Faster Play - Is It Hurting the Game?

[iacas]

2 hours ago, Moxley said:

Although these devices can be overused ( e.g. when players are right by the markers, or by players who can't control their distance) , they have the potential to speed up play, and I think efforts to discourage them in the name of slow play are misguided.

Thank you.

[iacas]

THAT is what is hurting the game.

[HJJ003]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

THAT is what is hurting the game.

That was SO painful to watch. 

[Vinny Cap]

If everyone could and would play ready golf life would be good! 

I was lucky when I started as my friend taught me that as well as all sorts of good golf educate.  I have passed all this on to my son while getting him into the game.  We let faster players through all the time when we are out.  They are all thankful and it lets me spend time with him on the course.  Somethings you can't learn at the range.  Sometimes when we play best ball and others don't or won't let us play through we just drive past them to the next hole if it is open or if we have a big gap between groups.

I don't want to play speed golf nor do I want to play turtle golf.  Have played as fast a 2:10 as a single, 3:15 as a group and as long as 5:45!  As long as it is moving along I usually don't mind as I am outside, away from technology and out with family/friends.  When you are waiting on every shot, backed up 2 - 3 deep at a hole or playing behind a Cantlay look-a-like... that's when it gets frustrating!

I try to educate a lil when I can but sometimes it's best to not say anything.  I really don't want to get bailed out of jail!  LOL

 

[fishgolf]

Anyone know how often he (or his group) been put on the clock?  He does seem to have one of the more lengthy routines, but maybe he walks really fast.

[iacas]

8 minutes ago, Vinny Cap said:

If everyone could and would play ready golf life would be good! 

It goes beyond that, though.

Slow golfers often:

• Take too long to hit their shots.
• Leave their clubs or cart on the wrong side of the green.
• Mark tap-ins or forget to get the flag.
• Won't rake the bunker for someone else if it makes sense.
• Take too long at the turn.
• Don't hit provisionals.
• Etc.

Slow play goes beyond "not playing ready golf."

[Vinny Cap]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

It goes beyond that, though.

Slow golfers often:

• Take too long to hit their shots.
• Leave their clubs or cart on the wrong side of the green.
• Mark tap-ins or forget to get the flag.
• Won't rake the bunker for someone else if it makes sense.
• Take too long at the turn.
• Don't hit provisionals.
• Etc.

Slow play goes beyond "not playing ready golf."

I totally agree but it would be a great start wouldn't it?

I could write a novel on the stuff I see on the course but nobody would read it.

I can shoot the flag with my range finder, grab my club, shoot, clean my iron and put it back in the bag before most people have fussed over what club to use.

Putting routines and ignorance on the greens can clock in tons of time too.

[406pat]

There's way more to it than individual playing times. When you look at the course as a system, the time to play all 18 isn't nearly as important as the time it takes to play each individual hole. Take a saturday with a full tee sheet where the course says pace is 4:15 and tee times are 9 minutes apart. The first group finished in 3:45, but they had a 5 minute delay on 16 for a couple lost balls. There are very few courses where every group can be clear to hit on every hole at a 9 minute inteval so there is no buffer between groups. Every group behind them now has a delay and a full tee sheet means that delay will never go away, even if every group that day is capable of playing a 3:45 round. If the first group started at 6 am then there's 40 groups that have started by noon. If only half of those groups have one blow up hole that delays a group behind them for 2 minutes, that's a 40 minute delay added to the round by noon that the players themselves have no control over.

[iacas]

7 hours ago, 406pat said:

There's way more to it than individual playing times. When you look at the course as a system, the time to play all 18 isn't nearly as important as the time it takes to play each individual hole. Take a saturday with a full tee sheet where the course says pace is 4:15 and tee times are 9 minutes apart. The first group finished in 3:45, but they had a 5 minute delay on 16 for a couple lost balls. There are very few courses where every group can be clear to hit on every hole at a 9 minute inteval so there is no buffer between groups. Every group behind them now has a delay and a full tee sheet means that delay will never go away, even if every group that day is capable of playing a 3:45 round. If the first group started at 6 am then there's 40 groups that have started by noon. If only half of those groups have one blow up hole that delays a group behind them for 2 minutes, that's a 40 minute delay added to the round by noon that the players themselves have no control over.

That's not entirely true.

For every group except the first group… a delay means they won't have to wait and can make up the time.

If you're waiting on every tee for 30 seconds, and you have to look for a ball on #5, you might play #6 without waiting at all, and then catch up again on #7.

[Mr. Desmond]

To the OP, I would not take newbies to a course on a weekend, when it's usually busy. I would take a newbie to a course about 2 hrs before you can't play due to darkness, and ask the pro if they don't mind if you take a newbie out on a handful of holes to show them etiquetter, fast play, divot replacement, pitch mark repair, etc. See if they'd do it for free or just pay for one golfer for 9 holes. You might also try an executive course that has no trees and is primarily a par 3 course. If not, go on a weekday when it's not busy.

My regular weekend group goes out as the 3rd group or so, around 6:30-:45 am. So early I may get to hit about 15 balls I find on a range, if there is a range. We walk the course. We stay a shot or so behind the group ahead of us unless it's two rabbits in a cart. When we see someone getting too close for comfort behind us, we go a little faster, depending on the group in front of us. We don't stop at the turn, we hit and walk, we don't hole out the 1-2 footers, and the guys mark their score and putts at the next teeing area. We might take a minute for a breather on hilly holes. Generally, we finish anywhere from 3:30-3:45 hrs. But sometimes, stuff happens, waiting, go to a different course on the weekend and can't get a tee time until 10 am, and it's a 4:15 round - in a cart.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Mr. Desmond

[406pat]

13 hours ago, iacas said:

That's not entirely true.

For every group except the first group… a delay means they won't have to wait and can make up the time.

If you're waiting on every tee for 30 seconds, and you have to look for a ball on #5, you might play #6 without waiting at all, and then catch up again on #7.

That's true for the individual group, but not for the system. If we call the group in front of us #1, we're in group #2, and the group behind us is #3, etc., we'll have a gap between us and #1. We can play faster and make up that gap. Our round time might not even show the delay. The problem is, that delay is still rippling backwards through the groups behind us.

It generally takes 5-7 minutes for a foursome to hit their first and second shots and clear the landing zone. So if we spent only 5 extra minutes looking for and hitting the lost ball, Group #3 had to wait the standard 30 seconds on the tee + 5 minutes . Meanwhile, (since there's no buffer between groups if we're waiting each tee) group #4 finished up hole 4 and is waiting on the tee behind group #3. Group #3 is still going to take 5-7 minutes to hit their tee shots and clear the landing area. they might play faster after that if we play faster, but they aren't going to clear that first landing area appreciably faster. That means group #4 is going to feel that same 5 1/2 min delay. 

With no buffer, that delay will be imparted on every group after us. It can be made up over the round if everyone plays faster when they can, and if there're no more delays on the day. That doesn't happen though. More groups are going to have delays throughout the day at different spots.

It's like being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic (zero buffer). Once the first car hits the brakes, every car behind them has to. that delay doesn't go away until traffic dies down a lot. That's why there's delays on freeways for hours after wrecks are cleared up in heavy traffic. If there's space between the cars, the second may have to stop, the third may slow, and the fourth might not even be impacted. 

[iacas]

30 minutes ago, 406pat said:

That's true for the individual group, but not for the system. If we call the group in front of us #1, we're in group #2, and the group behind us is #3, etc., we'll have a gap between us and #1. We can play faster and make up that gap. Our round time might not even show the delay. The problem is, that delay is still rippling backwards through the groups behind us.

It generally takes 5-7 minutes for a foursome to hit their first and second shots and clear the landing zone. So if we spent only 5 extra minutes looking for and hitting the lost ball, Group #3 had to wait the standard 30 seconds on the tee + 5 minutes . Meanwhile, (since there's no buffer between groups if we're waiting each tee) group #4 finished up hole 4 and is waiting on the tee behind group #3. Group #3 is still going to take 5-7 minutes to hit their tee shots and clear the landing area. they might play faster after that if we play faster, but they aren't going to clear that first landing area appreciably faster. That means group #4 is going to feel that same 5 1/2 min delay. 

With no buffer, that delay will be imparted on every group after us. It can be made up over the round if everyone plays faster when they can, and if there're no more delays on the day. That doesn't happen though. More groups are going to have delays throughout the day at different spots.

It's like being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic (zero buffer). Once the first car hits the brakes, every car behind them has to. that delay doesn't go away until traffic dies down a lot. That's why there's delays on freeways for hours after wrecks are cleared up in heavy traffic. If there's space between the cars, the second may have to stop, the third may slow, and the fourth might not even be impacted. 

I stand by what I said originally, and that what you said here above is still not entirely true. Yes, there's a ripple effect, but groups can and do make up the time. They close the gap. The delayed group can play for awhile without waiting, and thus the groups behind them can play a bit faster for awhile, too, until they catch back up and begin waiting again.

For example, if one group is a little slower coming off a more difficult hole location on a previous green, they may not wait their normal two minutes - they might just step up and wait ten seconds before hitting. Boom. Gap closed completely.

[406pat]

6 minutes ago, iacas said:

I stand by what I said originally, and that what you said here above is still not entirely true. Yes, there's a ripple effect, but groups can and do make up the time. They close the gap. The delayed group can play for awhile without waiting, and thus the groups behind them can play a bit faster for awhile, too, until they catch back up and begin waiting again.

For example, if one group is a little slower coming off a more difficult hole location on a previous green, they may not wait their normal two minutes - they might just step up and wait ten seconds before hitting. Boom. Gap closed completely.

... for that group. Meanwhile the group directly behind them is waiting for the green to clear while the group behind them is waiting for the landing zone to clear. Just because the light turns green doesn't mean every car can start going, you still have to wait for the car in front of you to move.

Just because groups have space in front of them doesn't mean they can make it up. If they could, there would be no long rounds and all would be right with the world. If a group of 20 handicap players is going as fast as they can before they hit a backup, they can't play faster with a gap in front of them. I see this all the time at saturated courses with sub 10 minute tee time intervals. When they're actually playing, their pace is fine. They get caught in a 3 group backup on a par three and two holes later, they're a hole behind. The marshall sees a hole gap and tells them to get moving, but they haven't done anything wrong. They get pissed because they'd still be on a sub 4 hour pace without the 15 minute delay they had on the 3rd tee! Is it right to ask them to skip a hole when the course set them up to fail?

 

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, 406pat said:

... for that group.

No.

[Shindig]

30 minutes ago, 406pat said:

They get caught in a 3 group backup on a par three and two holes later, they're a hole behind. The marshall sees a hole gap and tells them to get moving, but they haven't done anything wrong. They get pissed because they'd still be on a sub 4 hour pace without the 15 minute delay they had on the 3rd tee! Is it right to ask them to skip a hole when the course set them up to fail?

Does your course not practice waving up on par-3s, especially the first one (a common bottleneck on courses)?

[anaveragehacker]

4:14 for a foursome is not bad. Where I live you can't really play a public course on the weekend in less than that, except maybe at twilight. I personally don't care how bad the golfers in front of me are. But what I can't stand is doing dumb things that make play extra slow (4:45-5:30), things like standing next to the guy hitting instead of going to your ball, looking for a lost ball for 4-5 minutes on every hole, cleaning your clubs while people are waiting to hit, taking pictures of animals while playing. These things drive me nuts. I've played with people who couldn't barely hit the ball 20 yards and barely slowed us down because they have common sense.   

[406pat]

Just now, Shindig said:

Does your course not practice waving up on par-3s, especially the first one (a common bottleneck on courses)?

In my 30 odd years of golf I've never been waved up. Waving up doesn't help as much as one would think anyway as far as the course as a system goes. In most cases, the time "made up" by waving up is lost waiting on the very next tee. In some cases where is a long, roundabout path from the tee to the green it can help but more often than not can hurt lead to dangerous situations. Courses can actually set themselves up for litigation by making waving up a rule.

[iacas]

I played today. Waited on every shot. Felt like it took forever.

Tee time: 9:30.

Putting the bag in the car: 1:33.