How to handle slow players?

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by Tom Shanks

Just a thought. Why doesn't someone make a poll to determine the ideal time people would like to finish in a foursome?

I've had 2 1/2 hour rounds and I've had 5 hour rounds. 4 is the magic numer for me.

Pretty sure that 4 hours would win that poll.  It's a good pace for a foursome, yet not rushed.  In other cases, I would vote for different numbers (if I went early before work or late after, 3 hours would be fantastic!) but for a normal round I play on the weekend, I totally agree ... 4 hours.

[saevel25]

For me, 4-5 hours is fine, anything less is really really fast. I've done a round in 3 hours before. 5 hours is probably as long as i want to wait. Also depends, if i am the one who is loosing golf balls, 5 hours doesn't seem as long as if i was the one waiting while other's were searching.

[newtogolf]

I'm good between 4:00 - 4:30.  I'd prefer not to rush and more than 4:30 makes things really start to drag.

[David in FL]

Played in 2:45 today. Schweeeet! :-)

[colin007]

4 feels slow for me.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Here?  In Socal?  What courses are you playing?

I live in the High Desert.  Victory Valley.  Mostly play Apple Valley Golf Course (formerly Apple Valley Country Club before the city bought it out).

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by newtogolf

I'm good between 4:00 - 4:30.  I'd prefer not to rush and more than 4:30 makes things really start to drag.

To me the problem is when people think under 4 hours is rushing.

[CR McDivot]

I've played in a twosome at 3:15, foursome at 4:00. Both were unhurried rounds that allowed all players time to play their best shot. Walking.

Also seen over 5:00 (and pushing 6:00). Usually this occurs on weekends, with the group holding up things playing stroke play and unable to hit reasonable shots. Playing in strict distance order, chasing each others chunks, plumb bobbing puts for quadruple bogies. Carts all over the course in a manner more like a dirt track demolition derby than a civilized gentlemen's game. These folks could use a little education in the various ways to score the game, not to mention etiquette.

I'm one of those "old guys" that some of the young overly testosteroned posters have such disregard for. I walk the course because I enjoy the exercise and the walk helps me prepare the next shot. I play Stableford so as not to waste time on shots that will slow play for those behind. It won't be me that holds your cart race up.

Maybe I learned golf before it became a race, or an attempt to compare skill with touring professionals. Maybe I just play because I love the game, and appreciate the challenge the course offers even high handicappers to improve.

[newtogolf]

Your course may be shorter/easier or your 4 some consists of better players then the ones I typically play with.  A round that's under 4 hours would be rushing for a typical round at my home course with my regular 4 some.

Originally Posted by turtleback

To me the problem is when people think under 4 hours is rushing.

[bubble]

4 somes always feel slow for me, especially around the green. I think 3 at golf is ideal.

anyway if a player is slow I teel him.

90% of slow player ar'nt slow shoting golf but are slow in their organisation in many maners for very stupid reasons (bag in the wrong place, chips for the green but forgets .to take his putter for the next shot, doesnt prepare the shot to play while waiting for his turn, notes score on the next tee altough he has honors) etc

[MyrtleBeachGolf]

Played Legends-Moorland yesterday as a 3-some. Rating 74.0 Slope 140 from Blue Tees. We were waiting on a 4-some in front of us, who had another 4-some in front of them. Started at 12:44 tee-time and finished before dark. Round took 4 hours 12 minutes. Actually a pretty decent pace for this area and golf complex. I'm not unhappy with 4 hrs 12 min.

[Paradox]

I play golf in whatever time it takes to finish the round.  As long as I'm not sitting around waiting 5-10 minutes between shots..it doesn't matter to me.  My twosome rounds usually finish in 3-3:30, threesome about the same, and foursome about 4 hours max.  I wouldn't care if it were 5 hours as long as, like I said, there were no waiting between shots(hard to get a 5 hour round without waiting, I know)

[tstrike34]

Yesterday, I moved at a very nice pace for the front nine.

Then the back nine was lined at every hole with a 4 some a lot of which went hunting for duck balls (Cart Path only after heavy rain). At least 3 groups ahead of me were not preparing for their next shot. Seriously speaking.

I can finish a round (with shanks and all) in about 3 hours. I did 9 holes in  1:45 in the morning Mon - Thur (its really nice to tee off at 7am and be in before the work day starts).

*Remember Mon - Thur morning play means navigating the grounds crew * But the greens fee is uber cheap (and includes a cart)

[WUTiger]

The OP's round that lasted 7:30 has to be a worst-case headache. Not sure if it was a bad day at a good course, or a first time and OP didn't know for sure.

I find that slow play varies a lot from course to course. If the starter and the ranger do their job and don't play favorites, and have the authority to move 105-shooters off the back tees, then play should move along nicely.  This assumes they have mowed the rough in the past 5 days.

At some courses, slow play is always a problem, and I don't go there unless it's some mandatory social thing.

[BuckeyeNut]

Originally Posted by schalk

the other day while playing local cluub competition,we had 3 four balls in front of us. We had to wait about ten minutes on each hole. we did contact the club so that theyy send out someone to speed things up for us but to no avail. we played 18holes in 7:30 hours!!!!

The marshall told us that they booked those spots for their own competition ,i think the club should allocate them to the last spot on the day.

Hahaha....that is insane.  The slowest round I played in my entire life (and I've played a lot)....is 7hrs 10mins............and that was a corporate outing with groups of six!!!  I had to stay.....

If I ran into this kind of slow play during normal play, I would have left the course before completing 9 holes.

[Wisguy]

Originally Posted by laconic517

I still blame golf courses for a large portion of the slow play.

6 minute tee times, thick rough/tall grass/not clearly marked hazards, all add up.  If I was a golf course designer that was making a muni for your everyday golfers play, I would NEVER put heather/tall grass on the course.  Its absolutely asinine and just bogs down the golf course.  At least if you have water out there its an obvious hazard.  I cant believe how many courses I have played that have areas that arent marked red that clearly should be (assuming you want to keep a reasonable pace of play).  This causes people to look for their ball,etc which takes up considerable time when you have to do it every other hole (depending on the group you are playing with).  Combine that with the 6 minute tee times and you are in for 5-6 hour rounds.

Yes golfers do contribute to the slow play as well (I can't stand playing in city tournaments anymore because of the 5.5hr rounds, people grinding over putts/iron shots when they are going to shoot 82 just like everyone else in that day group and we have 0 chance of placing in the top 10 or winning money) but I still believe the golf courses could alleviate a majority of the problems.

If people are hacks there are situations where they really can't speed up if they want to actually post a legit score.  Blade balls over a green a few times and its going to make for a slow hole.  Also, with hacks, you cant even walk up to your ball to play ready golf, as if you do you will clearly be in harms way of the occasional shank or scull or whatever.  You basically have to stand behind them in order to be 100% safe.

I myself am a pretty fast golfer (I can only think of one of my buddies who may be faster, and thats only because he takes 0 practice swings) but this obsession with speed and blaming the golfers needs to kinda stop.  Unless you are going to set a handicap limit, or you want people not to post actual scores, the majority of the blame has to fall on the golf courses

I agree with this - looking back on some of the slowest rounds I've played where I'm not playing quickly, it's mostly because I'm slicing my drives and they are going into large areas of tall meadow/gorse/ heather that are lining the right side of the fairways, thick stuff that potentially one could play out of, if only one could find the damn ball.  It's searching for a ball that wastes the most time for me and I try to go about it very quickly if there is a group behind us and give up after about a minute and just drop (rules or no rules, I never go back to the tee to re-hit a ball - that's just a dumb rule that wastes a lot of time and there is no logical reason for it, not to mention I almost never see anyone follow that rule and I bet a lot of people are unaware of it and would be pissed off to see someone from the group ahead returning to the tee box after they already have a ball teed up and are waiting for us to move out of range).  But there have been rounds where I'm on my last sleeve of balls, everything used in my bag has scuffs on it, and I'm getting nervous about running out of balls, so I sometimes feel that I can't just nonchalantly abandon a wayward ball after only a 20 second search.

Another thing that does eat a lot of time in rounds where my group gets backed up is those damn holes where pitches and bunker shots get skulled over the green multiple times, an experience I'm sure some of you better players haven't had in many years, but which afflict the 90% of us who still see triple digit scores on our cards from time to time.  Having to go around, into, hit out of, rake, then go around a bunker again, particularly large bunkers around large greens, more than once eats a lot of time.  Spending a lot of time practicing my short game last year while my daughter took lessons helped a lot and I only had maybe two of those holes the entire season, but one of my buddies had several rounds where he had several of those holes; swearing and slamming a club into the ground wastes even more time.  I know it makes sense just to pick up when you're hitting 7 or 8 and still not yet on the green, but it just feels like cheating or giving up.

The worst time-wasters I've seen have been elderly golfers, who insist on stopping to chat in the middle of the hole or who leave their carts 60 yards in front of the green and then have to walk all of the way back them (where they usually stop to gossip about "That Darn Earl! or That silly ol' gal Mabel!", clean a club, add up their score, etc...).  Just because they've got nothing else to do that day (I'm not in a hurry - I'm RETIRED!!) doesn't mean that everyone's day is as leisurely.  Now not every senior golfer is slow - I've played with many that were as fast or faster than golfers half their age, but the worst offenders I've seen have usually been into their second or third decades of retirement.

But the jerk who can see that there are several/many groups in front of us who are backing things up who insists on hitting into us or making snarky comments in our direction about slow play (because I dared to wait until the group in front got off the green before hitting approach shots) is just as bad at ruining a round of golf for me and is just as inconsiderate of a golfer as someone who plays stupidly slow.

And I think that some of the people claiming that everyone should be able to fly through rounds at a lightning pace, who in previous slow play threads have set down some times for how long it should take between shots, are significantly underestimating time for anyone other than a very low handicap single golfer or twosome who are basically going in a straight line from tee-to-fairway-to-green.  I started adding up how long it really takes to do everything involved in the course of a round, including non-shotmaking activities and just traveling from green to next hole on a typical course where there are sometimes 100-800yds between greens and next tees, and the time was adding up a lot longer than some people were claiming.  Of course, I didn't save my calculations, my laptop crashed and I lost everything I had put together.  Someday I will find some time, sit down, and come up with that list again and I think it will show that it takes more than 6-7 minutes a hole to play golf for the typical golfer.  I think a lot of people forget that it takes a lot more time to hit the green in four or five shots than it does in only two or three shots.

[SCfanatic35]

Originally Posted by saevel25

For me, 4-5 hours is fine, anything less is really really fast. I've done a round in 3 hours before. 5 hours is probably as long as i want to wait.

I completely agree.  I usually finish in 4 hours at my club.  Sometimes it's slow and we finish in 4:30, which is slow at my club.  I have had some rounds where we were the first off in the morning and we finished in a little over 3 hours.  I walk the course with my clic gear, and at that pace I feel completely rushed.  I can walk the course that fast but my game suffers because of the brisk pace. I have heard that young PGA players fall into that trap sometimes when they are leading a tournament and their adrenaline is going and just want to take off walking and get going.  Anywhere from 4-5 is good, a little over 5 is still OK but not ideal.  Anything approaching 6+ is ridiculous.

[turtleback]

Originally Posted by Wisguy

I agree with this - looking back on some of the slowest rounds I've played where I'm not playing quickly, it's mostly because I'm slicing my drives and they are going into large areas of tall meadow/gorse/ heather that are lining the right side of the fairways, thick stuff that potentially one could play out of, if only one could find the damn ball.  It's searching for a ball that wastes the most time for me and I try to go about it very quickly if there is a group behind us and give up after about a minute and just drop (rules or no rules, I never go back to the tee to re-hit a ball - that's just a dumb rule that wastes a lot of time and there is no logical reason for it, not to mention I almost never see anyone follow that rule and I bet a lot of people are unaware of it and would be pissed off to see someone from the group ahead returning to the tee box after they already have a ball teed up and are waiting for us to move out of range).

That is what hitting a provisional is for.