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Slow Play Suggestions

Golf has always been a game of innovation. Carts are part of that. So are better clubs and training aides. They speed up the game too. Bad shots just ain't that bad a lot of times. I walk sometimes, but use a push cart when I do. I wonder if this is even considered walking by some members of THP. Due to a severe neck injury I would not be able to even play without a cart or pull cart. I think by following golf's only true tradition ( unmatched sportsmanship ) slow play would not be an issue.
 
JP,
I get exactly what you are saying and my thoughts are exactly the same. Its an elitist and stuffy opinion and judgement that says more than you believe.

Its your opinion and you have the right to it. I find it shallow, but its yours and I am sure the courses you play show you that in one way or another.

It is teh same that says "good players as a whole play blades and bad players play GI irons because that is the norm or what you see. Still a shallowness and one that is filled with judgement based on appearances rather than insight.
 
You actually think it is a good idea to attract less golfers to the game? That doesn't sound too good.
 
i played with my 2 cousins today... 2 of us shot in the 90's and my other cousin shot 113 we played in under 4 hrs... woulda been quicker but we trailed a slow 4some for 2 holes til they let us play thru
we were riding
 
Are walkers more serious golfers than riders?

I think most riders are as serious about the game as are walkers, and some maybe even many are even more serious about their game if you consider some of the other features of golf that you can best enjoy by walking. I would have to think that riders that are serious about the game consider some of those other features as ancillary. Certainly you could say that riders that are serious about the game do not care a gnat’s rear end about much other than getting the ball to and in the hole.

That said, the folks that turn a round of golf into a beer fest with clubs are all riders and there are different versions of the party with clubs scenario, all of them involving the use of carts. It is a real interesting question because the variety in the sampling is all over the map, even as it relates to course awareness. The sampling even includes folks that play courses where you must cart and includes folks that must cart on all courses for some reason or another (heat, health, fitness, age, what have you) and I don't see how anybody could have a problem with carting in those situations. Generally speaking I think course awareness relative to the pace of play can be a bit more difficult to keep track of in a cart. However I have seen riders that clearly make awareness a priority, use their carts to make a run up or back to get a better view of things if they have a spare minute to do that. Clearly they are trying to add information instead of making a judgment about the pace of play that might be entirely wrong, a commendable use of the inherent speed advantage of the cart I think. In fact while I have walked every round so far this year, that is one thing I envy about a cart. Our course has so many blind spots and includes a three hole stretch where you will not likely see the group ahead or behind unless they are right ahead or right behind (meaning less than one shot either way). A cart for those that care would allow for a quick run up a hill here or around a corner there to get an idea what is going on.

That reminds me of another thing that seems to have disappeared in the sixteen years of my absence from play. A number of courses used to have a bell or horn on the blind holes (doglegs and the like) so that you had a means of telling the group behind that you have made it a certain distance up the fairway. I have not seen a single course around here that has kept them. I don’t know if they are now considered a distraction but I liked them when they were around. Does anybody have a course that still uses them?

As I have said before I agree with those that contend that using a cart is a faster way around the course. On the course I play a good deal, when I compare times with friends based on not having any waits, it appears that you can cover the front in 2 hours on average in a cart with all your mates also carting and 2 hours 10 minutes walking. So the cart appears to have a 10 minute advantage and that even sounds right to me for that course.

The one thing I can’t relate to at all is the idea that walkers walk and support walking because of something to do with tradition. I don’t think it has anything to do with tradition and I don’t think I know anybody personally that walks and does it because of something to do with tradition. That to me is a red herring. I think they do not like the idea of being pushed when they are not playing slowly in the first place and that more often than not that happens when they have a cart group behind them that wants to push the pace not because the pace is slow but because they are playing a bit faster. I think walkers have little appreciation or patience for the beer fest with clubs deal which always involves the use of carts. Heck we had a group drive their cart into the pond earlier this year. Was sort of funny but it would not have been if they had hit somebody on the way to the pond.
 
jnug said:
That said, the folks that turn a round of golf into a beer fest with clubs are all riders and there are different versions of the party with clubs scenario, all of them involving the use of carts.

The one thing I can’t relate to at all is the idea that walkers walk and support walking because of something to do with tradition. I don’t think it has anything to do with tradition and I don’t think I know anybody personally that walks and does it because of something to do with tradition. That to me is a red herring.
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That is just not true in our area. Not even close. Push carts have drink holders, golf bags have cooler pockets, and we see people drinking in both walking and riding variety. Most courses we play have drink girls coming by every few holes as well.

A golfer is going to play the game they want to play whether they are walking or riding.


As for the 2nd part, you may want to check a few threads out here in this forum. Quite a few feel that way and have expressed it many times.
 
Wow drink girls!! Do you mean they come out with beers and stuff like that? No lie I have seen that before and since I have come back I have yet to play a course around here that does that. Are there particular kinds of clubs that do this in your area or is that just the way it is for all clubs in your area?

Whether this is an area thing or not I don't know but I have never seen a walker with an alcoholic beverage in his push cart cup holder and have never seen one pull one out of his cool carry in his bag, not ever. However I would completely acknowledge that a part of the country that had drink girls come out on the course would also be more amenable to drinking on the course and that you might have seen that more often.

I have seen plenty of riders carrying and drinking alcholic beverages on the course around here and the two have always gone hand in hand here. Again not to say that all riders drink on course, far from it. But at least here, alcoholic beverages on course are a riders thing, whether they have carried one for the road from the clubhouse or have a "load" in the cart. A beer fest is hardly one beer anyway and there are just so many you can carry in a cup holder or in the cool carry.

I am still getting up off the floor from the drink girl thing. I have never played in Las Vegas but I guess that would not be a surprise there as surprise as well there. I know your profile says Florida but is this all over Florida?
 
Im not sure there is a single course anywhere that I have played in FL that does not have a drink cart. Most have women driving them. They have drinks, sandwiches, sodas, water, gatorade, etc...

In fact come to think about it, we always had them in MA, CT, IN, AZ, TX, GA, SC, and every other state I have played in. It most certainly has to be a geography thing or a course thing. Im not sure I have run into more than a handful of "drinkers" on the course the way you are describing them in my decades of playing this game. I have played it all over the country and never quite run into it the way you are describing, but it clearly and certainly left a bad taste in your mouth.
 
Our courses around here are quite pedestrian. On the course I play we laugh if we come up to one of the on course water jugs (there is one on the tee for 4 and one on the tee for 6) and there is any water in them at all and then if there is any water if it is tepid water.

There is also a local course that has a sort of mid-round station with a machine that you can buy a sandwich from and sodas or water but no alcohol.

I have never ever gotten a chance to play them but there are the “Resort” courses up in the White Mountains. If there is a place around here that might have something like that, it might be the Resort courses. I might try to play one later this year. The deal is rent rooms for the weekend or whenever as it is just about the best way to pay for it. In fact I think for some of them you can’t play unless you have taken a room there. It is a long drive for one thing and while I am not sure, I think the way they make the packages, it makes no sense not to rent a room and play Saturday and Sunday even if you could play without having rooms there. The whole deal is really about taking rooms for a few days and playing golf or playing tennis or whatever.
 
ive played with plenty of walkers that had glass beer bottles in their bags and have been offered a beer or two by these walkers...
(glass bottles arent allowed on the course)
and every course ive played has a beverage cart in the summer... from torrey pines(nice muni) to bow creek(crappy muni) to greenbrier country club(prvt club)... 75% of the time they are very pretty young college girls(they usually get the bigger tips)
 
When JP says walkers are more likely to be "serious" golfers, how does he judge that? Skill level? I need a definition for "serious" when it's combined with golfers.

Something smells funny.

Kevin
 
And here I am fighting for cold vs. tepid vs. mostly no water at all in the funky plastic containers. Next to the usually empty plastic containers there are the tubes of paper cone cups like you see next to office water coolers. I think I will just go hang myself now.
 
jnug said:
And here I am fighting for cold vs. tepid vs. mostly no water at all in the funky plastic containers. Next to the usually empty plastic containers there are the tubes of paper cone cups like you see next to office water coolers. I think I will just go hang myself now.
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Are you playing Amish golf courses? Baptist?

Kevin
 
I don't like the idea of alcahol on the course myself. Mostly because those fools get off the cart and stumble into a car and drive home. As for walking i live in the mountains and the courses are built into them. We had a guy try to walk our course once, i found him laying down on the 12th hole (way uphill tee from the 11th which is at the bottom) and that was his 3rd hole. He was from out of town and apparently had never taken a cart.
 
Amish or Baptist? That is funny. I deserve it too.
 
JB said:
JP,
I get exactly what you are saying and my thoughts are exactly the same. Its an elitist and stuffy opinion and judgement that says more than you believe.

Its your opinion and you have the right to it. I find it shallow, but its yours and I am sure the courses you play show you that in one way or another.

It is teh same that says "good players as a whole play blades and bad players play GI irons because that is the norm or what you see. Still a shallowness and one that is filled with judgement based on appearances rather than insight.
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Well, I believe my "insight" comes from forty years of playing golf, but I will agree with you in terms of what you've said about "the courses you play show you that in one way or another" as it may very well be that "regionality" may have much to do with it.

In fact, after I wrote my post, I began to think about golf in other places such as Southern courses where riding has more to do with surviving the heat and humidity (been there, done that) than just having fun and also the advent of "cart courses" which make walking virtually impossible (or at least impractical).

So in that sense I might back off a bit but I still think that if someone who was not serious about golf was offered a round of golf, they would more likely agree to play if they could "drive a car" than if they were told they had to walk. I just think the cart gives the game a sort of "Theme Park" aspect and that if someone were told that they could only walk it would bring the focus more on the game itself and that someone with merely a casual interest in playing would likely pass on the opportunity.


-JP
 
JPsuff said:
So in that sense I might back off a bit but I still think that if someone who was not serious about golf was offered a round of golf, they would more likely agree to play if they could "drive a car" than if they were told they had to walk. I just think the cart gives the game a sort of "Theme Park" aspect and that if someone were told that they could only walk it would bring the focus more on the game itself and that someone with merely a casual interest in playing would likely pass on the opportunity.


-JP
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If you head over to Orlando, FL where much of the Tour players live and watch the tour players play daily at their own courses, you will see most of them riding in a cart. They must do it as a theme park kind of thing being that they are in Orlando and all. Heck, Keene's Pointe where we just looked allows walking and all the tour players that live in there still take carts almost every round.

As I said before,
It is the same that says "good players as a whole play blades and bad players play GI irons because that is the norm or what you see. Still a shallowness in my opinion and one that you preach against so much in other walks of life. It is still the stuffiness that makes people shy away from the game as other players or long term players look down on them for their choices, whether they want to be taken seriously or not.

Your judging someone elses emotions and feelings about the game without knowing any insight into their game.
 
JB said:
If you head over to Orlando, FL where much of the Tour players live and watch the tour players play daily at their own courses, you will see most of them riding in a cart. They must do it as a theme park kind of thing being that they are in Orlando and all. Heck, Keene's Pointe where we just looked allows walking and all the tour players that live in there still take carts almost every round.

As I said before,
It is the same that says "good players as a whole play blades and bad players play GI irons because that is the norm or what you see. Still a shallowness in my opinion and one that you preach against so much in other walks of life. It is still the stuffiness that makes people shy away from the game as other players or long term players look down on them for their choices, whether they want to be taken seriously or not.

Your judging someone elses emotions and feelings about the game without knowing any insight into their game.
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Sorry but I still believe that if someone really wants to know how to hit an iron shot, blades are far better teachers than GI clubs because of the smaller sweet spot and the "broken bat" feel that goes up your arm if you hit the ball incorrectly.

It's very much like playing the guitar, there's a "sloppy" way to play an A chord and there's the "proper" way and while both will produce pretty much the same sound, only the correct way will give one the versatility to augment that chord or employ other options effectively.

Now that's not to say that you couldn't make a career out of playing sloppy A chords, but there's more satisfaction in knowing how to do it correctly and more opportunity to create more detailed music.

In golf, I find that hitting a perfect shot with a blade offers more in the way of satisfaction than hitting the same shot with a GI club and the feedback from the clubface is far more informative and all of that makes for a better golfer overall.

Say what you will about the pro's and GI clubs, but there's no denying the fact that the game's most successful players all played blades.


-JP
 
BUt again, how does that make someone LESS SERIOUS about the game. You are casting stones about someone based solely off of appearance which is frankly petty and WRONG, and you preach about it constantly in other walks of life.

Most people play the game to score lower. THe game is about keeping score and the less strokes the better. If they choose to do that based on using a cart, using technology in clubs, etc... they should not be put down or looked down upon as being less serious. Its that elitism and stuffiness and flat out arrogance that makes this game a joke to outsiders.

And by the way, your exact thoughts on blades and the best using them? I guess nobody sponsored by Ping or grew up playing Ping clubs can be considering playing the game properly or right. It must just be sloppy!

The best ride in carts during almost all of their rounds outside of tournament play where there is a rule against it. Hmmmm!
 
ive seen more than a few pros play in carts when they werent in a tournament
 
JB said:
BUt again, how does that make someone LESS SERIOUS about the game. You are casting stones about someone based solely off of appearance which is frankly petty and WRONG, and you preach about it constantly in other walks of life.

Most people play the game to score lower. THe game is about keeping score and the less strokes the better. If they choose to do that based on using a cart, using technology in clubs, etc... they should not be put down or looked down upon as being less serious. Its that elitism and stuffiness and flat out arrogance that makes this game a joke to outsiders.

And by the way, your exact thoughts on blades and the best using them? I guess nobody sponsored by Ping or grew up playing Ping clubs can be considering playing the game properly or right. It must just be sloppy!

The best ride in carts during almost all of their rounds outside of tournament play where there is a rule against it. Hmmmm!
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First of all, my "less serious" comments are observations and it is my opinion based on what I've witnessed, so stop trying to make it into something more than that. You know exactly what I'm talking about (or so you say), so why are you harping on this?

As far as Ping's are concerned, I'm not talking about pro's who won some tournaments, I'm talking about the best, the legends of the game; Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson, Player, Trevino, Faldo, Ballesteros, Woods, et al - all blade players and all regarded as the cream of the crop.

You don't see a common denominator there?


-JP
 
JPsuff said:
I don't care to comment on that, but I can say that I don't play nearly as well when I have to ride as when I'm walking and I'm sure that I'm not the only one who feels that way. But I will say this: After playing this game for forty years, it's my opinion that walkers as a group tend to take the game more seriously than riders overall.

I'm sure that every rider here is going to tell me I'm wrong and that I don't know what I'm talking about, but that's the way I see it.


Fire away!


-JP
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You know I am not one to really get into a debate with people because I am pretty non confrontational and I always try to respect other people's opinions but for the life of me I cannot see your point of view. My jaw has actually dropped a few times reading your comments in this thread. First let me start by saying I don't care if you have been playing this game for 40 years to make a comment that walkers are more serious than riders may be one of the most asinine and pompous comments you have made, and you have made quite a few I just always keep my mouth shut.

I would love for you to move to an area here in Florida where you are NOT allowed to walk and you are forced to ride or not play the game. So would you be a more serious golfer by not playing golf anymore because you are a walker or do you admit defeat, say you aren't a serious player and ride? JB is a rider, we all know that, but he is going to Bandon Dunes this week where he has to walk, is he not going to play because he has to walk? Of course not he will gladly walk, just because he has a preference of one over the other doesn't make him any less serious of a golfer.


JPsuff said:
Sorry but I still believe that if someone really wants to know how to hit an iron shot, blades are far better teachers than GI clubs because of the smaller sweet spot and the "broken bat" feel that goes up your arm if you hit the ball incorrectly.

It's very much like playing the guitar, there's a "sloppy" way to play an A chord and there's the "proper" way and while both will produce pretty much the same sound, only the correct way will give one the versatility to augment that chord or employ other options effectively.

Now that's not to say that you couldn't make a career out of playing sloppy A chords, but there's more satisfaction in knowing how to do it correctly and more opportunity to create more detailed music.

In golf, I find that hitting a perfect shot with a blade offers more in the way of satisfaction than hitting the same shot with a GI club and the feedback from the clubface is far more informative and all of that makes for a better golfer overall.

Say what you will about the pro's and GI clubs, but there's no denying the fact that the game's most successful players all played blades.


-JP
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This is an interesting thought process. I guess the pro players aren't really serious golfers or really know how to play the game or get the true feeling from their clubs since more than half of them don't play blades. But I guess your 40 years of experience with golf is better then the millions of dollars they have made playing this sport for a living. Obviously you know best since you have 40 years into it.

EDIT: I should also add that I often defend your outlandish and sometimes ridiculous comments because I really do try to see things from your point of view but I take personal offense to your comments in this thread. And I do think your comments give golfers a bad name and reaffirm outsiders opinions that golfers are pretentious. This is strictly my opinion but just know it takes a lot to push my buttons to get me to make a comment in anything that is a debate and here I am posting away.
 
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JPsuff said:
First of all, my "less serious" comments are observations and it is my opinion based on what I've witnessed, so stop trying to make it into something more than that. You know exactly what I'm talking about (or so you say), so why are you harping on this?

As far as Ping's are concerned, I'm not talking about pro's who won some tournaments, I'm talking about the best, the legends of the game; Palmer, Nicklaus, Watson, Player, Trevino, Faldo, Ballesteros, Woods, et al - all blade players and all regarded as the cream of the crop.

You don't see a common denominator there?


-JP
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Yeah I see one, they are all from yesterday. Because players cavitys were not really around. Over 70% of the guys on tour now use perimeter weighted clubs. Cavity backs. And while that leaves 30% using blades including some of the best in the world, it is a far cry from making them less serious. Just like using a cart, or any other technology.

Heck perhaps many riders are more serious. You have said you will usually not play if you have to ride. Yet I will walk a course if those are the rules such as playing the Black course, Bandon Dunes, PGA National Champion Course, etc... So I guess in that aspect, I am a more serious golfer since I choose to play under any condition Huh?

As for harping, I am sorry, when someone is judging people based solely off of appearance, I find it appalling and wrong. If you do not like others with opposing comments, there is no need to keep posting said opinions. Everybody is entitled with their opinions, but not everybody has to agree with them.
 
So to sum it up. Golfers that play in a cart are less serious than golfers that walk, right? so lets say I have played in a cart for my short golfing career and take the game very serious by the way, so does it automatically make me a serious golfer if i just walk the course? using the same thought process for each shot as I do when im riding in the cart. That seems pretty ridiculous if you ask me. I think you have this thought, well all the pros back in the day and today walk the courses and take the game serious so we should all walk as well, but yet all those pros still all ride in carts away from the tournaments.

As far as the blade comment. So if i hit a 165 yard shot with a blade 3 feet from the pin I should feel more happy than if i hit a GI iron 165 yards 3 feet from the pin? You should not have a better feeling over one than the other because the same results happened.


Your basically saying well if you play a GI or SGI iron then your no golfer at all because you should be playing blades, they have the smallest sweet spot so you should play those because thats what i have played for 40 years so it means your a golfer, and that makes no sense.

I dont understand your thought process at all. If a person enjoys the game why does it matter if they play blades or GI clubs? Why does it make them less serious if they decide to play a round of golf in a cart that day? Hell you could meet someone for the first time that usually walks every course and decides they want to play in a cart that day and in your mind you have already made a thought that they aren't serious about the game, just because they want to ride in a cart.
 
He still needs to define "serious" in the context in which he is using it.

Kevin
 
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