It was an uncomfortable round last weekend...........

[John333]

Yesterday was slow, on account of catching up with a group of five on the 13th, who, for whatever reason, just would not let us (a fast playing twosome), through. Guess they couldn't read the big sign in the pro shop and on the back of the scorecard, "No more than four players in each group." There was no ranger on the course at that time, and I'm not minded to remind others about etiquette and rules - I've seen that done and it usually leads to confrontation, or at least a frank exchange of opinion.

Also, one of that group had a serious hook off the tee. Even when the ball had nosedived left into impenetrable foliage, he persisted in driving his cart over to the treeline and poking around with an iron for a bit. This is deepest Georgia - go too far into the woods, and you might find snakes, alligators, and the mountain men from Deliverance. Even a new Pro V1 isn't worth the risk of getting bitten, eaten, or encouraged to make pig-like squealing noises... Besides which, with a hook that bad, he'd have been better off buying some dirt cheap Wilsons from Wallymart, and just accepting the fact that when he hit left into the trees, it was a gonner and time to go three off the tee or take a mulligan (depending on how seriously he was scoring his round).

All very slow and frustrating...

Did you try calling the pro shop? The number is usually somewhere on the scorecard. Not sure how your course does it, but at ours, even if it's a time of day where we don't have a ranger on the course, we'll do something about a fivesome. I send some other member of staff out there to talk to them because a slow fivesome will slow up the course for the whole day. I would rather go out of my way to break up the fivesome early than allow it to continue and get complaints about pace from every other group that comes in.

[dkolo]

Yesterday was slow, on account of catching up with a group of five on the 13th, who, for whatever reason, just would not let us (a fast playing twosome), through. Guess they couldn't read the big sign in the pro shop and on the back of the scorecard, "No more than four players in each group." There was no ranger on the course at that time, and I'm not minded to remind others about etiquette and rules - I've seen that done and it usually leads to confrontation, or at least a frank exchange of opinion.

Also, one of that group had a serious hook off the tee. Even when the ball had nosedived left into impenetrable foliage, he persisted in driving his cart over to the treeline and poking around with an iron for a bit. This is deepest Georgia - go too far into the woods, and you might find snakes, alligators, and the mountain men from Deliverance. Even a new Pro V1 isn't worth the risk of getting bitten, eaten, or encouraged to make pig-like squealing noises... Besides which, with a hook that bad, he'd have been better off buying some dirt cheap Wilsons from Wallymart, and just accepting the fact that when he hit left into the trees, it was a gonner and time to go three off the tee or take a mulligan (depending on how seriously he was scoring his round).

All very slow and frustrating...

It's funny, earlier this week, I decided to go play, but there happened to be a tournament going on. There was half an hour between the last tournament tee off and the first regular golf. I was a walker, so they had me go off as a single. I caught up to the tournament on the 3rd hole in about 10, 15 minutes, and that was with playing 3 balls on the second hole because I could see everything stacked up on 3 and the foursome behind me not close yet. The last group of the tournament was brutally slow. Despite everything being stacked up at the 3rd, by the time they finished the 4th hole, they were a hole and a half behind, I kid you not. These teens (16-18 tournament) had no sense of how to play quickly at all. They would all go to each other's balls, take ages on the greens, and not move with any speed. And they had to be driven back twice to the tees after going OB that I could see. Absolutely brutal. They had a PGA worker yell at them and have them go faster, but they were way behind pace all day. I can't get it through my head how the committee doesn't do a better job of instilling fast play tendencies with kids of this age. By the time they get older, they'll just be getting worse when they should be setting an example. I got so frustrated on waiting at the 6th that I waited for the foursome behind and asked if I could play with them as a 5, just so I wouldn't go insane. We played as 5 all day and still managed to stay right behind the tournament, though we didn't have the massive waits I had before.

The front 9 took 3 hours. The back nine was a bit faster. All told, a well-over 5 hour round.

After we finished our 18, I went out and tried to replay the back 9 (I had a score to settle with the two par 5s). I managed to play all 9 holes in just a hair over an hour. I'd have been done sooner, but I had to wait on 15 when I caught up to the tail end of people playing. Luckily, they bailed after that hole on account of it being late and I could plow through the last few holes. I usually try to squeeze out a few extra holes after a round when I'm playing twilight. I just kills me how slow pace is with people who can't get a move on. It's actually gotten me playing better, this rushed pace. I've learned to just try to lag the putt up to gimme range as opposed to trying to figure out how to make it (on longer, unlikely make putts, obviously). I've found it's made me a much better putter and applying that to putting during rounds, I've gotten nearly all of my 3 putts out of my game, and I'm scoring a lot better.

[rkim291968]

Most people I know who play 7:00 am tee time are there to beat the crowd.   Perhaps, they showed up thinking there would be no one around to bother them with pace of play.   One of the courses I've checked out allows only club members to play before 10:00 am on weekends.   The pace of play is < 3.5 hours and they enforce it.