I hate slow play as much as anyone, but I have to question whether it’s really the epidemic people make it out to be. I play most of my golf at cheap, public courses that were booked solid where you would expect the slowest rounds to be, and I had one round (out of 36) that lasted more than 4 1/2 hours. Granted there were a bunch of 4:15-ish rounds that felt really slow because I was waiting on most tee boxes but complaining about 4:15 times seems kind of unreasonable and a tad elitist. Thoughts?
I feel like you are a lucky man if you haven’t experienced the 5 hour round, or like one of my previous posts, the 6 hour mid-am tournament I played in last week.
Edit: 2nd thought on this is that 4:30 is about the time I get irritated. Less than that is reasonable to me.
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I had one round that was 4:50 and a few others that were close to 4:30. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I played at a lot of different courses this year and aside from that one round, nothings been all that bad.
Depends where you live, I suppose. At the public courses here in Omaha it’s a HUGE problem. I live on a nice course that’s a lot of fun, but it’s almost unplayable because you can not play 18 holes in under 5 1/2 hours.
It’s mostly the course’s fault, which is the case most places. They jam in tee times as close together as possible. The marshals are worthless. They don’t enforce anything even if you call the clubhouse - which I’ve done because people are clueless. There has to be a balance between profitability and playability. Most places just keep it way out of balance and go heavy on profitability.
When I was a kid I didn’t care if a round took 8 hours, but I’ve got a family and a busy life. I don’t have all day.
It’s the one thing that makes spending the money on a private club the most attractive and worth the heavy cost.
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The only time I have had a 5 hr round is on Sundays when the format was stroke like it will be tomorrow… I play stroke every round so no difference but when stableford players play stroke it must paralyze them. Go figure but they must be in so much fear of bad shots and blowup holes they cant commit to a shot or is it all the extra time looking for balls as no score is not an option. Crazy times. I have had 3hr50 rounds in a 4 and 2.5hr rounds on my own. During the pandemic when we 2 player groups 2hr 45 to 3hr depending on how quick your partner was. Our club has a policy of if you fall a hole behind you are supposed to call the group behind through. Thursday the group 2 in front of us was on the 12th tee while the group in front of them was nearly at the 14th green. They didn’t call anyone through. Grrr.
How close does the course jam the tee times together? The courses around here (Edmonton, Canada) tend to do 10 or 12 minutes.
The course I referenced does 7 minutes and they only allow groups of 3-4.
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Yikes. Definitely could see that causing problems.
Course difficulty can be a part of it too. Searching for balls…
People with 25 handicap trying to play all 7100 yards, can hold people up. I guess it does depend on the situation.
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Yep. That is why I kind of like the enforce “If your handicap is this, you play these tees” thing.
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Meh. I’m the guy playing from 7000, losing 3-4 balls a round. I’m still waiting on most holes. That being said I spend like 30 seconds looking for my lost balls.
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We were 10mins during lockdown but now back to 8mins. Problems arise when the first group tees off early then the next group hit as soon as they are out of range and the field really compresses. Plus people miss their groups because they have teed off early. Fri our tee time was 0820 and we could have gone at 0811. We waited for our entire group to arrive
If you’re keeping up then you can lose all the balls want in my opinion. I think they should change OB to lateral hazard in all cases for faster play.
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In my experience most weekend hackers already do. I don’t think most of them know the difference between OB and lateral tbh.
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If it’s a normal public course on the weekend with nice weather, I think everyone should plan for five hours and be happy if it comes in under that. I hope that post COVID, courses will keep the tee times just a bit more spaced and people will continue to be flexible to play in the non-prime time slots. That’s the recipe for keeping the pace as fast as possible.
I really think it’s down to the course and the standards it holds.
My regular course is Southern Dunes in Haines City, Fl and we never play over 4 hours. The tee booking is always full, but the club does a great job in spacing it and giving you a gee up.
I have played over local clubs where you have 4 wannabe pros hacking their way round, oblivious to the backed up tee boxes behind.
So I guess in summary, and while not right, you get what you pay for.
I think pace of play can become a problem on any course that uses 7 or 8 minute spreads between tee times.
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My course is only 5565m from the back tees. There used to be a 1 handicaper who could drive the green on 1, 7 ,8 15 all par 4’s. The one time I was in front of him he continually hit up on us and hit the lady I was playing with on the back of the foot about 40m short of the 17th green. Technically he should have been waiting for us to finish the holes adding to the delay for everyone behind us. At 8 min gaps it jams up as the 2nd and 4th are par 3’s but then opens up after that until the 11th another par3. A typical round in a group of 4 takes 4hrs so lets hope tomorrow is a typical day being a notoriously slow stroke day
Yes and it can be managed by the club. A round should never exceed 4 hours (unless there’s a weather delay). Something I learned from covid was: 2 per cart jacking around and not playing ready golf and the constant managing of the flagstick tacks on unnecessary time to a round. We were pushcart and flagstick in only for 3 months and you could knockout 18 in 3:25. As soon as carts were reintroduced, times crept up. Also, pros should encourage some to tee it forward and remove the stigma from the practice.
It is definitely a problem.
Slow rounds are a huge impediment to growing the game.
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