The 8 minute tee-time slot - why do they use it?

[gregsandiego]

This topic was spawned by a @drmevo thread on single golfers.

Does your club allow tee times every 8 minutes? As the course becomes full this would be physically impossible to pull off. So what's the point?

Is it just over-booking? Or are there some other variables that feed in to this ?

One good analogy is freeway driving. It's a known fact that freeways slow down as more cars occupy the lanes. Because people can't move in lock step is what causes traffic.

 

[Patch]

It's all about revenue. 

I think my home field goes every 10 minutes. However, I don't think it matters to them, because they don't utilize a starter. After paying your tee fees, they just send you to the first tee, you get situated, and hit when it's your turn.

As a matter of fact, quite a few courses in the area don't use a starter now that I think about it. Others will use one in the mornings, but not after lunch. 

My point is, without a starter, tee time intervals don't work. 

[David in FL]

2 hours ago, Patch said:

 

My point is, without a starter, tee time intervals don't work. 

8 minutes is pretty standard here, including at my private club, where an extra minute or so isn't generating any real additional revenue.  

I agree.  The starter is key.  Without an active, even aggressive, starter to keep things on time off the first tee, the interval means little.

 

[Jeremie Boop]

I don't think I've played any course that didn't use 8 minute intervals. Typically it's not too big a problem. Most of the time the flow moves pretty well with only short waits, the only time I regularly experience back ups is when I'm playing league or stuck behind a league. For some reason people who play leagues around here tend to play pretty slowly.

[jkelley9]

Like others have said, yes all courses around here that I know of have 8-minute slots and most do not use starters or if they have them they just stand there and pretty much just tell people that the scorecards are in the mailbox and maybe give us a pin location for the day... they don't really manage anything. People just tee off when the group in front is clear.

As you said, you can only go as fast as the slowest group that way. But to your analogy the reason we have traffic jams on freeways is because cars inherently stop much quicker than they can (or people are willing to) accelerate. One day with confidence in autonomous vehicles we'll program cars to accelerate more quickly to recover those gaps :) 

[Hardspoon]

If you assume 36 groups can "fit" on a par-72 course (par-minus-2), and everyone played a 4-hour round, you'd have tee times spaced just under 7 minutes. The 8-minute spacing gives a little breathing room.

If you want FAR more detail about it than you ever thought existed (with bonus calculus!):

http://www.columbia.edu/~ww2040/Golf_Thpt_072914.pdf

 

[woodzie264]

14 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

If you assume 36 groups can "fit" on a par-72 course (par-minus-2), and everyone played a 4-hour round, you'd have tee times spaced just under 7 minutes. The 8-minute spacing gives a little breathing room

 

Agreed. The 8 mins tee time is fine with a starter and folks playing to pace. The problems occur when people play SLOW.  With that, a 10 min interval wouldn't make a big difference

Edited August 1, 2016 by woodzie264

[RayG]

2 hours ago, woodzie264 said:

Agreed. The 8 mins tee time is fine with a starter and folks playing to pace. The problems occur when people play SLOW.  With that, a 10 min interval wouldn't make a big difference

Except the first group takes 10 minutes to get 150 yards out because they've scattered balls all over the scenery. And the next group has 2 guys "that can reach" the group in front... 460 yards away.

[DaveP043]

29 minutes ago, RayG said:

Except the first group takes 10 minutes to get 150 yards out because they've scattered balls all over the scenery. And the next group has 2 guys "that can reach" the group in front... 460 yards away.

You can't regulate stupid.  These problems are golfer problems, not an issue with the tee time interval.  Having an effective marshall on the course can decrease the severity of these kinds of problems, but nothing can eliminate them, short of booting people off the course.

[RayG]

Agreed, yet EVERYONE in the business and everyone playing knows 8 minutes is a fantasy-land idea. Go over-aggressive on marshalling and people get P.O'd ("I paid my $50, get lost!) and won't return. So, it's a free for all where Rangers spend time cruising around joking with their buds or telling the LAST group in the line to "pick up the pace" when the problem is 4 groups ahead. IF they have Rangers at all (a common occurrence at most Muni's and public type courses). 

[David in FL]

7 minutes ago, RayG said:

Agreed, yet EVERYONE in the business and everyone playing knows 8 minutes is a fantasy-land idea. Go over-aggressive on marshalling and people get P.O'd ("I paid my $50, get lost!) and won't return. So, it's a free for all where Rangers spend time cruising around joking with their buds or telling the LAST group in the line to "pick up the pace" when the problem is 4 groups ahead. IF they have Rangers at all (a common occurrence at most Muni's and public type courses). 

Again, virtually every course I (and most other responders here) play uses 8 minutes, and absent individual slow play, the interval works fine and doesn't seem to contribute to over-crowded, or slow courses....which is the question posed by the OP.

 

[DaveP043]

3 minutes ago, RayG said:

Agreed, yet EVERYONE in the business and everyone playing knows 8 minutes is a fantasy-land idea. Go over-aggressive on marshalling and people get P.O'd ("I paid my $50, get lost!) and won't return. So, it's a free for all where Rangers spend time cruising around joking with their buds or telling the LAST group in the line to "pick up the pace" when the problem is 4 groups ahead. IF they have Rangers at all (a common occurrence at most Muni's and public type courses). 

I'll go back to the original post.  The reason most courses use 8 minute intervals is simple economics.  The more people they can get off of the first tee, the more money they make.  In many high-demand areas, golfers will fill up all the available slots, no matter how slow the play gets.  If a group has a bad experience, and decides not to return, another group will fill their place.  If I'm a course owner, why should I choose to accept 24 players per hour (6 groups at 10 minutes) instead of 30 players (7.5 groups at 8 minutes)?  Has anyone here ever gone to their boss and said "I'll take a 20% pay cut"?  Now if the courses did see a noticeable loss of business, they might change their practices, but if the tee sheet is full, there's no motivation to change.  And to be honest, I think it the cost of hiring someone to marshall effectively would be much less than the loss of revenue associated with changing to 10 minute tee intervals. 

And if you read some of the posts above, you'll see that 8 minute intervals work for at least a few clubs, its not a complete fantasy

[Hardspoon]

2 hours ago, RayG said:

Agreed, yet EVERYONE in the business and everyone playing knows 8 minutes is a fantasy-land idea. 

That's not true.  8 minutes works pretty well at a lot of courses.

1 hour ago, DaveP043 said:

And if you read some of the posts above, you'll see that 8 minute intervals work for at least a few clubs, its not a complete fantasy

Yup...probably more than 50% of them, in fact.

[onthehunt526]

We use 8 minute intervals at Newman... it works ok if the players are playing to pace. If not we get backed up.... back before when the old Course Manager/Pro was there. He would do 8 minute tee times for the City Championship between 7:30 am and 9:30 am. The final group wouldn't start until after 10 sometimes.

[jsgolfer]

My course went to 10 minute intervals this year. But we're a CC so the interval timing doesn't mean much.

8 minute intervals are usually pretty good. I've played a couple that were 7.

[dennyjones]

Our semi-private course has the 8 minute rule and at times is enforced.   There are several marshals and they are only paid with free play.   

[101101]

6 hours ago, onthehunt526 said:

We use 8 minute intervals at Newman... it works ok if the players are playing to pace. If not we get backed up.... back before when the old Course Manager/Pro was there. He would do 8 minute tee times for the City Championship between 7:30 am and 9:30 am. The final group wouldn't start until after 10 sometimes.

And the course can handle it. 

There's two around me that do 8 minute pace of plays. 

Course #1:  Par 4 slight dog leg away, Par 5 (short) , Par 4 (dog leg), Par 3 (water carry at about 170 from the TIPS)

Course #2: Par 5 (long) with water carry,  Par 3 (long, 170 carry from the whites) to islandish green, Par 4 (long) with tight wooded fairway.

Course #1 will cruise along even with 4 guys on opposite sides of the fairway. 

Course #2: Well it's just a cluster until you get past that third hole.  The 2nd hole is poorly designed with the teeboxes so they can't move the "whites" anywhere up without it being too insulting. 

I've also noticed that on course #1, the tees are way more friendly for weekend play while course #2 plays longer with both tees and stupid pin placements.  

Course #2 could simply setting the "whites" and tips not crazy far back and dropping the pin more towards the center (no stupid tucked placements) and giving folks some bailout areas on the water carries.  I've seen too many folks laser the flag and say it's 171 when it's 3 feet off the front edge.   What the fail to realize is you can take your 185 carry club and still be a GIR.  

Perhaps they should all have to read LSW 

[Buckeyebowman]

2 hours ago, 101101 said:

And the course can handle it. 

There's two around me that do 8 minute pace of plays. 

Course #1:  Par 4 slight dog leg away, Par 5 (short) , Par 4 (dog leg), Par 3 (water carry at about 170 from the TIPS)

Course #2: Par 5 (long) with water carry,  Par 3 (long, 170 carry from the whites) to islandish green, Par 4 (long) with tight wooded fairway.

Course #1 will cruise along even with 4 guys on opposite sides of the fairway. 

Course #2: Well it's just a cluster until you get past that third hole.  The 2nd hole is poorly designed with the teeboxes so they can't move the "whites" anywhere up without it being too insulting. 

I've also noticed that on course #1, the tees are way more friendly for weekend play while course #2 plays longer with both tees and stupid pin placements.  

Course #2 could simply setting the "whites" and tips not crazy far back and dropping the pin more towards the center (no stupid tucked placements) and giving folks some bailout areas on the water carries.  I've seen too many folks laser the flag and say it's 171 when it's 3 feet off the front edge.   What the fail to realize is you can take your 185 carry club and still be a GIR.  

Perhaps they should all have to read LSW 

Well said as far as pin placements goes. I went out to play a local Metroparks course some time ago in the middle of the week. I noticed how challenging the pin placements were, towards the edge of the green, and such. I also knew the greenkeeper, ran into him after my round, and remarked about the pin placements. He replied that they normally did this during the week to preserve the middle of the green for weekend play, when they get bombed!

They were preserving the easy pin positions for the weekends so as to speed up play.