lukedogg
One shot at a time....
In my three years of play, i've been approached twice. Both in South Carolina. First time was our fault. Second wasn't. I had been golfing about 9 months and my brother in law plays about 10 rounds a summer for the past couple years. We both didn't shoot under 100 at the time but, it was our first real golf trip for both of us. The course was busy and we were behind a threesome. They were keeping pace just fine and we weren't because we were waiting for them to get to the green before teeing off. Note, we hadn't never played on a busy course as this one was. So the Ranger approached us on the 4th hole telling us to keep pace with the group ahead. He explained to us why he said what he did and for us to enjoy our day. He continued to watch us for the next hole to see if we took his advice, as we did and never seen him again the remainder of our round. That was an example of a good ranger IMO. The second time, a Ranger was just on a power trip telling us to skip a hole b/c a group was a hole ahead of us and we weren't holding anyone up. When we tee'd off on the 14, th hole the group behind us was just hitting their tee shots on the 13th. He was just trying to move everyone quicker. That my friend is pointless and is going to annoy many groups as the green fee's weren't cheap, the weather was beautiful, and they were very busy, meaning they were trying to get groups out every 5 minutes. And to say groups behind us were complaining? Come on guy. You could tell by the way he was talking down to us that he was just a prick. Talk about ruining a round of golf. If i'm in the wrong, I'll admit but, when I'm clearly not the problem, that's unethical business practice.
However, some courses have pretty lousy rangers. It annoys the crap out of me when a course has a ranger and doesn't enforce any rules. They drive around hoping you see the ranger flag to make you think they're watching for slow play, improper use of cart rules, etc...then drive on. Multiple times I've been behind a group of four as a solo player hoping that they will let me play thru as I'm approaching the tee box as their teeing off. Do they invite me thru? Of course not. Please forbid I hold them up for 5 minutes as they held me up for a hour. The ranger needs to see these types of things and address the foursome and tell them to pull off to the side and let me slide by.
However, some courses have pretty lousy rangers. It annoys the crap out of me when a course has a ranger and doesn't enforce any rules. They drive around hoping you see the ranger flag to make you think they're watching for slow play, improper use of cart rules, etc...then drive on. Multiple times I've been behind a group of four as a solo player hoping that they will let me play thru as I'm approaching the tee box as their teeing off. Do they invite me thru? Of course not. Please forbid I hold them up for 5 minutes as they held me up for a hour. The ranger needs to see these types of things and address the foursome and tell them to pull off to the side and let me slide by.