Pay By The Hour Green Fee

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I spoke to the manager at my local home course about this idea. He was familiar with the idea. Although he liked the idea, he was pretty sure they would never do it at this course. His thoughts were that it would take too much extra effort, even more manpower to make it work. Extra manpower meant less over all profit for the course. To off set the loss of revenue, he would have to raise the cost per hour, which would most likely mean fewer golfers using the course. This loss of golfers, would again mean a loss of revenue.

The bottom in golf coursemanagement, like any other business is "money". 

 There were just too many loose ends to keep track of, he said due to the different speeds golfers play at. 

He told me a few years back they tried to use an hourly rate on the driving range, and practice area. They went with $8 an hour, and all the balls you could hit. . The results were too many complaints from players, and again the extra manpower needed to manage the time purchased. 

His best case scenario was to let other courses in the area, do the hourly scenario, so that more golfers would move to his course for a more individual free style of play. 

[JxQx]

4 minutes ago, 14ledo81 said:

 

I don't think it would even come down to being an asshole.  I don't want to let someone through so they can pay less while I pay more.

If you want to pay less then play faster, that is completely within your control. If they caught up to you or are pushing you they are definitely playing faster so they wouldn't hold you up if you let them play through. 

[Jeremie Boop]

On 1/11/2017 at 6:55 PM, 14ledo81 said:

The twilight rate at my house course kinda works like this. I pay a set rate to play until dark. If I play fast, I play more holes for the same price. I love it.  In fact, I almost exclusively play at this time of the day.

Exactly how the main course I play works. The start time of the all you can golf changes based on the amount of daylight, mid summer it starts at 3 pm and it's $25 for unlimited golf with a cart. At that rate and start time I can get up to a solid 6 hours or so of golf in. It does not increase the pace of play on the course, however it does allow me to get extra play in without an extra cost. I would love if there was a way for me to be able to play at my pace and get just 18 in after work so I can be home early enough to not get into trouble all while saving money. Unfortunately, I don't really see that happening around here either. 

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IDK. I still believe that the only way to solve the pace of play issue, you would have to force all golfers to play at the same speed. The faster players would have to play slower, slower players would have to play faster. This would take both groups out of their comfort playing zones. These two groups would not be happy. The players who are lucky enough to already play at the speed the the faster/slower groups changed to, would be the only group of players reaping the rewards of controlled play.

That brings up the same old question of how many golfers want to pay their green fees, only to have their individual games controlled by others? 

Perhaps setting different days of the week aside for the different paces of play could be researched.

An example might be for the weekend players that Saturday is play at your own speed, while Sunday is faster play day. Monday-Wednesday could be individual pace days, while Thursday-Friday could be faster pace days. This might give all golfers of various playing speeds a way to schedule their individual games to a more comfortable pace of play. 

A slow player showing up on faster play day, would understand they would have to allow the faster player to play through with out question. A faster player showing up on a designated individual pace of play day, would just have to deal with it. Mean while the golfer who has no issue with what ever the pace of play is, could use all seven days without an issue. 

 

IDK. I still believe that the only way to solve the pace of play issue, you would have to force all golfers to play at the same speed. The faster players would have to play slower, slower players would have to play faster. This would take both groups out of their comfort playing zones. These two groups would not be happy. The players who are lucky enough to already play at the speed the the faster/slower groups changed to, would be the only group of players reaping the rewards of controlled play.

That brings up the same old question of how many golfers want to pay their green fees, only to have their individual games controlled by others? 

Perhaps setting different days of the week aside for the different paces of play could be researched.

An example might be for the weekend players that Saturday is play at your own speed, while Sunday is faster play day. Monday-Wednesday could be individual pace days, while Thursday-Friday could be faster pace days. This might give all golfers of various playing speeds a way to schedule their individual games to a more comfortable pace of play. 

A slow player showing up on faster play day, would understand they would have to allow the faster player to play through with out question. A faster player showing up on a designated individual pace of play day, would just have to deal with it. Mean while the golfer who has no issue with what ever the pace of play is, could use all seven days without an issue.