We've launched the new forums! Read more here

How would feel...

darthweasel said:
\
demonstrably false. I have seen guys who took 4 shots on a hole take longer on the green than I did to play the entire hole taking a 6 or even an 8. Of course, I might be an outlier, and numerous people I have been matched up with have made comments along the lines of "you have the fastest trigger I have ever seen" (stated when they did not see where I hit it because I had already taken my shot before they started watching)

Except I find it pretty common...there are people taking a long time before each shot who shoot four and others taking a long time before each shot to shoot 8...there are many, many, many people out there who take longer to play four than others who take 8.

And, in the story the OP posted, their time was much, much faster than most people play at of any handicap.
Click to expand...

I took a few days to mull this over... I wanted to reply without being some kind of Richard. Yes- you are an outlier. There I said it, and I will stand by that!! :p

HOWEVER... I was more or less generalizing most people. Given the fact that IF the (average) 8 stroke guy takes the same time over his ball as an average 4 stroke does, Then realistically, it would take twice as long. Now, 'apparently' the one guy took a 17 on a Par 3. Even IF he was a bit quick on the draw, he would have taken 6 or 7 shots off tee or drop area (assuming it was over water) and then chipped and 4 putted or whatever. The point is there is NO chance he would finish in the same time as a guy who took a 3 or a 4,5,6. Unless he was machine gunning them and hitting the next before the previous one hit the water anyway.

As I said, taking the 'average' guy trying to play from the tips, who has no business there and taking his 7,8,9 or 10 compared to another 'average' guy who can regularly par or bogey (leaving out extenuating circumstances) the hole, he is invariably holding everyone else up. And 4 guys in the same group doing the same would be catastrophic.

Even if, as somebody said (or hoped), they were 'keeping up', It would still be pretty traumatic for the group immediately behind to see such shenanigans. You would think they are 7 holes behind. These days you can't always tell if there even IS a hole or 3 open in front. you can't always see that far ahead. But it certainly would feel like it's taking forever just because you have to watch their suffering...
 
RayG said:
I. Given the fact that IF the (average) 8 stroke guy takes the same time over his ball as an average 4 stroke does,
Click to expand...


I see a huge part of the disconnect. I do not accept the premise, nor grant it as fact, that the average 8 stroke guy takes as long either over their ball nor getting to it.

In a vacuum, which of these guys is the more likely to be taking a 4 on a hole versus which is more likely to be taking an 8?

Person A) approaches his ball, assesses the lie including how much grass is between the club and ball, whether it will potentially encourage a fat shot or flier lie, takes into account the wind, shoots or otherwise acquires the yardage to various hazards, selects his club, takes a practice swing or ten, walks behind the ball, visualizes the shot, steps in, does his waggle and hits his shot

Person B) knows he is in rough/fairway/sand, grabs his favorite club from that distance, swings.



So upshot is I do not believe it is an accurate statement to say the average 8 stroke guys takes as long over any given shot as a 4 stroke guy.

Again...I DO believe there are outliers. Even on the pro level.

Some Bryan brother...I think that was his name...played a round in I believe under two hours. On tour.

Myself, when watching golf comes up and people ask me if I saw thus and such tournament the answer is always no. It feels like whenever I tune in even for a few seconds it is the pro and his caddy talking about the shot or looking at their yardage book or standing to the side of the ball back and forth practice swinging while talking about the shot or standing behind the ball visualizing his shot or...I forget because I literally got bored typing that sentence lol.

I often comment I find golf and poker similar. When the game is moving along it is a lot of fun.

In the end, it is really a discussion that doesn't matter. You have had your experiences and beliefs, they are fine and valid...and based on the premise proposed I seriously doubt we will ever concur on the subject which puts us squarely among the...oh, I don't know...99.9% of golfers? :)
 
I’d say I want fresh blood on courses to grow the game. But, double par, pick up the ball and move on.
 
People act like the player averaging 8 per hole will take twice as long to hit there shots as the player averaging 4 which is very rarely the case. A bunch of these strokes tend to be penalty drops, whiffs, angrily (but rapidly) taking multiple hacks at a ball in the sand, and missed 2-3 footers which get quickly tapped in.
 
Slow players are going to be slow and fast players are going to be fast, no matter what they score. A high handicapper who plays ready golf, is always in position and ready to hit when it's his turn, has a reasonably efficient pre-shot routine and knows when to pick up, will shoot his 120 a lot faster than the low cap who sits around playing with his phone in the cart, surveys his putts from all four sides and takes 4 practice swings while he's shooting 75.
 
There are so many ways for a high capper to keep or exceed pace while still playing within the rules or at least seldom breaking them. With no one pushing me, I don't feel like I'm rushing... like there's another gear if I need it.

Here are a few of my practices...

  1. If I hit a ball into the woods, I'll rarely hit a provisional. I may (or may not) do a very quick fly by and if the ball isn't plainly in sight, I'll take a drop about where it went in and add 2 strokes so that I'm laying 3, hitting 4.
  2. I leave the flag in (I know there's argument against whether this saves time, but it's faster).
  3. Once around the green, leave the push cart in a line between the hole and the path to the next green.
  4. Take a wedge and a putter (put the wedge somewhere on the green where you can't forget it after putting)
  5. I don't dick around much reading greens. I try to do that quickly by feeling any slope with my feet. Most of my rounds are on greens I know like the back of my hand anyway.
  6. If there is a group on the hole behind (which is rare), kick it into the next gear. That might mean picking up at double or triple, but I can still calculate what I likely would have shot had I finished the hole.
  7. If a group let's me play through (also rare), I will often instead skip the hole and get to the next tee as quickly as I can. That helps overall POP. I can (within the rules, I believe) add my score in based on my index and hole handicap.

The thing is I try to get out first on the weekends, so no one is holding me up. I'll put some distance between the group behind and play the next 16-17 holes without worrying about anyone catching me. On the rare occasion when someone behind is fast enough to keep pace and there's nothing but daylight in front, it's an easy decision to let them play through. The really big blowup rounds (110+) are less common than they used to be but even those are played faster than the average group.
 
Again, your ‘average’ weekend casual guy ISN’T too concerned that there is a blade of grass between the club and ball. He will rarely have a consistent pre-shot routine, either. He MAY try to keep up with the others which will possibly mess up his approach and skull or top 3/4 in a row. In 50+ years, I’ve seen all kinds of folks playing all kinds of styles.
Put 4 of those 8 stroke guys in carts and you HOPE they have some cart discipline. Most do not. Both carts Go to closest ball, wait for the shot, move up 10 yards to next, and so on. Even IF somehow they are ‘keeping’ up, If you are behind them it would drive you nuts because you THINK they’re holding everyone up.
Put it this way, if you got paired with 3 of those guys and you were walking, would you go anywhere past them to get to your ball to start your routine? Be like walking across a live shooting range. No thanks
 
RayG said:
I took a few days to mull this over... I wanted to reply without being some kind of Richard. Yes- you are an outlier. There I said it, and I will stand by that!! :p

HOWEVER... I was more or less generalizing most people. Given the fact that IF the (average) 8 stroke guy takes the same time over his ball as an average 4 stroke does, Then realistically, it would take twice as long. Now, 'apparently' the one guy took a 17 on a Par 3. Even IF he was a bit quick on the draw, he would have taken 6 or 7 shots off tee or drop area (assuming it was over water) and then chipped and 4 putted or whatever. The point is there is NO chance he would finish in the same time as a guy who took a 3 or a 4,5,6. Unless he was machine gunning them and hitting the next before the previous one hit the water anyway.

As I said, taking the 'average' guy trying to play from the tips, who has no business there and taking his 7,8,9 or 10 compared to another 'average' guy who can regularly par or bogey (leaving out extenuating circumstances) the hole, he is invariably holding everyone else up. And 4 guys in the same group doing the same would be catastrophic.

Even if, as somebody said (or hoped), they were 'keeping up', It would still be pretty traumatic for the group immediately behind to see such shenanigans. You would think they are 7 holes behind. These days you can't always tell if there even IS a hole or 3 open in front. you can't always see that far ahead. But it certainly would feel like it's taking forever just because you have to watch their suffering...
Click to expand...
In any non-tournament setting, there's no way in hell my group would ever let somebody play their ball out to a 17 on a hole....any hole. One (or more) of us would tell you to pick your ball up long before that, and if you didn't, one of us would pick it up for you and end the misery.

We pick up at net double in casual rounds, there's no need to go any higher than that. Even if you're posting your score that's the max you can card, what are we even doing standing around watching somebody s**t all over themselves to put a 17 on the card? A max handicap player (54 hcp) is at net double when they're 5 over, so the most anybody should ever see on a (non-tournament) scorecard would be a 10 on a par 5.
 
I played every weekend with with a couple Navy Officers and a Senior Chief when I took up the game in 1982. They were all good pretty good golfers but welcomed me into the fold even as bad as I was.

The only thing they ever asked of me was to " miss em quick" and "put it in my pocket once I reached a triple"

They taught me everything about etiquette.
 
At my HC, if I'm not on after hitting my bogey shot I'll pick up and take my netDB. At this point I have no chance of getting better than a triple which is my netDB so why bother? I can't report more than that anyway. Why hack it out when not in a tourney? For "character"? At my age I've got all the character I'm going to get. It doesn't happen often, but there are rounds.... No more 11s.

Most people I've played who are at the level of those guys don't take two stroke penalties. They just take 1 stroke. So if you're thinking they took two stroke penalties, they didn't. They took one. They also dropped in the woods for their lost ball and probably hit a tree with their escape shot and lost that too. I've tried to tell them the rule is to drop on the fairway and take two stroke penalty, but they never listen. They think "if I drop in the woods it's only one stroke"... fine. Lose another Pinnacle.

They don't bother lining up shots. They take three practice swings and then top it.

I played with a woman once who teed off with her 6i. She hit every fairway shot with her 6i. She brought three clubs to the course. Her 6i, her 9i, and her putter. I asked her where her other clubs were. "These are the only clubs I can hit." Sure she had a few fatties, but no shanks and no complete duffs. Shot 100. Good job. Did I mention she played fast? Her husband? Shot 105. Full set of clubs. Hit what you know.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top