younger than the group ahead of them and its harder for the younger kids to keep up with the older kids.

[iacas]

You think he should've penalized the group for slow play, but kept them at their designated tees?

Yeah, without knowing the "tour's" policy on slow play, we can't really say... Sounds like the group was given lots of opportunity to catch up.

[Golf'nBiker]

Considering the 'tour', it seems strange to me that a regular ranger was even present, other than to assist, rather than to enforce tour rules. Not knowing his instructions for the days events and saying that the Director was livid gives the appearance that commo went wrong. To comment on the OP, unless the kids were goof'n off and playing grab butt, 1/2 hole dosent seem to far behind, IMO.

[Jay-Bird]

Wouldn't the rangers and Tour Director be in contact by radio - Walky Talky - or some other 2-way device. I've never seen any 'tour' event without orgainzed communication. Being that the pace of play was an issue - I'm sure the director could have been reached.

I think the ranger WAS out of line for lack of due diligence.

[Clambake]

I would feel the ranger was incorrect here, particularly assuming that this one foursome was not the only group of kids in that age range. If there were, the ranger basically unleveled the playing field with one group of competitors playing a shorter course with an advantage.

[EightBlue]

key piece of information needed here... were they playing behind that course's "time par"? If so, then they should have been penalized at a minimum. If not, there is really nothing the ranger should have done.

If it were a normal day, I would have no issue moving them to another tee, but since it was a tourney, this doesn't make sense. was the ranger aware it was a tourney?

[golfdad]

thanks people for the above replies. the pace of play is usually dictated by the tour director: basically to keep up with the group in the front.

in this case, 3 older kids were in the front and the 4 younger kids following. i would think arrangement like that may lead to the 4 kids playing "slower".

i think the ranger knew it was a junior tourny. i am not sure why he took upon himself to single out one group. clearly he had nothing to do with giving out penalties. a less damaging thing he could have done was to shorten everyone's tee in that particular age group starting the 10th hole, so the scores were still comparable.

i look at this as a kind of turf war where the ranger felt superior to the kids and had decided to dictate the situation. somehow, i highly doubt he would dare to coerce 4 adults to play a different tee in a tourny setting. further, i think the club pro did not have a strong case defending the ranger's action. i think during a tourny play, the final decision on total length of play must be conferred with the tour director. just to clarify,,the club pro and ranger work on the course; the tour director is an outside person who operates the tour and rent block time from the course.

i find the behaviors of the club pro/ranger rather odd and wonder if people in that line of work usually behave like that. like in rome romans do whatever they wish:) if you are considered playing slow, then anything goes. :)

[Marinemike]

i find the behaviors of the club pro/ranger rather odd and wonder if people in that line of work usually behave like that. like in rome romans do whatever they wish:) if you are considered playing slow, then anything goes. :)

Rangers are sometimes impossible, cantankerous people. The club pro should almost always back him up even if he's not entirely right.

[iacas]

i think the ranger knew it was a junior tourny. i am not sure why he took upon himself to single out one group.

Look, I wasn't there and I'm sure you're right about a lot of things, but I didn't sense any "singling out" from what you said previously. Was every other group out of position, too? If not, then your kid's group probably wasn't "singled out" - they were out of position.

Again, if every other group or some other groups were out of position, I retract everything I just said. I'm sorry to take a hard line, but slow play is one of the biggest problems in the game today, and the sooner people can learn to keep up, the better.

i look at this as a kind of turf war where the ranger felt superior to the kids and had decided to dictate the situation. somehow, i highly doubt he would dare to coerce 4 adults to play a different tee in a tourny setting.

My city tournaments are under a very strict pace of play policy. If you're off at all, it's two strokes. If you're out of position by something like one hole at the end, you're DQed.

It's generally best not to assume things about people like you seem to be assuming about this ranger. Your kid's group was out position, he reacted. Maybe he over-reacted, but attributing a superiority complex to a guy over a bunch of kids might be going a bit too far.

[golfdad]

iacas, fyi, my kids were not in that group. but, because other kids in that group played a different length, you can imagine it caused problem with scoring.

i don't want people to confuse about things. specifically, whether that group should get penalty or dq was up to the tour director, not up to the club, its pro and its ranger.

no one enjoys slow play. however, there are ways to deal with it as you have mentioned. i don't find having the ranger telling one group to play a diff length to speed up during a tourny a sensible solution.

if you do not sense that particular group was singled out, i don't know how to respond to that.

[iacas]

if you do not sense that particular group was singled out, i don't know how to respond to that.

Sorry for mis-speaking. The way I read what you wrote, they were JUSTLY and

appropriately singled out. They deserved to be singled out. I said they weren't "singled out" earlier but I really meant "inappropriately" or "unjustly" or whatever. I guess in my mind I thought that was assumed. My fault.

[KwSipp]

Thats ludacris coming from someone whos worked at a few courses and have seen many tournaments, young and old. Every tournament Ive witnessed at any given course that Ive worked at supplied there own referee, not to mention our own staff was told to stay off the course. Sounds to me that this course doesnt operate to well. Just my opionion.

[zeg]

Sorry for mis-speaking. The way I read what you wrote, they were JUSTLY and

I dunno, age issues aside, it seems like it's reasonable for a group of four to play a bit more slowly than a group of three.

[Parker0065]

I blame the Tour Director for not properly coordinating the tournament with the head pro based on the info you gave us. If he did properly coordinate then the head pro is at fault!

Either way, it sounds like your junior tour could be run a little more efficiently. Maybe they need to reorginize how they seperate ages.


In the North Eastern NY Junior Tour that my son plays in they seperate the ages 10-12, 13-15, 16-18! The 10-12 year olds allow the parents to go out with them to keep play moving along! In all other ages groups parents are not allowed to follow!

[KillaK]

I have to say in my experience on different courses some rangers can be downright •••••••s - i know you can't generalize and stereotype people but the ••••••• percentage is def. higher than that of greater society.

It always seems that they get these really old retired dudes who take their job WAY too seriously. Im not saying they shouldnt do what they have to do to keep pace of play up - its just the way they go about it many times is unnecessary - sometimes you have to look at things in context like in this situation rather than just unload on some kids trying to have fun out there.

[jaragon126]

Kudos to the ranger for doing something about slow play. I've played many rounds where the ranger just drives around doing nothing. I've even been on a course where the ranger asked my group to slow down because the group in front of us felt "rushed". (We weren't hitting into the group ahead of us, we weren't yelling at the group ahead of us, we were just keeping up as we were supposed to)

I agree with other posters, slow play is the worst.

In my league we are penalized with added strokes if we get too far behind the group in front of us.

Now, I can't really say if HOW the ranger tried to speed up play was good or not, I wasn't in the situation. No one should be yelled at or looked down upon like they are idiots. So if the kids felt bad because of that, it's an unfortunate situation. The ranger should have politely explained to them what was going on, and took the stance that he was helping them ... not reprimanding them.