13 problems only public golfers understand

[bmartin461]

From Golf Digest.  

Country club members don't know how sweet they have it. Here are 13 problems that only public golfers understand.

1. More time is spent waiting at the driving range than actually hitting balls

2. Ball marks are just as hazardous as water or out-of-bounds

3. Knowing the 5th tee box could serve as your camp site

4. Recognizing brakes on the golf cart are more for show than safety

5. Smacking your drive onto another hole likely means your ball will be picked up. Actually, your ball’s not safe on your fairway, either

6. Waking up at 6 AM on a Saturday to make a reservation for next weekend, only to find all the good tee times are already gone

7. Marshals are as effective in speeding up play as cookies are in promoting weight loss

8. Getting blindly paired with someone who could end up being A) your new best friend or B) a fugitive of the law

9. That "after-work league" is synonymous with "good luck getting on today, pal"

10. Hitting out of sand traps that are more dirt than sand

11. The range balls are older than your grandma’s wallpaper...

12. ...And that mats so worn down that you’re basically hitting off concrete

13. There's a 50/50 chance your belongings in the locker room will be there after the round

 

What would you add?

[Big C]

A 10 am weekend tee time means that you are likely teeing off on hole 1 around 10:45. Here is my public course tee time conversion chart.

- First Dawn to 7am: Tee off time = reservation time

- 7 to 8am: Tee off time = reservation time + 5/10 minutes

- 8 to 9am: Tee off time = reservation time + 15 minutes

- 9 to 10am: Tee off time = reservation time + 30 minutes

- 10 to 11am: Tee off time = reservation time + 45 minutes

- 11 to noon: Hope you brought a lot of beer

- Noon to 1pm: You will be lucky to get in 18 holes

- 1pm (twilight and beyond): Hope you are used to posting par + strokes because you aren't finishing.

 

[Golfingdad]

Most of those are fairly accurate but I have one question:

What public courses is this guy playing that has all of the first 12 problems ..... and also has locker rooms???

[bmartin461]

6 minutes ago, Big C said:

A 10 am weekend tee time means that you are likely teeing off on hole 1 around 10:45. Here is my public course tee time conversion chart.

- First Dawn to 7am: Tee off time = reservation time

- 7 to 8am: Tee off time = reservation time + 5/10 minutes

- 8 to 9am: Tee off time = reservation time + 15 minutes

- 9 to 10am: Tee off time = reservation time + 30 minutes

- 10 to 11am: Tee off time = reservation time + 45 minutes

- 11 to noon: Hope you brought a lot of beer

- Noon to 1pm: You will be lucky to get in 18 holes

- 1pm (twilight and beyond): Hope you are used to posting par + strokes because you aren't finishing.

 

This is so true!

[bkuehn1952]

If I were to try to be fair, none of the local public access courses are as bad as the article would want you to believe.  As @Golfingdad mentioned, few public courses have a "locker room" and those that do more often than not consist of 1 or 2 shower stalls and some old lockers that NO ONE has used since 1968,

#7, 8, 9 are the most universally true statements for SE Michigan.  11 & 12 are fairly common, too but some public courses have pretty decent practice ranges.

[jkelley9]

1. Not at my 3 local muni's (although one of them doesn't have a driving range at all)

2. Eh, you get used to ball marks. But I would have to say that at least on my courses they aren't usually in my line of putt, if that speaks to the frequency of them on our greens.

3. I don't play at peak hours typically, but yea around hole #5 is surely where you'll start to hit that 5-5:30 pace >_>

4. Not sure what this one means, but I don't think I've ever witnessed a cart incident. 

5. Yes this one is true... people are turds and pick up your ball

6. No way, at least not at my courses. There's usually always some good tee times available. Even the day before.

7. Completely agree. Marshals are nearly non-existent and COMPLETELY non-confrontational.

8. Agreed. Most are nice where I'm from though.

9. Yup.

10. YYYYYYEP. Sand traps are complete garbage at ALL muni's I've played. I don't think I've ever hit out of a clean one. All of the traps I play are either super hard sand that's all chunky and wet/packed, trash in it, rocks in it, pine cones/leaves/pine straw in it, or HUGE puddles covering ~75% of the bunker. That's what we get. 

11. Yep. 

12. Our mats are okay at one of the muni's I play. My home course is turf all year though which is where I practice mostly.

13. ....I would never leave any of my belongings in an open locker. That's just common sense.

[Wanzo]

11 minutes ago, bkuehn1952 said:

As @Golfingdad mentioned, few public courses have a "locker room" and those that do more often than not consist of 1 or 2 shower stalls and some old lockers that NO ONE has used since 1968,

Yeah, I worked at a public course for a few years when I was in high school/college and never once saw someone use the locker room shower, ha.  6,7, 11, 12 were the most accurate for the course I was at.  Some of my favorite memories were working (and playing) at that course though.  Love the people I met and the culture, albeit much different than a private course. 

[No Mulligans]

37 minutes ago, bmartin461 said:

From Golf Digest.  

Country club members don't know how sweet they have it. Here are 13 problems that only public golfers understand.

1. Waking up at 6 AM on a Saturday to make a reservation for next weekend, only to find all the good tee times are already gone

2. There's a 50/50 chance your belongings in the locker room will be there after the round

 

What would you add?

Around here it's 7:00 PM one week in advance you log in to the Torrey Pines North online reservation system.  If you don't have a tee time within 2 seconds of the release time you won't get one, there are none left.  No kidding. I've been able to get one at about 1 out of 5 attempts.

And, what's a locker room?

[mcanadiens]

At least here in Ohio, getting tee times usually isn't very hard. I've never had to wait to use the driving range. Once you get on the course, the pace of play (due partially to a total lack of rangers) can be a problem, but you almost always start in reasonable time.

The course condition stuff is a given. Ball marks, bad bunkers. Some are better than others. It is a real eye-opener when I have the rare chance to play a private course. I've actually felt bad about the idea of taking a divot on the lovely green carpet.

I don't think it would occur to most people to leave much in the looker rooms at a public course. You change shoes in the parking lot like a proper public golfer and lock everything in the car. 

[David in FL]

Y'all need to move.

Other than ineffective rangers, which is just as troublesome at private courses, I can put you on a dozen quality courses with 45 minutes of me that have no more of the issues you list than most nice, private clubs.

[Lihu]

1 hour ago, bmartin461 said:

From Golf Digest.  

Country club members don't know how sweet they have it. Here are 13 problems that only public golfers understand.

1. More time is spent waiting at the driving range than actually hitting balls

2. Ball marks are just as hazardous as water or out-of-bounds

3. Knowing the 5th tee box could serve as your camp site

4. Recognizing brakes on the golf cart are more for show than safety

5. Smacking your drive onto another hole likely means your ball will be picked up. Actually, your ball’s not safe on your fairway, either

6. Waking up at 6 AM on a Saturday to make a reservation for next weekend, only to find all the good tee times are already gone

7. Marshals are as effective in speeding up play as cookies are in promoting weight loss

8. Getting blindly paired with someone who could end up being A) your new best friend or B) a fugitive of the law

9. That "after-work league" is synonymous with "good luck getting on today, pal"

10. Hitting out of sand traps that are more dirt than sand

11. The range balls are older than your grandma’s wallpaper...

12. ...And that mats so worn down that you’re basically hitting off concrete

13. There's a 50/50 chance your belongings in the locker room will be there after the round

 

What would you add?

At first I thought you were creating this list based upon your personal experience at Brookside GC, then I realized it was from an article.

Here's what I'd add:

14. Having to find your tee shot among the 50 plus range balls scattered by various group classes and clinics.

15. Having to pick up your drive of the day because there are kids scattered all over the green.

16. Getting to the 9th hole in 4 hours is considered fast play by everyone you talk to, and they're in awe.

17. They let you hit off grass just so they can till the hard pan for free, and even make money. (The giveaway is that the person picking up the baskets is also throwing seed between your feet.)

18. You find that playing from "2nd cut rough" is far too easy for you because you're already used to the "grass driving range" conditions.

19. The chipping area has a bunch of seniors with huge ball collectors, and even if you had the chance to hit a ball you'd never find it again.

[Wally Fairway]

When I lived in Houston #6 was having to show up at 6:30am drawing on Thurs/Fri for weekend tee times. To be met there by a bunch of retired guys who we tried to befriend so if more than 1 in their group drew a good number they might give it to us. That never worked until a couple of the young women from work started to show up for drawings; we'd get some good tee times whenever the girls were there.

Also add, the 1st tee heckling if you didn't hit a good drive, as everyone around you were going to be following you the rest of the day.
There was another course that you didn't dare play until dusk, because you didn't want to be in that part of town after dark (then again it was very close to one of the best trauma ER hospitals in the country)

[JxQx]

Title should be edited to public golfers near/in a big city. I have not run into any of these issues really besides after work leagues.

[Lihu]

5 minutes ago, JxQx said:

Title should be edited to public golfers near/in a big city. I have not run into any of these issues really besides after work leagues.

Just wait until American Golf takes over your course and "playership" increases exponentially.

Pasadena, CA only has 140,000 people or so?

On the one hand, I like that there are so many new golfers, on the other hand waiting in line to go on the course or to use the range is kind of a pain. In all honesty, I like all the new people who are golfing there. . .none of these really bother me as I still get to play a lot anyway. I just play in random order and don't post because I don't have partners all the time.

[HitAndGiggle]

LOL...those are funny. We are lucky in the Sacramento area in that there are a lot of golf courses per capita. So, we don't have quite as much problem getting a tee time as our brothers in the bay area, or elsewhere.

[chspeed]

1 hour ago, bkuehn1952 said:

If I were to try to be fair, none of the local public access courses are as bad as the article would want you to believe

If I were to be fair, none of our local courses are nearly as nice as this article will have you believe.

Some true facts about NYC public courses

1. Tee times open up at midnight 10 days in advance. If you accidentally fall asleep, by the time you wake up everything is gone until about 10:00 AM.

2. The first tee time is 30 minutes before the sun comes up, so get ready to play the first two holes in the dark.

3. #2 wouldn't be so annoying if the pro shop opened up on time. Instead, it usually opens about 20 minutes after the first tee time.

4. Even when you have the first tee time, by the time you make the turn there are 3-5 groups waiting on the first hole. 7 hour round anyone?

5. #4 isn't a problem because you teed off first right? Wrong. They keep letting people off the back 9 way longer than they should, so you run into painfully slow foursomes waiting on the 10th hole.

6. Rangers? Bwhahahahaha! Instead, we get a few octogenarians driving around looking for balls in the woods.

7. Frost delay? No problem, we'll just let everyone out as a shotgun when the delay lets up. Enjoy your 7 hour round in frigid conditions.

8. You like beer? You'll find about 4 dozen empty cans on the 3rd green, along with the remnants of the bonfire in the bunker and a cup filled with urine. Enjoy the hole.

9. Can't see the pin on the 4th? That's because the drunk guys from 3 threw it in the woods somewhere.

10. Don't mind the rabid coyote following you around. It's NYC, he's just passing through.

[MuniGrit]

You get the muni course tour player who insists on playing the tips and shoot 95. The three muni's I play are all 7000 plus from the back tees. The one course I play 3 of the 4 par 3's are 225+ from the tips so alot of these guys with tour bag, titleist hat, white belt and sunglasses, brush tee and the latest Driver get to use that driver an extra 3 times.

[bmartin461]

22 minutes ago, chspeed said:

If I were to be fair, none of our local courses are nearly as nice as this article will have you believe.

Some true facts about NYC public courses

5. #4 isn't a problem because you teed off first right? Wrong. They keep letting people off the back 9 way longer than they should, so you run into painfully slow foursomes waiting on the 10th hole.

6. Rangers? Bwhahahahaha! Instead, we get a few octogenarians driving around looking for balls in the woods.

8. You like beer? You'll find about 4 dozen empty cans on the 3rd green, along with the remnants of the bonfire in the bunker and a cup filled with urine. Enjoy the hole.

 

Hilarious!!