I’ve been golfing for 47 years and The Code has always been keep up with group in front of you. When I flight a ball into the heather, I look for point of entry and drop. Damned if I’ll get Lyme disease over a Wilson. Or, a Titlest, for that matter. Hit and move on…
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I think generally, the goal should always be to keep up with the group in front of you… but if the course has a Pace of Play and a group is matching it, you can’t really complain… They set the expectations, and the group has met them… As a faster player, it’s super frustrating, but it’s the cost of having a set pace of play.
I think it’s a delicate balance, and an interesting problem. Rushing people through the course is a bad look, but it’s really frustrating to wait on every shot for a 20 handicap to plumb bob a 30 foot putt… Honestly, I think people on both sides should try to be understanding… if you are moving slow, find a place to let a fast group play through… if you catch up to a slow group, give them a chance to speed up or let you through before getting frustrated…
Though, this is a much bigger problem on courses that aren’t super crowded… once the tee sheet is full under 4 hours is a miracle. Or at least it is in my area.
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When I was learning golf my grandfather always told me “you can be bad, but be bad fast”
There’s definitely a balance to strike. We want to be welcoming to new players, but they also need to know when to pick up and move on
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My dad was the same… but others learned differently… I’m trying to have a more open mind, and give people the benefit of the doubt… we’ve set expectations at a 4 hour round, so it’s hard to blame people for playing in 4 hours.
I second that…oh yeah one more teeny tiny thing…our muni is actually a public park owned and operated by county and overseen by the politicians. The PoP was not set by the Pro nor the Association members…it was set by a politician who is in charge of the public parks and he “heard” that 4:15 would be a great time…LOL. One more thing, he’s not a golfer and his only experience with the sport is playing in an outing…So yea…not to be political. When we had “loyalty” tee times Saturday and Sunday sheets were full and PoP was never an issue. The new fangled carts, and elimination of loyalty times has kind of thrown a wrench into the mix…and they have already lost 35 members who went to a different course further away but is interested in taking care of the association first because we tend to use the facility alot more. I guess it’s always good to hear the whole story instead of me bitching about half the story…
This is the kind of thing that raises my hackles a bit. This group played their THIRD nine of the day at a 3-hour (for 18 holes) pace. I think that qualifies as jackrabbit pace, and honestly taints any complaints about enforcement of a 4:15 pace as a general rule. This type of group seems likely to complain about a 3:30 pace.
I’ll never suggest that slower groups should NOT let faster groups through, when there’s a reasonable gap in front of them, that’s the right thing to do. But establishment of a Pace of Play standard is a great tool for golf course management to use, it gives them a very objective standard to use when policing the course.
Anyway, complaints about slow play don’t really belong in a thread about the fastest rounds. Fastest I can remember recently is 3:15, walking, my trolley went 6 miles so I bet I walked closer to 6.5 or 7, 550 feet of vertical, just two of us on a Tuesday morning. Given the terrain, and some long walks from green to tee, that’s not too bad, it was certainly unhurried. Its nice to be a member of a club.
We used to have an annual family golf outing, blocking out four tee times, bringing together players with… varying skills. My uncle, the tournament “director” had a couple rules:
His group would be first off the tee. He didn’t want to look back to see any open holes.
Regardless of how you were playing, a double bogey was your highest score. If you haven’t holed out by double-bogey time - pick up, you’ve had enough swings.
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First 18 played in 3 hours and 50 minutes. We have to make a separate tee time for the 3rd 9…we’re just not flying around the course and the expectation is 1.75 to 2 hours for our 3rd 9. So all in for 27 holes we are looking to stay just under 5.5 - 6 hours. That is not unreasonable. Maybe I’m not communicating effectively enough. When we look to hit 2.5 hours to 3 hours to complete that 3rd 9 we just go in. Plus our course is fairly compact…think augusta national going from 11 to 12. The tee boxes and greens ae right there…
To go to the other end of the spectrum, I once played at the Links at Spanish Bay at Pebble Beach. I’d made an advance tee time for around 10 a.m., but no one else took at a tee time at 10, and the pro shop wouldn’t let me go it alone. I got paired up with three more: two, a father-and-son combination, both playing, who took a photo of each other, each and every shot, and then showed every one of them to each other, and a single who had his girlfriend along, not playing but taking video of every shot. Each of these groups had a cart; I was walking.
We teed off at 10:30. In the middle of the 11th fairway, at 2:45 p.m., a marshall finally showed up to tell us that we were so far behind any reasonable POP that there were no longer any golfers on the golf course ahead of us. I’m standing there thinking, “if you’d only let me go on my own at 10, I’d be sitting in the clubhouse right now having a late lunch.” The marshall brought an end to the photo/video shoot that was going on, and we managed to finish around 4:30 for a six-hour round of golf when it was clear the foursome I was in was the sole reason for the backup on the course!
Needless to say, I avoided mentioning anything to my playing partners at the end of the round that it had been a pleasure playing with them. . .
That’s so sad, but I can sympathize. I get the open space in front of you, obviously that wasn’t the problem. I would have liked to have seen and heard the 40 car pile up behind you. Oh my good gracious. Surprised you didn’t say people were firing into you…
Yikes. So many things wrong here…
Where in hell had the marshal been all this time? You should probably see a marshal at least twice in a four hour round even if there are no issues. This guy was totally asleep at the switch.
I’m shocked that nobody called the pro shop to complain! If it’s taking an hour and a half to play 4 holes I’d have been on the phone immediately. @lwildernorva, did you consider calling?
I understand that courses need policies for this sort of thing. Were you informed ahead of time or when you arrived at the course? If it was the latter, that’s poor tee sheet management. They weren’t going to be able to sell that block on such short notice.
Did you complain to the shop after your round, letting them know their decision spoiled your round? It doesn’t get your time back, but many courses will try and toss a golfer a bone in those circumstances. At the very least, they’re aware that their on-course staff failed miserably and can take steps to address that.
Finally, is there a reason you didn’t offer your group an excuse (appointment, early dinner date, etc.) and move on ahead?
Sorry to hear that. I’ve played Spanish Bay and it’s a gorgeous layout. The pro shop decision to not let you out at your booked tee time is curious. You are a better man than I for not asking your playing partners if you could “play through”.
I’ve been back several times since, and even on that day, it was a beautiful, if frustrating experience. The last time I was there, in August 2018, I saw Don Shula having lunch in the grill room and as I finished my round, there was a bagpiper by the 18th green playing just before the sun set. I’m not certain what the deal with the pro shop was–this round was somewhere back in the 1990s, and I think some pro shop policies about singles have loosened up since then. It is also possible that all the groups ahead of me were foursomes, and they just didn’t want a single wedged in behind all those groups.
I’ve always felt that at the more expensive courses, management should keep marshalls (or player assistants if you want a friendlier name) on the course at fixed intervals to keep an eye on situations like this. With the greens fees at places like Spanish Bay and all of its cousins at Pebble Beach, there can’t be an argument that the courses can’t afford the cost. The situation I was in should have been headed off long before the 11th hole.
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^ That is great!!!
Def going to work on that … getting it close the first time (since every round is really a practice round for me - don’t compete, don’t maintain a handicap). Gonna try to get my wife to play that way, too 
Our usual Friday foursome got around in 3hrs 10 minutes a few weeks ago. We practiced missed putts and dropped second balls after bad shots. We all play fast and that day the group in front of us were 16 minutes in front of us and only a 2. We nearly caught them