While We're Young

[hckymeyer]

Has anyone quit the game because of pace of play? Anyone on here? I didn't think so - they keep telling you p.o.p. is a major factor inhibiting growth of the game bc they're not going to admit that the game is too difficult, too many rules, too expensive, etc. They're the governing body. They determine how difficult it is and what the rules are. Pace of play is a facilities issue. They're basically saying the blame lies within the facilities; who have already cut budgets, costs, staff, etc. to keep heads above water during this depression. While they continue to change rules to make the game more difficult for the masses.

 

Our whole world is instant this and now that. Golfs not meant to be played quickly. Never has and never will.

 

Ever quit the game...no. Ever walked off a course....absolutely. Don't go back to those courses because p.o.p. is notoriously bad...absolutely. Have friends that I can't get to come golfing because it takes to long even though I know they would enjoy the game...absolutely.

 

Us forum members are a minority in the golfing world, we'll handle just about anything to play the game. However, when it takes 5 hours to play a round of golf there are a lot of people that are going to choose to not invest their time. Give them back an hour and a half and some of those will end up playing.

 

p.o.p. is just one factor, but personally I think it's a big one. Don't get me wrong, I have no idea what the fix is, but it's an issue that should've been addressed long before we got to the groove rule and anchoring ban.

 

I think Revkev really hit the nail on the head though. We need to preach pace of play in all the first tee programs and beginner sessions out there. If we teach the next generation of golfers to play faster it will have a much better impact down the road than a few hypocritical commercials during a major.

[L.I. Rich]

Has anyone quit the game because of pace of play? Anyone on here?

 

Well, no. However, with the exception of an outing or a twilight, I won't tee off after the first hour or so. I play Long Island public courses... It's guaranteed 5+ hours (usually closer to six) on the course, not to mention arriving an hour before and travel time afterward. It becomes a full day, and because I need a degree of spousal approval, I go out early.

 

I played a back nine this morning; teed off at 5:24, home by 8 to shower and got to work before 9.

 

So I guess I'm saying that p.o.p. affects my decisions on when and if I will play, so if I'm busy in the early morning, I definitely won't try to play in late morning or early afternoon, so that is lost revenue for the courses in my area. Instead, I'll chip in the backyard, or go to the range to practice. Going to the range contributes to the golf economy, but not to the courses.

[L.I. Rich]

Maybe we're thinking about pace of play all wrong. Maybe it has nothing to do with whether the golfer quits the game, but rather more to do with how profitable the course itself is. How many more rounds could a course get in per day if the pace of play was 4 hours instead of 4.5 or 5 hours? That adds up over the course of a year and could make the difference between turning a profit, breaking even or losing money. If courses close down, you can't grow the game...

 

Just a thought,...

 

I like this. Daily fee golf is a retail business, and rounds are their inventory. They have to turn inventory to make money. Restaurants try to have as many seatings as possible at every meal; If I can get 3-4 dinners out of a table of five, I'm much better off than 2 seatings that linger for 2 hours each.

 

So, (additional) time spent on the course is an opportunity cost to both the course and the golfer...

[Saccers]

Oh my god I have to get in on this...

 

 

1) Joe public cannot play a round under 4 hours ... and here are a multitude of reasons...

 

a) All guys irregardless of age have hugh ego's ... start from the white or blues never the yellow even seniors don't want to.

On weekends the wife/girl friend is tagging along... don't want to piss her off by telling her to speed up cause you

might not get any

c) Who came up with 4 hours ... the entrepreneurs who want more money ...well a guy pays up anywhere 80 to 125 bucks w/cart

are you serious he feels entitled..!! he could not care less about your dumb rule of 4 hours and I have been

told many times by young and old....

d) Some are begginers ...why in hell do we let them play ...cause we were all beginners ... if you saw the hacking I see every

week omg ... it blows my brain when a beginner pays so much money to go and hack at ball. The other is croupon discount golf

then they're not beginner they've never held a golf club and you want them to play in 4 hours lol lol lol funny.

 

And being a Marshall I agree with them. I say lower the price , make the course shorter ... fake the location of whites and blues. Clean the course so they don't loose their balls and apply the rule of let them through rather that hurry up. They are out there to enjoy themselves why the hell should I be the one to go up to them and stress the hell out of them which in turn will make them never to come back and this sport of golf will die cause its too expensive and not fun

.... Greedy entrepreneurs who want Joe Public to golf then should accommodate the average Joe.

 

If your a golfer in the little percentage range of percentage of handicap of 10 or less ..then please go to a Private course, where its really controlled...don't come to a Public course...ARRRRRHHHHHHHH and ****** at me cause things are slow because of a seniors foresome who don't give a hoot who you are.

 

I think those are all commercials propaganda by rich golf owners who only want to squeeze time to make more money... cause the reality is Joe Public cannot play a round in 4 hours ...on a Saturday when he's surrounded by other Joe Public with handicaps of 30 Its just impossible and believe me I have timed and pushed large crowds for weekends for a very long time and its stupid ... I say let them enjoy their game and apply the rule of let them through ... cause they certainly don't care if it take 5 ...6 hours.

 

There I've said it.... man that feels good ... and its reality.

[BIG STU]

Actually I did quit the game for 5 years because of slow play. I was living in Charlotte NC at the time and public golf really sucked on the weekends there. There were not a lot of public courses there then. We were playing at a course and it took us over 3 hrs to play 9 holes we complained to the staff and marshals and nothing was done. We made the turn and it took us 45 mins to play 10 and 11. The 11 th hole came back up to the parking lot right then and there I took my clubs off the cart and walked to my truck and left. Those guys I played with kept calling me on the weekends wanting me to play and I told them "I have enough agervation during the week and don't need this crap on the weekends. They finally got enough of it themselves and started going out of town to play. They were going to the Pinehurst area to play which was about 1 1/2 hrs away. During the summer that was good because it was hot and there was not an abundance of players We could take my friends conversion van and chip in on gas and come out cheaper. I laughed when I heard that particular course closed a few years back. Now from what I hear Charlotte has an abundance of courses but my friend belongs to a country club there now. When I go to visit we play there and I have a few contacts still there and so I do get to play some upper tier courses when I go.

[apprenti23]

How does pace of play allow for more rounds to be played in a day?

 

You only have one 9am tee time.

[L.I. Rich]

How does pace of play allow for more rounds to be played in a day?

 

You only have one 9am tee time.

 

You are correct. But I have walked up (several times) at a public course at midday as a single, snagged a 12:18 (for instance) tee time, raced to the starter by 12:10, only to discover that the 11:46 group is on the tee... The groups back up. They might as well hand out deli numbers, because the nominal tee time bears little relationship to the actual time that the round begins. Believe me, the groups waiting at the first tee 30 minutes or more beyond their nominal tee time are not very happy, and are well aware that a slow round awaits.

 

Apprenti23, I agree that p.o.p. is not the biggest, and may not be in the top five, reasons for the decline in participation, but it is a contributing factor.

 

Golf is expensive, and when times are tight, folks will look for ways to make a dollar stretch. My wife could find lots of ways to spend the several hundred dollars a month I spend on golf.

 

On another note, it is conventional wisdom among many of the golfers I've been paired with that, the two major factors contributing to slow play are:

1. Lack of skill

2. Gambling among particular ethnic golfers: NOTHING conceded, STRICT adherence to rules, no "Ready golf".

[whiskey golf]

They need to restrict really bad hackers or very slow people to smaller par 3 courses. I heard something on a tv program that talked about how in some country, like Sweden or Finland, that you have to pass a proficiency test in order to golf. It was because of the small amount of courses but I like the idea of that. They could have tests that teach the golfer to play at a good pace regardless of handicap.

[apprenti23]

Delayed starting times have nothing to do with pace of play- that's from not having enough time in between tee times...

[hckymeyer]

Delayed starting times have nothing to do with pace of play- that's from not having enough time in between tee times...

 

But if people were faster it would be enough time. Kind of a chicken and the egg type of issue there, you can make it work for either argument.

[Kor.A.Door]

It's not the 20 hcp people that cause slow play, not playing "ready golf" and not Bieng able to go 2 min. Without having phone in your ear, I get sick of playing with guys who can't put away the phone and play golf. You don't think it slows you down, but it does, and it slows you down a lot, heaven forbid that you actually have a conversation with a real person while you golf.

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

My home course is making a concerted effort to improve pace of play. They post expected pace of play times on their tee-time website, and have a sign at the front desk letting you know what the anticipated place of play is. I'm friends with one of the rangers and he told me they're trying to improve the experience for everyone, in a positive manner. They've had a difficult season weather wise - the fairways and tee boxes are finally rounding into shape. They had a late start and lots of rainy days, so it would seem their revenue is hurting compared to last year. That's the nature of the beast, and the weather is out of their control. I gotta believe that a reputation for an "acceptable" pace of play can be one of the differentiating factors between a $60-$70 course and a $40 course.

 

I agree with the above comments, pace of play isn't going to force most avid golfers to quit the game, nor will it discourage the avid beginner. But an acceptable pace of play does seem like it would be good for the golf course and can be a factor in helping them stay profitable. I'm not in the golf business, but I am in sales/marketing, so I'm just exploring the possibilities....

 

As a USGA ad campaign, it seems to make more sense from the course-benefit perspective than the golfer-benefit perspective. Just a thought....

 

 

 

[wbealsd]

From what I can tell, the courses in my area (hit by the same type of weather) ARE trying to improve pace of play. Most of them don't really have real Rangers, but all have told me to call the clubhouse if we encounter any groups that are causing backups at the tee boxes.

 

I really haven't run into a lot of delays playing with tee-times between 2p-4p M-F afternoons or mornings between 7a-10a on weekends.

[Kor.A.Door]

I was watching morning drive the other day, did anyone see the interview with the guys who run Troon? They actually came up with a plan to improve pace of play, they came up with like 10 things to do to improve pace of play. They also came up with what they called Timepar, which is a time that they have come up with for how long it takes to pay a particular course based on different factors for each course. And then they also identified key tee times to play their round 20 minutes faster than Timepar. It really made some pretty good sense on how to at least start to improve the pace of play. I don't remember what all the factors were, but some of them were some the we have talked about here, like, playing from the correct tee, playing ready golf. I like that someone has actually come up with a viable way to at least make an effort to change the pace of play. They talked about the Timepar being a reasonalble amount of time that is enjoyable for everyone, I would be curious to see if any other courses have implemented something like this.

[apprenti23]

The MAJGT is a junior tournament association that LOVES pace of play. They list the "time par" for a respected course and players get awarded points when their groups finish ahead of the time par and that is kept track throughout the season. When they played our facility (super tight links course with fescue everywhere) they all played in under 4:20. I was watching the groups of kids and if a group was behind, when they got on the green, the first player to hole out grabbed his bag, went to the next tee, and teed off. The second player to hole out grabbed the flagstick and waited for the third to finish. I thought it was fantastic to see. The kids had twenty seconds maybe? To hit a shot when it was their turn. I forget the exact, but the kids were all ready to hit when it was their turn.

 

The biggest problem I see with people who play slowly is that they're not ready to hit when it's their turn. Either it's that they go and watch player a hit, then go watch player b hit, etc. and then when they finally get to their ball they don't know what club to hit, how far, etc.

 

At my facility we always have at least one ranger on duty. During slower times (Sunday afternoons are the worst- especially Father's Day!) I will actually go out- drive around, and get people moving. If I see they're struggling I'll give them balls and tell them next time they hit it in the tall grass just leave it and hit one of these. We're on a three strike rule at my club. First warning is usually a "hey guys, the group that teed off 9 minutes ahead of you is an entire hole (or two) ahead of you. Please pick it up." Second warning is "hey guys, I've told you once, you still haven't closed that gap- next time you'll be asked to skip a hole." Third warning is "guys, you need to skip this hole and go straight to the next tee- from there you till need to play faster" if they refuse to skip a hole or two then they're asked to leave. We don't let four people ruin it for those behind them.

[GolfSpy Barbajo]

The MAJGT is a junior tournament association that LOVES pace of play. They list the "time par" for a respected course and players get awarded points when their groups finish ahead of the time par and that is kept track throughout the season. When they played our facility (super tight links course with fescue everywhere) they all played in under 4:20. I was watching the groups of kids and if a group was behind, when they got on the green, the first player to hole out grabbed his bag, went to the next tee, and teed off. The second player to hole out grabbed the flagstick and waited for the third to finish. I thought it was fantastic to see. The kids had twenty seconds maybe? To hit a shot when it was their turn. I forget the exact, but the kids were all ready to hit when it was their turn.

 

The biggest problem I see with people who play slowly is that they're not ready to hit when it's their turn. Either it's that they go and watch player a hit, then go watch player b hit, etc. and then when they finally get to their ball they don't know what club to hit, how far, etc.

 

At my facility we always have at least one ranger on duty. During slower times (Sunday afternoons are the worst- especially Father's Day!) I will actually go out- drive around, and get people moving. If I see they're struggling I'll give them balls and tell them next time they hit it in the tall grass just leave it and hit one of these. We're on a three strike rule at my club. First warning is usually a "hey guys, the group that teed off 9 minutes ahead of you is an entire hole (or two) ahead of you. Please pick it up." Second warning is "hey guys, I've told you once, you still haven't closed that gap- next time you'll be asked to skip a hole." Third warning is "guys, you need to skip this hole and go straight to the next tee- from there you till need to play faster" if they refuse to skip a hole or two then they're asked to leave. We don't let four people ruin it for those behind them.

 

That's pretty reasonable -- and that sounds very cool to see the kids move along like that.

 

Interesting when our club had the play-in-under-4-hours-get-a-free-round promotion -- we were moving right along but it didn't feel like we were rushing at all. Finished in a shade over 4 hours and weren't pushing anyone ahead of us nor were we pushed from behind.

 

Played alone the other day, teed off a little before 8 AM and was done by 11:15 -- and I took my dear sweet time. This game doesn't have to take 5 hours....

 

Love the idea of giving struggling players some balls...it's usually the idea of losing a $4 ball that keeps me looking, rather than the lost stroke....