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Slow Play - How Long Does It Take You?

rbarthle17 said:
Should be noted my dad played from the green tees (second from front) and Adam and I were playing from the whites so we really were trying to do all we could. It's really so easy to be aware of your limitations and considerate so I don't get why others don't do it.
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I don't get it either and I seems to have happened more this year than I can remember. We got fed up one time and just drove by them and skipped the hole. I'm the first one to suggest letting someone play through if we are holding anyone up.
 
Wicked Cool Bearded Man said:
At my home course it is gross sometimes. 3 hour 9 hole rounds are not uncommon. The problem is the value of the course is so high, that it gets an amazing amount of play. It is the nicest public course in all of the central part of our state and it has some of the cheapest prices to boot. All of this together equals sllllloooooooooowwwww play.
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That's just silly.

Terrible.
 
Played as a 3some today in 3h 20. It was perfect.
 
Sox Fan said:
Anything over 3 hours for 1-2 players and over 3.5 hours for 3-4 players would be considered slow IMO. I do typically try to go to the course during slower times so I can easily achieve or better these times.
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I agree on all points!
 
The last 2 days on 2 different courses I played in foursomes. Yesterdays round was 4:15 and today's was 4:30. Neither seemed slow and that is about the average time around here.
 
Interesting picture from the marshal view of the GPS on the course at the last THP Event. Let me preface this by saying I am not saying it's THPERS at fault. Yellow means 5 minutes behind pace. Red means 15 minutes behind pace. Red with an asterisk means 30 minutes behind pace. The numbers are not minutes, but the cart numbers.

The course had a pace of 4:30. Now to be fair, the front nine thpers breezed through and finished the shamble format in about 2 hours. The back 9 being bestball saw our play dip to around 2:47 for some groups and over 3 for some.

The course was okay with it, so we were okay with it, but felt as though it matches well with some of what was in the article linked in the first post

8388df1522672934210a86ac0ee08880.jpg


59a64750f7fa18a6e3516453270d3e1c.jpg
 
I got around with my 4 some this past weekend in 4:15 with only marginal waiting. could have been sub 4 hours if it was full sails ahead though.
 
I had an eye opening conversation with the management at my home course. They have leagues playing every weeknight. I had to play behind their Wednesday league which consisted of three groups. The first group got through 9 in 2:30. The next 2 groups took over 3 hours to finish 9 holes. They were the bottleneck for me.

I was doing a league makeup round and I could not scoot around these groups. Every tenet of ready golf was being broken by these groups. A request to a marshal to get them moving didn't do anything. In discussing this with the management, they made it clear that this was not unreasonable.

JB, you can talk about it being the golfers responsibility until you are blue in the face. But as long as golf courses don't see 3 hour 9 hole rounds as problematic, there will never be a resolution. I have come around to thinking the primary problem lies with the courses, not the players. The courses set pace of play rules and then choose to ignore them. Why should anyone care if they won't?
 
rbarthle17 said:
JB, you can talk about it being the golfers responsibility until you are blue in the face. But as long as golf courses don't see 3 hour 9 hole rounds as problematic, there will never be a resolution. I have come around to thinking the primary problem lies with the courses, not the players. The courses set pace of play rules and then choose to ignore them. Why should anyone care if they won't?
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Limited Sample

Just like everything else in golf, it is policed by the players. Should the courses do more? Absolutely.
Should they follow you around and make sure you take penalty strokes? Too much? How about that you repair every pitch mark accordingly?

Golf as a whole is designed to be self policed, and while everybody would love the courses to do more, you see what happens when they do...People complain that they were pushed and treated unfairly. And sometimes they were. The sport has gotten slower and slower over the last 10 years and people need to know about it.

We get called all sorts of names for being too harsh and asking people to speed up. Its always the course that tells us and we see in marshal view. This time I showed people around and they saw the rangers come to me and tell me to ask certain carts to speed up.
 
Im ususually 4-4.5 hours per round. I feel thats pretty good. Ive been stuck behind some slow groups before who took 6 hours to play 18 and it was insane.
I feel like a some people feel like they shouldnt be expected to speed up playing because they are a paying customer and deserve to take as long as they want.
 
Castor Hades said:
I need to get a call from Big Time Nate, my man in Texas. He said he would judge how slow / fast I am on the course after hour practice round at the Morgan Cup. I forgot to ask. So, Nate?

When I play alone, 2 hours is good.
2 players, 2,5 hours.
3 players, 3-3,5 hours.
4 players 3,5-4 hours.

Anything over 4 is slow.

These are without carts. Walking.
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These timings are about right for me too. I'm not a fan of carts, but then over here we don't have the real estate that you guys do, or the climate. When there are long distances between green and tee, cart has to be faster surely. And when it gets really hot down south, likewise.
 
I just played two balls for 18 holes. To out all flags. Got my yardage and played in 2 hours. As a single three groups let me play through. If I stayed behind the groups it would have been 245. I even chit chatted with myself
 
JB said:
Just like everything else in golf, it is policed by the players. Should the courses do more? Absolutely.
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But without the course's backing, there is nothing a player can do to an obstinate offender. It does, and should, ultimately fall on the course to maintain an environment conducive to attracting players to come spend money there. If the course decides that what we see as an unreasonable pace of play is not unreasonable to them, no amount of self policing will correct that, your only hope is you get a set of slow players who are open to the idea of playing faster.

Another thing about my home course is there is little competition for them in terms of quality golf courses as options. There are plenty of goat tracks around here, but really only 1-2 other options for nice courses. That doesn't help matters much.
 
So a course says "You must play in 4:30". If they dont follow you around and tell you to speed up every time, a player should do nothing about it? Cmon man. A player should respect the course rules. They dont follow you around to make sure you dont play naked, that you dont take gouges out of the course, that you dont drive onto the greens, that you repair divots, etc.

Its a players sport. They have rules that are to be followed, and like all of them, they are up to the player.

Courses do care. They do ask people to speed up. Doesnt matter. See the example I just gave about the last event. Players' have to care enough to respect the rules of the course/game. Just as they do others.
 
That was an interesting experience between the two 9s this weekend, JB.

I think there were numerous factors as we were behind the group in front of us for I think 1.5 holes between 13-15, but caught back up for 15/16/17.

1 - The back 9 at Olde Stonewall is a lot to take in. Major elevation changes, decisions to be made, and photos to be taken. As much as I agree that pace of play should be adhered to, it was quite a feat in comparison to most courses to get to each shot, then to the ball, then to the green, plus the walk to the green.

2 - I'd argue it was harder. We saw some errant shots that required searching, and that added to our time. Not to the point where we never saw the guys in front of us again, but definitely to the point where we saw a small gap for a short period of time.

3 - The heat really came hard and fast after we hit the turn. That probably impacted our speed as a whole while guys moved up and down the terrain.

The questions I'd have for the course based on that:

1 - Were the rangers out in force, enforcing the pace of play?

2 - If a cart is waiting on every hole for the group in front of them, is it fair to make them any other colour than green on the map? Red suggests a problem, and for the most part, many of the groups were pressing those who were playing in front of them. That's how we felt about the group in front of us, and the groups behind us.

You're not taking an aggressive stance on this and my comments aren't intended to be argumentative, just food for thought. First look at a difficult course will be troublesome for most amateur golfers, and I would say our foursome got the brunt of all experiences, both great holes and terrible ones!!
 
Tadashi70 said:
I just played two balls for 18 holes. To out all flags. Got my yardage and played in 2 hours. As a single three groups let me play through. If I stayed behind the groups it would have been 245. I even chit chatted with myself
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Was the chit chat lively?
 
Canadan said:
That was an interesting experience between the two 9s this weekend, JB.

I think there were numerous factors as we were behind the group in front of us for I think 1.5 holes between 13-15, but caught back up for 15/16/17.

1 - The back 9 at Olde Stonewall is a lot to take in. Major elevation changes, decisions to be made, and photos to be taken. As much as I agree that pace of play should be adhered to, it was quite a feat in comparison to most courses to get to each shot, then to the ball, then to the green, plus the walk to the green.

2 - I'd argue it was harder. We saw some errant shots that required searching, and that added to our time. Not to the point where we never saw the guys in front of us again, but definitely to the point where we saw a small gap for a short period of time.

3 - The heat really came hard and fast after we hit the turn. That probably impacted our speed as a whole while guys moved up and down the terrain.

The questions I'd have for the course based on that:

1 - Were the rangers out in force, enforcing the pace of play?

2 - If a cart is waiting on every hole for the group in front of them, is it fair to make them any other colour than green on the map? Red suggests a problem, and for the most part, many of the groups were pressing those who were playing in front of them. That's how we felt about the group in front of us, and the groups behind us.

You're not taking an aggressive stance on this and my comments aren't intended to be argumentative, just food for thought. First look at a difficult course will be troublesome for most amateur golfers, and I would say our foursome got the brunt of all experiences, both great holes and terrible ones!!
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The rangers were definitely out. As I mentioned above, they really like the THP Events and because of our tee time, they were more lax than usual. But kept on me about pace of play. As far as coming up to me on 3 different times about multiple carts. The players get told by me to speed up (as they are supposed to) and then we see them again a few holes later.

As I mentioned before, this was not a shot at THPers. Just the general thought that "If the course doesnt polics it, who cares" side of things is so faulty and wrong for the sport overall. People have to care...My point was that every single time something gets posted about speed, almost everybody says they are fast. The pictures taken were to show that was just not the case (not just THPers, but players overall).

Numerous times according to the GPS, the slowdowns were on tee boxes and I get there and everybody is hanging out and nobody is hitting. Im fine with that in spots, and the game is social and I love that part of THP Events. I just think it needs to be looked at as a group overall if you are falling behind. Example, if you spend the previous hole looking for lost balls, the next one should be ready golf, etc.

If people are self aware, the problem starts to go away. If that makes sense. The instance with this course specifically I wanted to make clear, the course was okay with it most of the time, especially because of how fast we played the shamble round (which is usually the case).
 
JB said:
Interesting picture from the marshal view of the GPS on the course at the last THP Event. Let me preface this by saying I am not saying it's THPERS at fault. Yellow means 5 minutes behind pace. Red means 15 minutes behind pace. Red with an asterisk means 30 minutes behind pace. The numbers are not minutes, but the cart numbers.

The course had a pace of 4:30. Now to be fair, the front nine thpers breezed through and finished the shamble format in about 2 hours. The back 9 being bestball saw our play dip to around 2:47 for some groups and over 3 for some.

The course was okay with it, so we were okay with it, but felt as though it matches well with some of what was in the article linked in the first post

8388df1522672934210a86ac0ee08880.jpg


59a64750f7fa18a6e3516453270d3e1c.jpg
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Not sure what cart # we were but I will say we started on 10 playing best ball, never saw a group behind us all day until we got to #1 and the 4some in front of us was not part of our outing, so holes 1-9 we waited on every hole behind that group and as expected we then had a group catch up behind us. Thought it was a little weird they let a 4some out in the middle of our event.
 
JB said:
The rangers were definitely out. As I mentioned above, they really like the THP Events and because of our tee time, they were more lax than usual. But kept on me about pace of play. As far as coming up to me on 3 different times about multiple carts. The players get told by me to speed up (as they are supposed to) and then we see them again a few holes later.

As I mentioned before, this was not a shot at THPers. Just the general thought that "If the course doesnt polics it, who cares" side of things is so faulty and wrong for the sport overall. People have to care...My point was that every single time something gets posted about speed, almost everybody says they are fast. The pictures taken were to show that was just not the case (not just THPers, but players overall).

Numerous times according to the GPS, the slowdowns were on tee boxes and I get there and everybody is hanging out and nobody is hitting. Im fine with that in spots, and the game is social and I love that part of THP Events. I just think it needs to be looked at as a group overall if you are falling behind. Example, if you spend the previous hole looking for lost balls, the next one should be ready golf, etc.

If people are self aware, the problem starts to go away. If that makes sense. The instance with this course specifically I wanted to make clear, the course was okay with it most of the time, especially because of how fast we played the shamble round (which is usually the case).
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Great stuff!! Like I said, just food for thought. When you showed me the map while we were out there it was very interesting to see, although I still think highlighting the groups who have gaps would be far more visible than making everything red. I'm looking at it from a 'problem' standpoint rather than how the course seems to be viewing it.

Glad to hear they were out there and talking with you, and I get that sometimes the chatter amps up. When we got a bit behind it was a consensus to hit a bit faster on the next tee box to propel our speed a bit, and sure enough we were back on pace less than a hole later. A bit of self awareness definitely goes a long way --- but so does hitting into the fairway rather than that nasty heather!!!
 
JB said:
Interesting picture from the marshal view of the GPS on the course at the last THP Event. Let me preface this by saying I am not saying it's THPERS at fault. Yellow means 5 minutes behind pace. Red means 15 minutes behind pace. Red with an asterisk means 30 minutes behind pace. The numbers are not minutes, but the cart numbers.

The course had a pace of 4:30. Now to be fair, the front nine thpers breezed through and finished the shamble format in about 2 hours. The back 9 being bestball saw our play dip to around 2:47 for some groups and over 3 for some.

The course was okay with it, so we were okay with it, but felt as though it matches well with some of what was in the article linked in the first post

8388df1522672934210a86ac0ee08880.jpg


59a64750f7fa18a6e3516453270d3e1c.jpg
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So we had a total of what, 5-6 carts on pace out of ~29? Any way of knowing who was what? Just curious as I believe our group finished around or under the 4:30 pace and would be curious to what it said for our cart.
 
cbaker2882 said:
So we had a total of what, 5-6 carts on pace out of ~29? Any way of knowing who was what? Just curious as I believe our group finished around or under the 4:30 pace and would be curious to what it said for our cart.
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Not right now, but I do have the cart numbers written down somewhere. The truth is though, that it may not have been any THPers at fault and could have been the groups in front. I know one or two of our groups, got behind in spots, but normally catch up. I know carts 1 & 5 were a couple of holes behind on two occasions, but they caught up when asked.
 
JB said:
So a course says "You must play in 4:30". If they dont follow you around and tell you to speed up every time, a player should do nothing about it? Cmon man. A player should respect the course rules. They dont follow you around to make sure you dont play naked, that you dont take gouges out of the course, that you dont drive onto the greens, that you repair divots, etc.

Its a players sport. They have rules that are to be followed, and like all of them, they are up to the player.

Courses do care. They do ask people to speed up. Doesnt matter. See the example I just gave about the last event. Players' have to care enough to respect the rules of the course/game. Just as they do others.
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So take my example, which you tried to toss away as "limited sample". Next time out, I run into this group again. I ask them politely to speed up or let me play through. Should they decline, I have no recourse other than to deal with it. The course will not back me as they don't see this as a problem. Who is ultimately at fault here?

You think people should learn to change. People have to have a REASON to change before they will. If they don't see what they are doing as wrong, the course needs to give them reason. If the course will not do it, nothing you say will affect it because the course has enabled these people to be slow. Then the issue is moot and it will only get worse.

You can change the situation as a whole a lot quicker by having a smaller but more powerful group of people (the course management) force the change than to hope that the larger group of people (the slow players) will see a need to change. Sure feathers will be ruffled. Those feathers need to be ruffled though. But if a golf course is afraid to do any potential short term damage to their income base by actually enforcing the pace of play rules, then the inmates run the asylum.
 
I don't remember my cart number from this weekend either, but I'm curious when this photo was taken (towards the end or middle of the round). This was my second THP event and I thought we moved at a pretty decent pace, compared to my first event. I think we finished in 4:35 minutes or around that mark. We waited on the group ahead of us maybe 3 times and those were very brief, and I don't believe the group behind us waited on us at all. We chatted a bit and took some time to find lost balls in the heather....

I think what helped this weekend was picking up after triple bogey, and what really made things slow was that stretch from #12-15. Just nothing you could do about driving the cart back and forth for those holes.
 
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