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Early morning golf, do you expect to play faster?

When I make an early tee time, I always ask for the earliest time available. So generally, yes, I expect to have an opening for a favored brisk round. But if I'm behind one more more groups, I tend to settle in and let the round be what it is. Unless a group in front of me is stupidly slow and an opportunity to pass them with minimal fuss arrises, I don't expect speed racer mode. There is no way around the "we" in golf.
 
A couple weekends ago we booked the first tee time out (as a 4-some) and were there early and warmed up. As we were about to tee off the starter informs us that the guys who booked the tee time after us were a 2some so he was going to send them out first. It made perfect sense until we caught them and had to wait on them..🙄
 
Same here! I go out early with the thought that it will be a faster round. Isn't always the case recently like you said but it mostly holds true. There are groups though that go out early, play super slow, and throw off the pace for the rest of the day. But that is usually an outlier. If anyone goes off early (within the first hour of tee times) you almost always are able to play under pace time and get out of there before the heat and the 4:30-5:00 hour rounds start happening
 
Knot Right said:
My Navy buddy who got me into golf in New London would always get the earliest tee times he could, and I remember telling him the first time we played a course away from the Sub base that I was really nervous because I was so new.

He gave me the best advice that I still relay to newbies 40 years later.

"Miss em Quick"
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My stepdad was stationed there when I was in high school, really enjoyed that course aside from the occasional volley from the firing range off the 6th tee. :LOL:
 
I definitely expect a quicker pace for an early morning round. If I'm teeing off before 7 I fully expect my round to be completed by 1030 at worst.
 
jdtox said:
Going back a few years there was a course that we played Regional Rivalry at in OH. It had right on their website that in order to play before 8:30 you had to be a certain hdcp. While on the surface it seems ridiculous, maybe they were on to something.
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My answer is yes, one should expect to play quicker if playing in those earlier rounds.... Personally, not sure if I'd meet the Hdcp. requirement, but one thing I will always do is play quickly.... hit an errant shot, take a cursory minute look if not obvious and playable, take the penalty, drop and play.... keep pace.

Recently played my local course with 6:48am Tee time with a buddy, we were paired with 2 others who were decent players and still took almost 4hrs.... we were the 3rd group out and waited a lot.... WTH! Honestly, I would expect to go out in 3:30-3:40 time in a 4some that early. Anything over that is slow in my mind.
 
jints07 said:
100% yes. I feel it is the responsibility of the early groups to set the pace! My group generally won't even play unless we are first off.... MAYBE second off if we really have to. There have been plenty of times (in the past, lesson learned!) where as first off at 6am we finished by 9-915 but as third off at 9:27 we end up finishing at 10:45. Starting 27 minutes later turns in to finishing up to one hour and 45 minutes later. Totally absurd. And I fully agree with the poster above that handicap plays almost no role in this. EXPERIENCE plays a role, but not handicap. Hitting shots is not where time is wasted in this game (again for experienced players).
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This sums up my regular group almost to a tee (no pun intended) Even on the days where we didn't manage to get the first tee times, the starter will find a way to fit us in at or very close to our normal time. I know this might rub some people the wrong way, but trust me when I say that we are ready to hit our shots as soon as the group ahead is clear, and one of us is always moving. It might seem like a bottleneck at the first tee, but once we get out on the course we usually put at least a hole's gap between us and the group behind.
Myself and one of the guys I travel with regularly played a course years ago, if memory serves it was True Blue and the starter/ranger mentioned to us that as first off we would be setting the pace for the day (ie. being "the rabbit" as he put it) We informed him that shouldn't be an issue as we play efficient golf. The second time he came by around the 6th or 7th hole he looked as his tee sheet and said "you guys can relax a bit if you like - you're almost 20 minutes ahead of pace"
 
PapaJohick said:
see, I'm not a huge fan of time being the standard. I get why it's there as the standard, but I don't like it.

Pace to me is keeping up with in front of you and if you fall behind/have people waiting, let them go.

THis was part of my issue yesterday. I was a single trying to get a round in before the storm, and while the group in front of me was technically on pace per the course, they had like almost 2 holes of emptiness in front of them (found out it was 3 by the time they let me pass). Two older walkers that play often, but no urgency to try and beat the storm. Finally let me pass and I did finish still right around the 4 hour mark.
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I think the pace based argument is great unless the group in front of you is less than a foursome. I’m not certain any foursome can keep up with a twosome. I think the mix of pace and time is the way to get it done, maybe.
 
Early morning golf is the only golf going on out here in the summer. Our tee sheet is usually packed until about 7:30 am, then wide open after that because very few people want to play in the midday blast furnace temps. We have several small leagues (anywhere from 4-10 foursomes) that go out early on various weekday mornings, and they really plug things up. Going off behind them means a guaranteed 5-hour round. Ahead of them are usually a couple groups of members who are the regular dew sweepers, all of who are fast players.

Our solution to slow play is to jump out on the course a couple holes ahead of the league pokeys and behind the dew sweepers. The first tee box will usually be wide open by the time we get back around to it, and finishing the remaining holes we skipped is a lot faster than if we had gone off on #1 behind the league. Fortunately, our course doesn't have any objection to us doing that because they know we'll pick an appropriate spot to start and our pace of play won't be a problem.

If you want fast, wide open play with nobody around you, show up around 10:00 am - you'll have the whole course to yourself. Just remember to bring sunscreen, plenty of liquids and an ice cold towel, because you'll be playing in 110° temps with virtually no shade to be found.
 
Yes. Especially on weekends. My normal group tees off at 7:26 and usually plays in 3 hours or so with walkers. Anytime after 9:30-10 and it's closer to 5 hours.
Plus we beat the heat which is an added bonus.
 
I played on Sunday and tee'd off at 8am. We were in a four ball, walking, and I was back home editing the round on shotscope by just after 12.

That is very quick for us, it would have taken at least 2 hours longer if we had gone out later

I am definatley going out at that time again
 
I prefer mid morning, wind hasnt picked up yet, dew on greens is gone, sun is almost high noon, greens are still receptive and so on.
slow play is a factor but most let me play through.
 
Unless we're the first group out, no. I actually find twilight golf to be the best time of day for pace of play.
 
If an early morning 4 ball can't play sub 3:45 they shouldn't have the time slot.
 
I have tried early morning rounds and I just plain suck if I'm not awake yet. :ROFLMAO:
Too much coffee beforehand makes me jittery. I just try to be kind to myself and tee off a little later. :cool:
 
Early tee time? Not this guy.

If/when I do get an early time I would hope I play quicker.
 
At our course anytime before 8 am should be less than 4 hours. Sometimes it’s just over because we have some new groups nabbing those times lately. Last week we were in at about 3.5.
 
I expect to be able to play faster in the morning just by not getting hung up behind slower players.
 
I would expect it to be quicker, but only if I'm on one of the first couple of groups out. On my course, the first few tee times of the day are generally taken up by regular groups of older guys who can play very very slowly. If I'm out first or second then as two ball we can generally get finished in a couple of hours or maybe just over. But other than that it's just the usual lottery of who you get behind.
 
If there is a group in front of me I expect to play as fast as they play generally. Since I don't control them and never will I don't let that dictate my emotions.
 
To answer the title yes you expect to play faster. The typical course I play has there regulars that move along for the most part but every once in a while a group gets mixed in that get there 5 mins. before and start off with multiple breakfast balls on multiple holes :banghead:makes for a long day.
 
Early morning usually sets up quicker not much more on that. I think the casual golfer isn't getting up at the crack of dawn to get to the course so usually much faster. I don't believe HCP is driving force. Why? The best golfer in our league is the slowest golfer. I generally play fast and I'm by no means a good golfer. 2/3 shots to green and two quick putts..

The worst feeling is getting on the course before 8am and having a slow round.
 
That's one of the only reasons I play so early. Typically if we tee off anytime after 7 you're looking at a 5+ hour round of golf. If I tee off that early and I'm still stuck playing slow in probably going to be pretty annoyed the whole round.
 
At the resort courses where I play much of my summer golf a good rule of thumb is tee off before 8:30 if you want to finish in less than 4:15. We played 4 days in the last week with all starting times between 7:10 and 7:40. Our longest round was 3:35 but we had two beginners in our group for that round that both lost more than a dozen balls and shot above 115. If you start mid morning on a weekend out there you should plan on 4:30 to 5:00 hours. If my only option is a 4:30 round I would choose to not play at all.
 
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