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You can take any event and if you break it up into a large enough number of steps, it looks like it takes forever. Shooting the pin is literally unclipping it from my bag, pointing it at the pin, hitting my shot, and clipping it back on again as I walk to wherever my ball went.
I've played with and without a rangefinder - I play better with the rangefinder, so your guarantee doesn't hold, especially on courses that have large, tiered greens. I would have been dead at True Blue without the rangefinder, or at least local knowledge.
I challenge everyone to go out and play two rounds ... one lasering every shot ... one hitting to the middle of the green without the use of the laser ... and see which round you play better. I can probably guarantee that it will be the round to the middle of the greens.
Not a Sermon ... Just a Thought
I can be at the 150 yard mark but the pin is unlikely to be in the dead center of the green. What if the green is 25 yards deep and it's a back pin? Or a front pin? If I play only a couple of courses and knew the layouts of each green I'd be ok without one. But I play on average 50 different courses a year. My laser and GPS make me so much better on courses I don't know well. Hand held caddys is what they are.
so they only slow down play if you let them.
I guess it's all what we are used to. BTW ... I played True Blue in Myrtle, in it's inception, before the use of rangefinders and played pretty well.
Maybe people should concentrate on where they are losing strokes ... i.e. 3 putts on huge greens.
Not a Sermon ... Just a Thought
You can take any event and if you break it up into a large enough number of steps, it looks like it takes forever. Shooting the pin is literally unclipping it from my bag, pointing it at the pin, hitting my shot, and clipping it back on again as I walk to wherever my ball went.
I've played with and without a rangefinder - I play better with the rangefinder, so your guarantee doesn't hold, especially on courses that have large, tiered greens. I would have been dead at True Blue without the rangefinder, or at least local knowledge.
It's actually been proven in testing hat it speeds up play. Because while the example used is extreme, the counter point of extreme is watching people walk off from sprinkler heads all over the course, then pick their clubs, etc.
Extremes can be shown on both sides and frankly those people are slow regardless.
so they only slow down play if you let them.
Exactly!!
Too many people allow them to.
I certainly agree with this, however that is just one of 100 things some people allow to slow down play
Only thing that bothers me about them is the person who shoots every single shot. Not all shots need a laser and, from the tee, you should be able to tell whether that bunker is 250 or 300 yards away without shooting it.
I always get a kick out of it when I'm playing with someone with a laser. When I go to hit my approach shot I look at my GPS watch, look at my pin sheet, add or subtract from center as appropriate, and hit. It always happen the guy playing, if he has a laser, says "what do you have?" "I have about 155." (Laser comes out.) "No, you have 153."
My response "Man, you're playing with me, do you really think I can hit it within two yards of distance?"
This point exactly! I grew up playing in the '70s and got along just fine. I have had 6 holes-in-one without the use of a rangefinder. IMHO, rangefinders slow play down even more than it already is. Let's be honest here ... how many of us out here are able to say that they hit their 5 iron 178 yards or know the distances of ANY of their clubs down to the yard?? I can assure you ... not many. I have played with people before that have looked at a hole placement, picked one club, looked at the rangefinder, picked another club and STILL ended up short.
This is why rangefinders are not allowed in tournament play. They will slow the game down EVEN more!
Not a Sermon ... Just a Thought
It takes 4 seconds to laser a target. Let's say 50 shots get lasered during a round. And that number is high.
I just added 3 minutes to the round. Not exactly a long time. Also, regardless of how useful they actually are, why not use all of the data available?
I'd actually like to see the PGA Tour adopt them. Seems like every shot would speed up a good 2 minutes so the player doesn't have to argue with their caddy about who's yardage book is correct and which club to hit.
I use both a GPS and a laser and it definitely speeds up my play. No more wandering around looking for a sprinkler head that likely isn't marked anyway. Not everybody including me plays at well marked courses.