Competitive Round Pace of Play - Why Slower?

[ZappyAd]

I played at my local course yesterday with a buddy I regularly play with.  We had played the week before at the same time and got round in 3hrs 20 minutes.  The course was busy but everyone was moving and we thought that possibly we had found the perfect time to play.  

When we turned up this week we were told at the pro shop that a member's competition had gone out earlier in the day but 'don't worry, the last group went out over an hour ago and you should be fine'.

We caught up with the jam at the fifth and from then on things were pretty slow.  The round took over five hours which, given our hopes at the start, was a pretty poor result.

The thing that struck me as odd was that whenever we crossed paths with a group up ahead (at a tee or where holes pass near each other) they invariably said 'sorry about this but the round is going to be slow today because we're playing in a competition'.  Over the course of the round about five groups said the exact same thing which made me think that a lot of people thought it was a good reason to justify slow play.  It really got me wondering why!  

Should I expect competition play to be much slower than 'normal' or were these members just using it as an excuse?

 

[jsgolfer]

7 minutes ago, ZappyAd said:

I played at my local course yesterday with a buddy I regularly play with.  We had played the week before at the same time and got round in 3hrs 20 minutes.  The course was busy but everyone was moving and we thought that possibly we had found the perfect time to play.  

When we turned up this week we were told at the pro shop that a member's competition had gone out earlier in the day but 'don't worry, the last group went out over an hour ago and you should be fine'.

We caught up with the jam at the fifth and from then on things were pretty slow.  The round took over five hours which, given our hopes at the start, was a pretty poor result.

The thing that struck me as odd was that whenever we crossed paths with a group up ahead (at a tee or where holes pass near each other) they invariably said 'sorry about this but the round is going to be slow today because we're playing in a competition'.  Over the course of the round about five groups said the exact same thing which made me think that a lot of people thought it was a good reason to justify slow play.  It really got me wondering why!  

Should I expect competition play to be much slower than 'normal' or were these members just using it as an excuse?

 

Competition rounds do slow down play as everyone has to finish out the hole (no picking up after double and no gimme putts).  Then you end up spending the entire 5 minutes if you are looking for a lost ball, people mark shorter putts on the green so they don't stand in someone's line, so unfortunately, tournament play can add quite a bit of time to the round.  

[DaveP043]

In my experience, competition rounds often are slower than general play.  The players are taking more care with each shot, looking at putts longer, thinking more, looking for balls in situations where they wouldn't otherwise look, all things that slow down play.  If its a individual stroke-play tournament, they may put up some big hole scores where otherwise they'd pick up and move on. To some extent, I think its understandable, but it shouldn't be THAT much longer.  

[JetFan1983]

55 minutes ago, ZappyAd said:

Should I expect competition play to be much slower than 'normal' or were these members just using it as an excuse?

 

I'm sure they could make an "I Shouldn't Be Alive" season just about some of the brutal slow play experiences people have had out there. Everything always starts out fine. You're in the parking lot changing your shoes getting excited for a great day of golf. You get the green light from the starter that everything's all good... and then boom, you run into "league play" and you and your buddy barely survive by the end. Here's actual footage of a slow play victim being finally rescued. It's brutal. 

I guess for next time, if there's league play, you should just turn the car around and find another course, assuming this is even a possibility. But where I've lived, there's always another option out there, especially during the work week where there's bound to be a course somewhere nearby that's empty.

But chalk it up to lesson learned. Honestly the starter kind of screwed you a little bit by saying it would be fine, but at least now you know the ugly truth about being stuck behind several foursomes of league play. I'd make some quick calls to the nearby clubs, get some info about how crowded they are, then reevaluate with my buddy from there. Avoid that "I Shouldn't Be Alive" slow play situation.

Edited March 22, 2017 by JetFan1983

[Big C]

Ditto what everyone said above. 

In theory, that time spend looking for a missing ball (or re-teeing) could be made up fairly quickly. But the cumulative effect of people spending an extra 10-15 seconds studying every shot or putt cannot - especially when every group is doing it. 

Should this be the case? That is tough to say. Do you score better when you spend more time over each shot vs. getting up there and just hitting it? The answer probably varies by player. But the reality is that no one wants to take a bad score because they rushed themselves through their routine. So whether or not it actually improves scoring and performance, the reality is that people take their sweet time during important rounds.

[iacas]

Yeah, it's pretty brutal.

People gave answers above, but the sad thing is… we're adding half an hour or more to rounds just because they're "competition" rounds.

If we could play in 3:30 when playing casually, we might not complain so much about the 4:00 "competition" rounds. You know what I mean?

Slow play is slow play. Competition just adds to the pace of play for almost everyone.

[bkuehn1952]

3 hours ago, ZappyAd said:

...Should I expect competition play to be much slower than 'normal' or were these members just using it as an excuse?

I can echo what others have said. All true and on point. I would add that often competitions involve 4-balls.  So literally the entire course has groups of 4 spaced 8-10 minutes apart.  There are no 2-balls or a couple unused tee time slots to make the snake move a bit faster at times.

Also, there often is no "playing through" so if the 3rd group off in the morning is slothful, everyone following moves at that group's pace.

What about slow play penalties?  If the PGA Tour can't figure it out, don't expect many events at the club level to successfully implement a pace of play policy.

So, yes, expect competitions to be slow and at all costs avoid following a competition.

 

[Buckeyebowman]

In addition to the points made above I would simply add that, in a competition, many golfers start "thinking too much" and "trying too hard"! And they usually wind up playing worse for all the bother!

[Pretzel]

I think the biggest difference, in competition, is off the tee and around the green.

Off the tee because nobody seems to know when to hit a provisional golf ball or even why to hit a provisional.

Around the green because people start pacing off every chip and putt when they don't normally do it, meaning they don't know how to do it without it taking forever. They don't know where to place their bags if they're walking because they're used to riding in a cart. They're not used to marking their ball and cleaning it, but do it in tournaments and fumble around in the process.

[ZappyAd]

16 hours ago, JetFan1983 said:

But chalk it up to lesson learned. Honestly the starter kind of screwed you a little bit by saying it would be fine, but at least now you know the ugly truth about being stuck behind several foursomes of league play. I'd make some quick calls to the nearby clubs, get some info about how crowded they are, then reevaluate with my buddy from there. Avoid that "I Shouldn't Be Alive" slow play situation.

 

It did make me wonder if the guys in the clubhouse know anything at all about how long rounds are taking on their course.  Presumably people were handing in their cards at the end of the round so it shouldn't have been that hard for them to get a rough idea of how long the rounds were taking.    I just think that time taken for a round isn't a metric that they monitor or even care about.  I will probably join a new course next year because of it.

[Pretzel]

15 minutes ago, ZappyAd said:

It did make me wonder if the guys in the clubhouse know anything at all about how long rounds are taking on their course.  Presumably people were handing in their cards at the end of the round so it shouldn't have been that hard for them to get a rough idea of how long the rounds were taking.    I just think that time taken for a round isn't a metric that they monitor or even care about.  I will probably join a new course next year because of it.

Oh, trust me, courses know how long their men's clubs take to play golf. I know my course's men's club has some specific groups that can go around in 3 hours for 18, and other groups that will usually take 5 hours. I, unfortunately, can't do anything about it in the pro shop besides ask them to pick up the pace when they come in for their turn.

They were just trying to avoid scaring you away, at least that would be my bet.

[Marty2019]

Regarding pace of play, I am wondering, for a typical group of amateurs not in competition except for maybe a bet or something, what is a reasonable amount of time to take over a shot or a putt?   I know in putting it will vary based on whether or not you are the first to putt, because the ones who are not first to putt should all be lining up their putts before the first guy even putts, but with that in mind, how many seconds should a person take from the fairway, or during putting?  

[Hatchman]

Agree.  5 hours starts to get a little long regardless of style of play.  Blitz, competition, etc.  I tend to shy away from them now.

[WUTiger]

23 hours ago, jsgolfer said:

Competition rounds do slow down play as everyone has to finish out the hole (no picking up after double and no gimme putts).

Also, there's a problem that not all the people are "up to speed" on the rules. In our local Amateur circuit, last year's opening round took 6 hours, 10 minutes for my group. We didn't play that well, but we were still having to wait 5-10 minutes on each tee box to hit.

Biggest problem was knuckleheads who would hit a high draw or fade off the tee that was clearly OB in the deep woods. Did these chops hit a provisional? Nooooo. They went down, looked for the ball - maybe wood nymphs threw it back to the fairway? - then came back and re-teed it.

One of my playing partners was playing in his first ever circuit event, and he said he would never play the circuit again. This was unfortunate, as he had the game to finish in top 5 for season points.

[Groucho Valentine]

Most of my golf i play is actually in competition, and i agree with many of the comments already stated as reasons why those rounds tend to be slower. When they all count, players tend to take more care with what they're doing.

But alot of the time (especially with college players i notice) is that some players are just not ready to play by the time its their turn. They wait until their turn comes up to go through their routines, and that adds unnecessary lag time to a hole. Usless i outdrive by my group by like 40 yards or something (which almost never happens) I'm ready to fire by the time its my go. If more players got through their routines while they're walking to their ball or waiting to play, it would speed things up alot.  

[jsgolfer]

51 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Most of my golf i play is actually in competition, and i agree with many of the comments already stated as reasons why those rounds tend to be slower. When they all count, players tend to take more care with what they're doing.

But alot of the time (especially with college players i notice) is that some players are just not ready to play by the time its their turn. They wait until their turn comes up to go through their routines, and that adds unnecessary lag time to a hole. Usless i outdrive by my group by like 40 yards or something (which almost never happens) I'm ready to fire by the time its my go. If more players got through their routines while they're walking to their ball or waiting to play, it would speed things up alot.  

I see this a lot too.  Several of our guys, one who has been Club Champion and Senior Club Champion, do this.  He will not start his process until it is his turn.  In regular rounds, I just hit and walk on, but in tournament play it's tough.  Hence his nickname is Turtle.  

[NCGolfer]

For non-competitive rounds, 4 hours should be the max for a foursome.  It really isn't too hard to achieve this.  In the past couple years I think things have gotten better and hitting this number on  a regular basis has been the norm.

For competitive, I'm fine if it hits 4 1/2 hours.  Anything longer than that and it gets annoying.  The extra time around the greens is where it gets noticeable.  People read putts a bit longer and take a little more time.  I do it myself and I'm fine with that.

Playing by myself, walking, I can normally get done in just over 2 hours.  Understanding what the pace of play will be for a round (especially competitive) is important to get me mentally ready.  I have to slow myself down a bit to adjust to the pace.  It's unfortunate but expected.

[WUTiger]

Our local Amateur circuit plays "ready golf." Another thing that helps: the marshal will sometimes act as forward spotter on blind tee shot holes to help players find their balls.