Complaints about slow play...

[4thand11]

...I think are overdone.  That is not to say slow play is not an issue, or that it is not annoying.  But waiting in the fairway for a minute while the group in front of you clears the green, is not slow play.

 

For ex... last weekend I was playing as a single with a group of 3 people.  They were all very nice, and probably average golfers.  One was a senior who played fine but moved a little slower, one was a woman who was pretty good but did not hot the ball very far.  At any rate we were moving at what I consider a decent pace of 4 hours for 18.  The group ahead of us was a threesome and they were excellent golfers, I was watching smoe of their shots.  They played very quickly and got way out in front of us.

 

Anyway as I mentioned, we were going along fine and when we teed off on the 9th hole, the group behind us was on the 8th green and yelled "Hey how about picking the pace up?"  They may have been waiting for a minute here and there as we finished up putting, but at no point were they waiting on the tee box for us for an extended time, or did they ever catch up to us while we were teeing off.  I told them we were playing the front 9 in a 2-hour pace which is fine.  They said, "Hey buddy there's no one in front of you for an entire hole".  I said, "Who cares I don't control how fast they play".

 

My point is this: the obsession with slow play has gotten out of hand.  If you can play a round as a foursome in 4 hours, that is a fine pace.  Especially at a muni where players of all ages and abilities are playing.  If you have to wait 30 seconds to hit your approach shot, that is not an excuse to start yelling at the group in front of you. 

 

Also a related anecdote, once I was playing and there WAS a REALLY slow group 2 groups in front of us and they were causing a legit backup.  The group in front of us was playing quickly but were waiting on every tee box.  So at one PAR 3 a group of meatheads comes up to the tee box while we are still waiting to tee off.  They yell at the group on the green, "Hey let's EFFING GO A**HOLES!!!".  I should note that the group in front of us consisted of a dad and his 14 year old daughter (she was an excellent player by the way).  So these morons are cursing out a 14yo girl because they are annoyed by a backup, without even stopping to think if the people they are yelling at were the cause of the backup.  It's obnoxious and I guess people just suck sometimes.

[tatertot]

4 hours is a fine pace for you ... but you had holes open in front of you and held up the course behind you. 

 

Even you said ... you played behind a REALLY slow group ... anything slower than you is a "really" slow group. You knew you were slowing the group behind you down ... instead of slowing them down for more than 9 holes, you should have let them play through. Simple as that. Anything else is an excuse.

[shoot4par]

S*** I played in 5:15 behind a 3 ball and a foursome. There were at least 2 open holes in front of the threesome.  IF I got through every round in 4 hours, I'd be kissing the cart path.

[JWells]

My group had to quit on the 17th tee box after 5 hours of waiting on the group in front of us in 100 degree index heat.  Could we pass? No , the course over books which I did not know at the time and will never go back.  That being said, even with that. The group in front of us were playing disrespectfully slow. 
 

Edit: we did not say anything to them, it’s the marshals job to do that in a respectful manner 

Edited July 6, 2022 by JWells

[spinnywedge]

I agree that slow play complaints have gotten a bit out of hand. Not everyone is going to play 18 holes in 3 or 3.5 hours, and I don't expect them to. However, if there's room in front and a group is waiting on us, I'd give them the chance to play through when I could. Around me it's increasingly common to get days where there's 2-3 holes backed up with nowhere to go.

[goaliedad30]

If there were open holes in front of you, and you didn't allow a faster group to play through, then that was discourteous.

[4thand11]

They weren't faster than us, that is the point.   At a couple of points they were waiting on us to clear the green.  Had they been in front of us, we may have been waiting a few times on them to clear the green.  They were not any better players than the people in my own group. And it was only on a handful of holes where they even had to wait a tiny bit while we finished putting out.  You don't have to let a group play through the minute you have a hole where a player struggles, and they have to wait 30 extra seconds to hit their approach.

 

Letting faster groups play thorough is a courtesy, I agree.  But letting groups that play the same speed as you play thorough, because you happen to have open space in front of you, is nonsense.  There is nothing to be gained.  They will still finish in 4 hours and now you will occasionally be waiting on them.

 

Lighten up and enjoy the round.  If you expect to never have to wait even a minute, on a muni course, on a summer weekend, then you are living in a fantasy world.  In that case join a private club.

[4thand11]

26 minutes ago, tbrumbeloe13 said:

I agree that slow play complaints have gotten a bit out of hand. Not everyone is going to play 18 holes in 3 or 3.5 hours, and I don't expect them to. However, if there's room in front and a group is waiting on us, I'd give them the chance to play through when I could. Around me it's increasingly common to get days where there's 2-3 holes backed up with nowhere to go.

 

Agreed but they never even caught up to us at a Par 3 or at any tee box where we could wave them ahead.  They were complaining simply because they had to wait to hit their approach a couple of times in 9 holes, and because they saw room in front of us.

[toddbournes]

I agree it sounds like you were playing at a reasonable pace. However I don’t think slow play complaints have gotten out of hand. At least not here where I am in middle tn. Pace of play seems to be an issue almost every time I go out. 4 hours for 18 should be about max. Anything over that and you’re playing pretty slow. And as far as letting people play thru…usually on weekends when the course is full it actually creates more of a backup than it helps. If the group in front of you gains more than a hole you’re probably playing slow. If it’s a matter of pace just try to play ready golf and cut time where you can. If it’s a matter of skill either know when to pick up or spend more time at the driving range. 

[Inexorable_Fate]

The proper way to handle this is to let the smart mouthed group behind you play through.

 

 

Then hit into them on the next hole.

[golfer07840]

3 hours ago, 4thand11 said:

...I think are overdone.  That is not to say slow play is not an issue, or that it is not annoying.  But waiting in the fairway for a minute while the group in front of you clears the green, is not slow play.

 

For ex... last weekend I was playing as a single with a group of 3 people.  They were all very nice, and probably average golfers.  One was a senior who played fine but moved a little slower, one was a woman who was pretty good but did not hot the ball very far.  At any rate we were moving at what I consider a decent pace of 4 hours for 18.  The group ahead of us was a threesome and they were excellent golfers, I was watching smoe of their shots.  They played very quickly and got way out in front of us.

 

Anyway as I mentioned, we were going along fine and when we teed off on the 9th hole, the group behind us was on the 8th green and yelled "Hey how about picking the pace up?"  They may have been waiting for a minute here and there as we finished up putting, but at no point were they waiting on the tee box for us for an extended time, or did they ever catch up to us while we were teeing off.  I told them we were playing the front 9 in a 2-hour pace which is fine.  They said, "Hey buddy there's no one in front of you for an entire hole".  I said, "Who cares I don't control how fast they play".

 

My point is this: the obsession with slow play has gotten out of hand.  If you can play a round as a foursome in 4 hours, that is a fine pace.  Especially at a muni where players of all ages and abilities are playing.  If you have to wait 30 seconds to hit your approach shot, that is not an excuse to start yelling at the group in front of you. 

 

Also a related anecdote, once I was playing and there WAS a REALLY slow group 2 groups in front of us and they were causing a legit backup.  The group in front of us was playing quickly but were waiting on every tee box.  So at one PAR 3 a group of meatheads comes up to the tee box while we are still waiting to tee off.  They yell at the group on the green, "Hey let's EFFING GO A**HOLES!!!".  I should note that the group in front of us consisted of a dad and his 14 year old daughter (she was an excellent player by the way).  So these morons are cursing out a 14yo girl because they are annoyed by a backup, without even stopping to think if the people they are yelling at were the cause of the backup.  It's obnoxious and I guess people just suck sometimes.

 

Brave man for posting this. This is a place where 2 hours for 9 holes is absolutely unacceptable. 

 

If you can't walk and play 18 in less than 3 hours you're deemed "Slow" and are outcast to the lowly twilight tee sheet. 

 

At least that's the impression I get from a lot of folks here. 

 

So yes, I agree with you 100% about the complaining. 

 

On a side note, I've noticed in the last year, people have become much more impatient about EVERYTHING! 

[golfer07840]

2 hours ago, toddbournes said:

I agree it sounds like you were playing at a reasonable pace. However I don’t think slow play complaints have gotten out of hand. At least not here where I am in middle tn. Pace of play seems to be an issue almost every time I go out. 4 hours for 18 should be about max. Anything over that and you’re playing pretty slow. And as far as letting people play thru…usually on weekends when the course is full it actually creates more of a backup than it helps. If the group in front of you gains more than a hole you’re probably playing slow. If it’s a matter of pace just try to play ready golf and cut time where you can. If it’s a matter of skill either know when to pick up or spend more time at the driving range. 

 

All the courses where I play, here in NJ, all have on their scorecards 4.5 hours is pace of play. 

 

 

[NNJ]

On the one hand, the slow play complaints have got out of hand, on the other hand, behaviors which significantly slow the course down are still extremely apparent by many groups I’ve seen this year.

 

On July 4 (course full) we played behind a group that on one or two occasions waited until the group in front of them cleared the green before teeing off on non-drivable par 4s (400+ yards and there wasn’t a single good golfer in the group). After the green cleared, they would all sit on the tee box chatting and then they would hit (often having to leave the tee box to get the driver from the cart and bring it back to tee off). They also went to each players ball, and all four of them would chat then watch the guy hit, with each one having what seemed like a two minute pre-shot routine. They weren’t drinking and they all had $3000+ sets, so I’m not sure what was happening.

 

On holes with water, after their tee shots they would go with something like a 10-15 foot ball retriever to retrieve balls near where they landed (or went in) for a minute or two while we were standing on the tee box. The group behind us were players, so on certain approaches our group effectively had to walk up to the ball and immediately hit in order to keep the overall gaps on the course between us and those behind us sustainable.
 

in the end, our round clocked in around 4 and a half hours which isn’t actually the worst, but the slow play ruined the round in other ways -  We almost had to play differently. Two in our group could reach the short par 5s in two (and the zones around the green are friendly if you miss), but we didn’t go for it because by the time the green cleared the group behind us would have had to wait on the tee box for five to ten minutes as we were in their landing zone. So we laid up to keep the overall course’s  pace of play going because it seemed like the right thing to do. 
 

 

 

[2bGood]

4 hours ago, 4thand11 said:

For ex... last weekend I was playing as a single with a group of 3 people.  They were all very nice, and probably average golfers.  One was a senior who played fine but moved a little slower, one was a woman who was pretty good but did not hot the ball very far.  At any rate we were moving at what I consider a decent pace of 4 hours for 18.  The group ahead of us was a threesome and they were excellent golfers, I was watching smoe of their shots.  They played very quickly and got way out in front of us.

 

 

I guess I would say you don't decide what a decent pace is. Lots of courses have moved to posting what their max pace is and expected pace. I suspect most courses, most time of the day 4 hours is fine, but at our course first 2 hrs is 3:30 expected and 3:45 max. Over 3:45 and you will getting slow play warning with a suspension the next time.  Mind you later in the day it would 3:45 with 4hr max and even later it moves to 4 and 4:15. 

[ezpz]

Anyone who as been on a committee can probably tell you that most slowplay complaints boil down to "why cant I play through my round unhindered whenever I tee it up" these are the people who play in 3.5 hours and are livid when it takes 4 and god forbid it takes 4:15. That being said if courses are overbooking their property and don't have limits to group sizes and handicaps they are setting themselves up for disaster.

 

In your example I would just have let the group play through, they were close, quicker and it resolves any potentialy stressy situations.

[elsie451]

I usually play weekday mornings and walk at a leisurely pace with very few players ahead or behind me, and tend to finish in 3 hours or so. So when i play on the weekend or afternoons, any waiting feels like slow play, but i usually don't mind, except.... It drives me nuts when hackers are out there who seem to have it in their head that they are playing for their pga tour card.  Spending 5 minutes on every other hole looking for their tee shot that they hit out of bounds instead of just dropping, waiting for the player furthest away to hit instead of playing ready golf, and spending 2 minutes lining up their putt for qudruple bogey, and then marking it instead of putting out.

[dmay73]

People need to learn to play ready golf.  We aren't playing on the PGA tour.  My normal 4some plays in 3hr 15min.  We play ready golf and we all generally shoot in the upper 80's low 90's.  You can pick up if you are having a bad hole.  I hate it when I see people who have hit the ball 4 times and are still in the trees.  Pick up and move on.  If you are ready to hit when it is your turn you can play under 4 hours.  I hate going to Myrtle Beach and sit through 5 hr plus rounds.  You can play bad and fast.

[CaptainPat]

As a not so good golfer myself I'm pretty tolerant about the pace of play and am generally accommodating to requests to play through -- as long as there's room in front of me.  I do my best to maintain a reasonable pace, get to the ball, select a club and hit if the way ahead is clear, wash, rinse repeat, playing ready golf throughout. There are times I'd like to slow down a bit to spend more time perfecting my green reading skills, nevertheless I keep moving.  I do get irked when folks don't play ready golf which serves to exacerbate the situation on top of searching for lost balls, needing many shots to get to the green, and of course taking a long time to read the put, doing it all over again when they miss.

 

I find most at the courses I go to are reasonable people, they are courteous to you if you are to them.  Most of us understand that golfers have a range of ability have have found a way to amicably share the course.  

 

To the OP's point I haven't found slow play to be a huge issue IRL, no where near the issue that internet makes it out to be.  I think that the internet forums tend to amplify what statisticians call the tails of a distribution.  IOW good and bad are highlighted whereas the average is not, which can be misleading.  Of the rounds I've played last year and this, only one comes to mind where slow play was a big factor.  The course's fault as they let a fivesome (one of which as in elementary school) play -- at one point there were 3 parties stacked up on a tee box.

[golfer07840]

8 hours ago, NNJ said:

On the one hand, the slow play complaints have got out of hand, on the other hand, behaviors which significantly slow the course down are still extremely apparent by many groups I’ve seen this year.

 

On July 4 (course full) we played behind a group that on one or two occasions waited until the group in front of them cleared the green before teeing off on non-drivable par 4s (400+ yards and there wasn’t a single good golfer in the group). After the green cleared, they would all sit on the tee box chatting and then they would hit (often having to leave the tee box to get the driver from the cart and bring it back to tee off). They also went to each players ball, and all four of them would chat then watch the guy hit, with each one having what seemed like a two minute pre-shot routine. They weren’t drinking and they all had $3000+ sets, so I’m not sure what was happening.

 

On holes with water, after their tee shots they would go with something like a 10-15 foot ball retriever to retrieve balls near where they landed (or went in) for a minute or two while we were standing on the tee box. The group behind us were players, so on certain approaches our group effectively had to walk up to the ball and immediately hit in order to keep the overall gaps on the course between us and those behind us sustainable.
 

in the end, our round clocked in around 4 and a half hours which isn’t actually the worst, but the slow play ruined the round in other ways -  We almost had to play differently. Two in our group could reach the short par 5s in two (and the zones around the green are friendly if you miss), but we didn’t go for it because by the time the green cleared the group behind us would have had to wait on the tee box for five to ten minutes as we were in their landing zone. So we laid up to keep the overall course’s  pace of play going because it seemed like the right thing to do. 
 

 

 

Sounds like you got stuck behind 4 people who were just enjoying their holiday and were in no rush to get home. While I do think the cries for 3 hour rounds around here is a bit much, I agree, they were being way too casual and sounds like they couldn't have done a few things to keep it moving and cut off a good half hour from the round. 

[golfer07840]

8 hours ago, 2bGood said:

I guess I would say you don't decide what a decent pace is. Lots of courses have moved to posting what their max pace is and expected pace. I suspect most courses, most time of the day 4 hours is fine, but at our course first 2 hrs is 3:30 expected and 3:45 max. Over 3:45 and you will getting slow play warning with a suspension the next time.  Mind you later in the day it would 3:45 with 4hr max and even later it moves to 4 and 4:15. 

 

I'm genuinely curious, how is your course layed out? Are the tee boxes next to the previous holes greens? Are there far distances between holes? 

 

While I do think a lot of players don't actually know what ready golf is and how to play it, I think the way the course is layed out has aot to do with pace as well. 

[NNJ]

1 minute ago, golfer07840 said:

Sounds like you got stuck behind 4 people who were just enjoying their holiday and were in no rush to get home. While I do think the cries for 3 hour rounds around here is a bit much, I agree, they were being way too casual and sounds like they couldn't have done a few things to keep it moving and cut off a good half hour from the round. 

Could be, but it looked more like this was how they played each time they went out. I guess my point is, if I play a 4 or even 5 hour round because the course is slow all around, so be it, I’ll drink a few beers and roll with it. However if a single group is playing in a manner which messes up the flow and is way off the pace of everyone else, with the course open in front of them, and fast groups behind them, it can be frustrating. Especially when the course has clearly worked pretty hard to keep things moving on one of the busiest golf days of the year.

[2bGood]

1 minute ago, golfer07840 said:

 

I'm genuinely curious, how is your course layed out? Are the tee boxes next to the previous holes greens? Are there far distances between holes? 

 

While I do think a lot of players don't actually know what ready golf is and how to play it, I think the way the course is  out has aot to do with pace as well. 

Yes, it is a classic course (100 years old) and was designed to be walked, so tee's are close the greens with very few exceptions. It also not super long - max 6700, but most days you play it around 6500. 90% of everyone walks, and pace is important, with graduated pace requirements throughout the day. If you know you are going to play fast you go out later in the draw. 

[Mr. Bean]

13 hours ago, 4thand11 said:

Anyway as I mentioned, we were going along fine and when we teed off on the 9th hole, the group behind us was on the 8th green and yelled "Hey how about picking the pace up?"  They may have been waiting for a minute here and there as we finished up putting, but at no point were they waiting on the tee box for us for an extended time, or did they ever catch up to us while we were teeing off.  I told them we were playing the front 9 in a 2-hour pace which is fine.  They said, "Hey buddy there's no one in front of you for an entire hole".  I said, "Who cares I don't control how fast they play".

 

 

It is extremely simple:

- if there are empty holes in front of you, and

- you are holding back the group behind you, then....

 

You invite them to play through no matter how fast you are playing.

[golfer07840]

26 minutes ago, NNJ said:

Could be, but it looked more like this was how they played each time they went out. I guess my point is, if I play a 4 or even 5 hour round because the course is slow all around, so be it, I’ll drink a few beers and roll with it. However if a single group is playing in a manner which messes up the flow and is way off the pace of everyone else, with the course open in front of them, and fast groups behind them, it can be frustrating. Especially when the course has clearly worked pretty hard to keep things moving on one of the busiest golf days of the year.

I agree. 

[golfer07840]

25 minutes ago, 2bGood said:

Yes, it is a classic course (100 years old) and was designed to be walked, so tee's are close the greens with very few exceptions. It also not super long - max 6700, but most days you play it around 6500. 90% of everyone walks, and pace is important, with graduated pace requirements throughout the day. If you know you are going to play fast you go out later in the draw. 

 

So it isn't sprawled out like my home courses here? 

 

 

[2bGood]

16 minutes ago, golfer07840 said:

 

So it isn't sprawled out like my home courses here? 

 

 

 

No. I don't think any of the old courses were built like that. 

[Itsjustagame]

While I am absolutely in favor of letting people play through it seems all too often that the group who is in a hurry when they are behind you butchers the current hole when they try to play through. By the time they are done there is another group on the tee box and the problem just repeats.

If you are playing through you also have a responsibility to keep the pace up. 

 

 

[Mr. Bean]

15 minutes ago, Itsjustagame said:

While I am absolutely in favor of letting people play through it seems all too often that the group who is in a hurry when they are behind you butchers the current hole when they try to play through. By the time they are done there is another group on the tee box and the problem just repeats.

 

 

Yes, that may happen but the problem only repeats once there is at least one empty hole in front of you and that may take a while. Besides, nothing prevents your group from picking up pace in order to avoid that from happening...

[Double Mocha Man]

3 minutes ago, Mr. Bean said:

 

Yes, that may happen but the problem only repeats once there is at least one empty hole in front of you and that may take a while. Besides, nothing prevents your group from picking up pace in order to avoid that from happening...

 

I'm beating a dead divot here but most golfers don't know how to pick up the pace.  There are time-tested procedures involved, which most don't know about.  Walking faster rarely "picks up the pace".

[Mr. Bean]

1 minute ago, Double Mocha Man said:

 

I'm beating a dead divot here but most golfers don't know how to pick up the pace.  There are time-tested procedures involved, which most don't know about.  Walking faster rarely "picks up the pace".

 

You said it. Another skill one should learn. It is not that difficult if you just understand what you need to do. Most people do not understand.