Pace Problem

[Cartboy]

On 10/18/2019 at 5:21 PM, AlDena said:

Did I mention the walker also moved in slow motion? 

Whether they're walking or in carts, that's almost always the case when you watch slow groups.

They appear to have no urgency.

I am not perfect by any means, but normally when I put a club in my bag, I take out my next club.  When I get to the ball, I take two practice swings, then hit it . . . and move on.

Well, maybe I am perfect.  😁

I had two guests last year who were extremely slow in everything they did, then they'd hit the ball in the woods/water/whatever.  Fortunately, they were in a cart together, so, once I realized the situation, I just went ahead and played each hole at my pace, then waited at the green for them to hit on and putt out.

By the back, I think they got the idea.  If they think I'm a jerk and don't want to play again, oh well!

When I take guests, and they pay $25 instead of $130, I just hate when our group is the one stinking the place up.

Last month I got 12 on for $79 instead of the $130, then worried for four hours whether they would be the problem golfers.  It seems that some golfers go to the course planning on being -------s.

Incidentally, our GM/Pro has pointed out that when we are cart path only we never have slow groups.

Serious.

Edited October 26, 2019 by Cartboy

[David in FL]

47 minutes ago, Cartboy said:

 

Incidentally, our GM/Pro has pointed out that when we are cart path only we never have slow groups.

Serious.

Not unusual at all.

It pretty much forces everyone to a slower pace so the differences are much less apparent.  When nobody can manage their cart use well, everyone is equally slow.

 

Edited October 26, 2019 by David in FL

[Cartboy]

7 hours ago, David in FL said:

Not unusual at all.

It pretty much forces everyone to a slower pace so the differences are much less apparent.  When nobody can manage their cart use well, everyone is equally slow.

 

Also, when the woods are on the other side of the fairway from the cart path, there's less looking for balls.  Plus, it's cart path only because the fairways are sloppy, so there's not a lot of extra walking around.

Go to the ball, hit it, go to your cart.  repeat

Plus, when it's cart path only, the less-abled physically don't play.

[Cartboy]

Another thing I do when I'm driving the cart, and when our balls are relatively close, is I'll "split the difference", park the cart halfway in between, and we both walk to our ball.

Sometimes I will stop at the other guy's ball, and walk to mine while he's hitting.  Then he drives to me, and I'll be ready to move on.

I see a whole lot of a guy sitting in cart while the other one hits, then switching and doing it again, when they could be on the way to the next shot.

[ghalfaire]

IDK: I have seen several threads on the Pace of Play subject and have concluded it is a complex problem.  Having said that I do know of courses that insist on a pace of play that leads to a round of not more than 4 hours 30 minutes.  They do this by monitoring play and if you get behind you'll be ask to pick up and go the next hole and if you refuse you'll be ask to leave and they refund your green fees.  Now, I should add both of these courses are high end resort courses and are very difficult (front tee slopes are like 125 or so).  I would suspect their clients are mostly very good golfers and came to town to specifically play these sorts of courses and escape the snow for a week or so.  I am not sure this policy would work on a municipal course where in general the  green fees are significantly lower and so are the course slopes. 

[Bucki1968]

On 11/2/2019 at 6:35 PM, Cartboy said:

Another thing I do when I'm driving the cart, and when our balls are relatively close, is I'll "split the difference", park the cart halfway in between, and we both walk to our ball.

Sometimes I will stop at the other guy's ball, and walk to mine while he's hitting.  Then he drives to me, and I'll be ready to move on.

I see a whole lot of a guy sitting in cart while the other one hits, then switching and doing it again, when they could be on the way to the next shot.

I remember the "play ready golf" initiative a few years ago. I wish they would bring that back. How about the "while we're young"? I play fast and so do the people I play with. We generally can walk 18 holes in three hours if no one is holding us up. Now I know that is not the "norm" but I don't think 4 hours should be the norm either. I don't see course rangers telling groups to skip a hole or refund $. Too much competition for the revenue. I think that the lack of caddie programs has hurt the golf business. I learned all about the game by being a caddie and most of my buddies too. I can't believe that kids wouldn't want a summer job to make a couple bucks. 

[Cartboy]

some responses . . . 

Ours would be considered a high-end resort course, too, and challenging, 132 from the most common tee and 126 from the shortest tee.  Plus, we are in an older-aged resort area.

All that works against pace.

Telling people they have to leave is not on our agenda.  They would have to be drunk, abusive to the beverage cart girl, or something like that.

I do like the idea of spending time with the groups being affected by slow groups, and seeing if we can rebook them at a nice discount.  We carry a tee sheet tablet, and can show them tee times for any day, and book them so they are not behind golfers the next time.

What I would really like is that (after 10 years) we would have a policy that states what we do, or what we can do, so we know what to do.

On days when I open, golfers see me when they pull in because I either greet them at the bag drop or take a cart to them in the parking lot, welcome them, fill them in on our facility, etc.  Then I'm the Starter.  Then they see me on the course.  So, by then they know I'm doing all I can, so if I offer them some sort of replay, they know we're trying.

 

 

[Double Mocha Man]

1 hour ago, Cartboy said:

some responses . . . 

Ours would be considered a high-end resort course, too, and challenging, 132 from the most common tee and 126 from the shortest tee.  Plus, we are in an older-aged resort area.

All that works against pace.

Telling people they have to leave is not on our agenda.  They would have to be drunk, abusive to the beverage cart girl, or something like that.

I do like the idea of spending time with the groups being affected by slow groups, and seeing if we can rebook them at a nice discount.  We carry a tee sheet tablet, and can show them tee times for any day, and book them so they are not behind golfers the next time.

What I would really like is that (after 10 years) we would have a policy that states what we do, or what we can do, so we know what to do.

On days when I open, golfers see me when they pull in because I either greet them at the bag drop or take a cart to them in the parking lot, welcome them, fill them in on our facility, etc.  Then I'm the Starter.  Then they see me on the course.  So, by then they know I'm doing all I can, so if I offer them some sort of replay, they know we're trying.

 

 

Cartboy... I've been reading your posts over the last couple of months.  You seem like you really know what you're doing.  And that you like your job. You have claimed ownership of your position.  Great attitude.  You will always do well.

[David in FL]

Posted by @bkuehn1952 on another thread, this is a perfect example of a course contributing to the POP issue, even if inadvertently.

To be clear, I don’t know this course and there may be no real pace of play issues at all, but it makes for an outstanding example...

The scorecard clearly states that pace of play is important and faster players should be allowed though.  It even lists target POP by individual hole, and cumulatively though the round.  Kudos to them...

...But, the targeted POP is 4:30!  Really?  That’s the target?!  Hole 10, a 400 yard par-4 from the tips has a target of 19 freaking minutes to play it.  Followed by 18 minutes to play a short par-5.  37 freaking minutes to play 2 stinking holes of golf, and again, that’s the target, set by the course.     Kill me now.

Come on guys.  If a course won’t step up and set appropriate expectations, and then actively manage to them, the problem will never be solved.

 

[DaveP043]

50 minutes ago, David in FL said:

The scorecard clearly states that pace of play is important and faster players should be allowed though.  It even lists target POP by individual hole, and cumulatively though the round.  Kudos to them...

...But, the targeted POP is 4:30!  Really?  That’s the target?!  Hole 10, a 400 yard par-4 from the tips has a target of 19 freaking minutes to play it.  Followed by 18 minutes to play a short par-5.  37 freaking minutes to play 2 stinking holes of golf, and again, that’s the target, set by the course.     Kill me now.

I'm with you, I like the idea of "time par", and of listing cumulative elapsed time at each tee.  I also like the idea of making the time par pretty aggressive.  Too many people look at the time par as a suggested average, and feel like its OK if they're not too far behind it.

As many here know, I play a fair amount at Talamore, near Pinehurst.  On our last visit, Talamore had installed small GPS units in carts.  Within the GPS display was a line showing your group's position in relation to time par.  If you were more than just a couple of minutes behind, that line would have a bright red background, pretty much impossible to ignore.  All that is fine, but the best part of the system was that the time par was set to about 4:05 for 18 holes, which is really aggressive for a resort setting.  But in talking to the head pro, I learned that playing times had decreased by around 15 or 20  minutes since the GPS units were installed, and he attributed the bulk of the improvement to the aggressive time par, and the unavoidable notice if your group got behind.

[dennyjones]

58 minutes ago, David in FL said:

Posted by @bkuehn1952 on another thread, this is a perfect example of a course contributing to the POP issue, even if inadvertently.

To be clear, I don’t know this course and there may be no real pace of play issues at all, but it makes for an outstanding example...

The scorecard clearly states that pace of play is important and faster players should be allowed though.  It even lists target POP by individual hole, and cumulatively though the round.  Kudos to them...

...But, the targeted POP is 4:30!  Really?  That’s the target?!  Hole 10, a 400 yard par-4 from the tips has a target of 19 freaking minutes to play it.  Followed by 18 minutes to play a short par-5.  37 freaking minutes to play 2 stinking holes of golf, and again, that’s the target, set by the course.     Kill me now.

Come on guys.  If a course won’t step up and set appropriate expectations, and then actively manage to them, the problem will never be solved.

 

Look closer..  The time for the front is recommended at 2:07, the back nine is 2:16.  

I'm looking at the score cards from my rounds the last two years and it's amazing how irrelevant pace of play is to most courses.

[iacas]

On 11/4/2019 at 9:55 AM, Bucki1968 said:

I remember the "play ready golf" initiative a few years ago. I wish they would bring that back. How about the "while we're young"?

They have added "ready golf" to the RULES, after all. I think those ideas are still hanging around. The thing is… people who play "ready golf" can still be freaking slow.

4 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

Look closer..  The time for the front is recommended at 2:07, the back nine is 2:16.

And seven minutes to hit the head and grab a beer at the turn is 4:30.

[dennyjones]

16 minutes ago, iacas said:

They have added "ready golf" to the RULES, after all. I think those ideas are still hanging around. The thing is… people who play "ready golf" can still be freaking slow.

And seven minutes to hit the head and grab a beer at the turn is 4:30.

I was aware.   I just looked at the 64 score cards I have from the last two years and most courses don't help themselves regarding pace of play.   There is only 1 course I've played in the last two years, both public and private that actually monitors pace of play.    Of the 64, only 20 mention a time to complete the round.   13 courses had no mention of pace of play.   The fastest suggested time was 2:06 for 9 holes with 4:45 the slowest for 18. 

Individually I play 18 around 2:15, our foursome plays in about 3:30 (we have one slower player)

[iacas]

45 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

I was aware.   I just looked at the 64 score cards I have from the last two years and most courses don't help themselves regarding pace of play.   There is only 1 course I've played in the last two years, both public and private that actually monitors pace of play.    Of the 64, only 20 mention a time to complete the round.   13 courses had no mention of pace of play.   The fastest suggested time was 2:06 for 9 holes with 4:45 the slowest for 18. 

Individually I play 18 around 2:15, our foursome plays in about 3:30 (we have one slower player)

I agree with all of that fully.

Most courses could probably improve the pace of play quite a bit if they had an aggressive policy and a marshal who could push people along the right way.

[dagolfer18]

3 hours ago, David in FL said:

Posted by @bkuehn1952 on another thread, this is a perfect example of a course contributing to the POP issue, even if inadvertently.

To be clear, I don’t know this course and there may be no real pace of play issues at all, but it makes for an outstanding example...

The scorecard clearly states that pace of play is important and faster players should be allowed though.  It even lists target POP by individual hole, and cumulatively though the round.  Kudos to them...

...But, the targeted POP is 4:30!  Really?  That’s the target?!  Hole 10, a 400 yard par-4 from the tips has a target of 19 freaking minutes to play it.  Followed by 18 minutes to play a short par-5.  37 freaking minutes to play 2 stinking holes of golf, and again, that’s the target, set by the course.     Kill me now.

Come on guys.  If a course won’t step up and set appropriate expectations, and then actively manage to them, the problem will never be solved.

 

This is a really good point. As a single walker and bogey golfer, I can get around 18 holes in about 3:10, and probably less than three if I don’t have to wait on anybody. IMO, a good-paced riding foursome should take no more than 4 hours to play 18 holes.

[Darkfrog]

1 hour ago, iacas said:

Most courses could probably improve the pace of play quite a bit if they had an aggressive policy and a marshal who could push people along the right way.

My experience at courses that do this is that pace of play is never an issue. Usually a respectful reminder from a marshal is all it takes for a slow group to pick up the pace. Seems like only nicer courses are committed to this though, but that's just my experience.

I'm a pretty fast player. When I'm playing solo with no one in front of me, I can easily finish in 2.5 hours or less, even when I'm playing really poorly. In my opinion, many golfers are either not self aware enough to realize how slow they are, or not educated on playing ready golf.

My rounds average about 4-4.5 hours on my home course. This is teeing off between 630-7am so I'm usually in one of the first groups out. This course does close to nothing to encourage / enforce a reasonable pace of play, and unsurprisingly the majority of the reviews are poor due to excessively long rounds.

[Mr22putt]

Slow pace of play isn't going to be fixed anytime soon....why?

There are too many clueless clown golfers who don't care to play golf in under 4 hours or any consideration of other golfers playing.....I've experienced it too often....nuff said.

[Double Mocha Man]

12 minutes ago, Mr22putt said:

Slow pace of play isn't going to be fixed anytime soon....why?

There are too many clueless clown golfers who don't care to play golf in under 4 hours or any consideration of other golfers playing.....I've experienced it too often....nuff said.

I wonder if there's a correlation between slow, dawdling drivers and slow golfers???  I get behind them all the time on the road and they rarely let me play through...