Faster Play - Is It Hurting the Game?

[fishgolf]

1 hour ago, 406pat said:

Courses can actually set themselves up for litigation by making waving up a rule.

Good point.  I also agree that unless your group is way behind and there isn't yet another choke point ahead, this doesn't seem to speed things up overall. 

[colin007]

2 hours ago, Shindig said:

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

I have never played a course that has that practice.

2 hours ago, anaveragehacker said:

4:14 for a foursome is not bad.   

I actually think it is, and that feeling this is an acceptable time is part of the problem.

[406pat]

2 hours ago, fishgolf said:

Good point.  I also agree that unless your group is way behind and there isn't yet another choke point ahead, this doesn't seem to speed things up overall. 

It is a great way to play through.

[graham57]

First off: I support a lot of the practices advocated in this thread - ready golf, considered positioning of trolleys/carts, letting faster groups play through, etc.. Walking on my own early morning, I have played our 18-hole, hilly course in less than two hours. I hate waiting, because it interrupts any rhythm you may have got going.

But: there seems to be an implicit premise in may of these posts that faster play is per se virtuous, and that players have a right to plough their way through the field, and anyone holding them up is intrinsically evil.

The OP and one or two others hint that people have different paces at which they play golf, and that there is some value in not rushing round the golf course. The key for me is being considerate of other golfers, but this works both ways: beginners or maybe older golfers often (of course not always) play at a slower pace. Pushing them or creating pressure by playing up close to them is just as inconsiderate as not being ready to play your shot.

Part of the reason I play golf is that it provides an alternative to my stress-packed professional life, to driving on crowded roads and so on. I can take a few deep breaths and enjoy being out in a natural environment. I don‘t want to play golf the way I have to do business, and to people who say they have to get round in 3 hours, otherwise they couldn‘t play at all, I would point out that there is no law which says you have to always play 18 holes. Most courses loop back to the clubhouse after 9 holes.

Time pars are a good guideline: if sensibly defined, they should reflect the time it takes to play a round, being considerate of others and doing everything you can to avoid unnecessary delays. But golf is not a race. Players have to accept that it takes a certain amount time time to play 18 holes (around 4 hours is neither a snail‘s pace nor unduly fast, but a realistic average which should guarantee a stress-free and rewarding experience on the golf course).

[iacas]

1 hour ago, graham57 said:

Pushing them or creating pressure by playing up close to them is just as inconsiderate as not being ready to play your shot.

I don't think anyone's said that they do this in this topic.

[JonMA1]

On 6/7/2018 at 5:45 PM, colin007 said:

I actually think it is, and that feeling this is an acceptable time is part of the problem.

It's so rare that I see a foursome play in under 4 hrs. I don't doubt it's common, just not at the courses where I play.

You can tell the difference between people trying to play at a good pace even if they are beginners or older folks, and those who just don't give a shit.

In a crowded course, I've come to find it acceptable because, right or wrong, that's the way it is. I don't particularly like playing through a group so if they are on a 4 hour pace and they are not screwing around, I'm ok.

Personally, I find it very difficult to walk 18 holes in 2.5 hours on some courses - and I push myself to play fast. The course I played last night has a lot of hills and the thick rough and low sun made it a bit tougher to find balls. I had to wait on one group for one hole before they let me play through on the next. Still, I thought I was on a good pace. But by the time I finished the last hole it was right at 3 hrs 5 mins and I was dragging ass. So I guess I'm just slow. 

[Fourputt]

On 6/7/2018 at 1:22 PM, Shindig said:

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

My home course tried it for a season about 25 years ago.  The tracked the results on weekends, and found that it made no difference whatsoever on round times.  The policy was removed the next year.

[Shindig]

1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

My home course tried it for a season about 25 years ago.  The tracked the results on weekends, and found that it made no difference whatsoever on round times.  The policy was removed the next year.

Huh.  Thanks.  Just about every course around here has a sign on at least the first par-3 telling people to wave up... I'm unaware of any local results about the difference.  Thanks by the way. 

[fishgolf]

11 hours ago, Fourputt said:

My home course tried it for a season about 25 years ago.  The tracked the results on weekends, and found that it made no difference whatsoever on round times.  The policy was removed the next year.

I don't see lots of folks doing this anymore and my experience has been that it really doesn't help speed up play.  The only times we do so is when the course is near empty, we have open holes ahead of us. More often we just wait at the next tee and let them go through.

[Blackjack Don]

On 6/6/2018 at 11:21 AM, iacas said:

Slow play goes beyond "not playing ready golf."

Thinking that imitating pros is the right way to score, causes slow golf. Esp when they have to take another shot after missing. Times 6.

[Osnola]

10 minutes per hole is 180 minutes or 3 hours. 

12 minutes per hole is 216 minutes or 3 hours and 36 minutes

15 minutes per hole is 270 minutes or 4 hours and 30 minutes

20 minutes per hole is 360 minutes or 6 hours

me personally, I am more comfortable with the 3 hour mark...

How about you.

[The Hook Meister]

It's to bad that people can't be more understanding of new players, We were all new once. With that said I agree with the idea of newbies playing par 3's for awhile until they get the hang of it.

[iacas]

21 minutes ago, The Hook Meister said:

It's to bad that people can't be more understanding of new players, We were all new once. With that said I agree with the idea of newbies playing par 3's for awhile until they get the hang of it.

To what point? And again, who in this topic is not being "more understanding of new players"? Maybe the people in the OP. Maybe. But who else?

Should new players be allowed to take six hours?

If you don't think that's okay, should someone tell you to be more understanding of new players, or is it reasonable to ask that new players play at less busy times and generously wave people through?

Perception, I will grant you, is a person's reality. If someone is waiting behind someone who is clearly a newer player (or just a terrible one), their perception will be that the person is slower, even if they're moving along at a good pace.

[phan52]

We always talked about speed of play but actually started seriously monitoring it about 5 years ago and reduced the expected time to play from 4:15 to 4;05 last season. Our previous pro didn't want us to do it because he thought it put too much pressure on our older players but our current pro has pushed speed of play since he got here. We post the expected time of arrival for foursomes at the 9th hole so people will know if they are ahead or behind and we post the time of play for each foursome on our men's day and both days on the weekend. Since we started posting time of play, the average time has gone down from 4:10 to 3:58. Everybody is finding out that it is possible to play under 4 hours without having to necessarily run around the golf course. We will probably change the expected time from 4;05 to 4:00 next season. 

[easyjay39402]

On 6/13/2018 at 2:27 PM, phan52 said:

We always talked about speed of play but actually started seriously monitoring it about 5 years ago and reduced the expected time to play from 4:15 to 4;05 last season. Our previous pro didn't want us to do it because he thought it put too much pressure on our older players but our current pro has pushed speed of play since he got here. We post the expected time of arrival for foursomes at the 9th hole so people will know if they are ahead or behind and we post the time of play for each foursome on our men's day and both days on the weekend. Since we started posting time of play, the average time has gone down from 4:10 to 3:58. Everybody is finding out that it is possible to play under 4 hours without having to necessarily run around the golf course. We will probably change the expected time from 4;05 to 4:00 next season. 

 

On 6/9/2018 at 4:39 PM, Blackjack Don said:

Thinking that imitating pros is the right way to score, causes slow golf. Esp when they have to take another shot after missing. Times 6.

If slow play is detrimental to shooting your best score, why do the pros require 5 hours for their rounds? I’ve noticed that the scratch players at my club are much more methodical in their play than us hackers. They have their routines and won’t be rushed. Unlike myself, they don’t abandon preshot routines after the first couple of holes.  Most interesting is how careful they are with greenside shots. They aren’t playing 5 hour rounds, but definitely 4+.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, easyjay39402 said:

If slow play is detrimental to shooting your best score, why do the pros require 5 hours for their rounds? I’ve noticed that the scratch players at my club are much more methodical in their play than us hackers. They have their routines and won’t be rushed. Unlike myself, they don’t abandon preshot routines after the first couple of holes.  Most interesting is how careful they are with greenside shots. They aren’t playing 5 hour rounds, but definitely 4+.

That’s not always accurate.

Be careful of “anecdata.”

[Moxley]

I think everybody in this thread is being quite reasonable, at least in what they are saying here. However, it's very easy to agree with pretty clear cut points like the need to play ready golf, slower groups letter faster groups through, and 6 hours being unacceptably long , but they don't address the problem of golfers who are following best practice but are not capable of playing as quickly. 

If all players were to follow pace of play best practices there would still remain a sizeable gap between group times - a group who average 75 and only a handful of ball searches in the round will take a lot less time, all else being equal, than a group who average 100 who have a ball search on almost every hole. That might be the difference between 3:15 and 4:30.

Several of you on this thread hold that they shouldn't be on the course (other than quiet times), and that they should play on par 3's in the meantime. Although I think that's a wise choice for those golfers to make ( I had a par 3 membership when I come back to the game myself), they also want and need the real thing sometimes. If we want the sport to grow (or at least not shrink), then we have to be understanding of those who don't have the ability to play as fast (as long as they are following pace of play etiquette). Restricting the enjoyment of full courses to average or better players might seem a good idea for a while, but it risks hurting the sport in the long run. 

It's a bit like the roads - we're not all going to drive at the same speed, but , except for cases where somebody is going too fast or way too slow, we've just got to tolerant of each other,  because it's far better* than we have roads than didn't have them. 

* unless you're one of these greenpeace types, in which case imagine I'm talking about non paved cycle tracks 🙂 

Edited June 15, 2018 by Moxley

[iacas]

@Moxley, maybe when you shoot 100 “all else” shouldn’t be equal.

Maybe when you shoot 100 you should do many things faster. You don’t need a 20-Second pre-shot routine because you’re not capable of feeling the same things as a +1 is.