Order of Play

[golowgolf801]

I played in a tournament over the weekend and played with two high school kids both on their schools team. I assumed they would understand order of play but for some reason they always went first. Triple to my birdie or par and they always went first on box. Im all in favor of ready golf but typically you find it has been agreed upon with the group first. I didn’t make it an issue but curious if this is common amongst younger golfers these days? Anyone else experienced this in competitive amateur events?

[Hawkeye77]

I think you'll find a thread a few down with a lot of comments/input.  

 

Sounds like a stroke play event and a competition, so although as far as I'm concerned it's bad form, they didn't violate a rule.  

 

Sounds like you took it in stride so kudos for that.

[Augster]

Be ready when it’s your turn to hit. 

[rogolf]

Just now, Augster said:

Be ready when it’s your turn to hit. 

Apparently "turn to hit" is irrelevant!

[Augster]

14 hours ago, rogolf said:

Apparently "turn to hit" is irrelevant!

If he was ready, they wouldn’t be jumping the box on him. I’ve never had someone jump the box on me when I’m addressing my ball on the tee box. 
 

Apparently there was plenty of time to get ready and hit as that is what happened. The OP is a slow player. The actions of others in his group is what this should be telling him. 

[jlbos83]

5 minutes ago, Augster said:

If he was ready, they wouldn’t be jumping the box on him. I’ve never had someone jump the box on me when I’m addressing my ball on the tee box. 
 

Apparently there was plenty of time to get ready and hit as that is what happened. The OP is a slow player. The actions of others in his group is what this should be telling him. 

That's how it sounds to me.  If they are getting to the tee box first, and he isn't there and ready, why shouldn't they go?  Of course none of us were there to see how it actually went.

 

[shankasaurus rex]

1 hour ago, Augster said:

If he was ready, they wouldn’t be jumping the box on him. I’ve never had someone jump the box on me when I’m addressing my ball on the tee box. 
 

Apparently there was plenty of time to get ready and hit as that is what happened. The OP is a slow player. The actions of others in his group is what this should be telling him. 

You're making some pretty broad assumptions based on the information provided.

 

Regardless, ready golf doesn't mean you have to race your group to the tee. And, as OP mentioned, it's typically discussed, especially in a tournament. 

 

Sounds like they weren't playing very well. Hard to say for sure, but maybe calming the eff down would've helped a bit. Nobody wants to go home from a tournament and say "well, I shot a 114, but we got done in 2 hours and 36 minutes." 😅

[Hawkeye77]

Yep, no reason for the assumptions and reflex jumping on the OP - ready golf is fine but it's not an end in itself and pretty clear there was no reason to assume he was dilly dallying about.

[ChrisATL]

Yea, sounds like just crossed wires to me - I always leans towards ready golf unless its a competition.  Glad to hear you took it in stride!

[Locked]

Sounds like I'd like playing with those kids.  Play bad fast!

 

I will say with my kids golf programs like PGA junior league they (at least here in LA) are much more worried about teaching kids to keep the game moving than they are about order of play.  So my guess is its just never been emphasized with them and like others said, depending on format of the game they may have been perfectly within the rules.  

[charli]

im a tee box bandit. I’ll take it every single time 

[naval2006]

On 2/4/2024 at 8:36 PM, golowgolf801 said:

I played in a tournament over the weekend and played with two high school kids both on their schools team. I assumed they would understand order of play but for some reason they always went first. Triple to my birdie or par and they always went first on box. Im all in favor of ready golf but typically you find it has been agreed upon with the group first. I didn’t make it an issue but curious if this is common amongst younger golfers these days? Anyone else experienced this in competitive amateur events?

Ignorance or good ol’ lack of style

[SNIPERBBB]

Around here, HS golf encourages players to move to the next tee as soon as they get done on the greens. So if you have a short birdie putts but had to wait for them to tap in their doubles, youll never get on the box fast enough.

[JohnB92]

10 hours ago, SNIPERBBB said:

Around here, HS golf encourages players to move to the next tee as soon as they get done on the greens. So if you have a short birdie putts but had to wait for them to tap in their doubles, youll never get on the box fast enough.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case. Most HS golf teams are getting to use club facilities for free (at least to the students) and occasionally club members will complain about "getting stuck behind those day HS kids, couldn't finish my quick 9 holes before dark on my way home from work. If they are gonna be here using all our stuff, taking up range and putting green space, the least they can do is be quick about it". 

That's not to mention that when I played HS golf the season started when it still got dark at 5:30pm and we got out of school at 3:30. Everyone learned to go quick so you could finish as many holes as possible for the first month or so.

More than likely it's just a cultural thing that in any other context wouldn't be an issue. It's only in organized tournaments where people care about tee order. 

[golowgolf801]

I’m actually a fast player and have no issue with ready golf. I was always ready  to hit and in some cases we had 3 groups waiting on a par three and despite that they always just went first. I may be older but I’ve still always followed basic etiquette in competitive events. Of course took in stride and as shankasauras mentioned above i can confirm they did have the highest scores of the group. 

[SNIPERBBB]

3 hours ago, JohnB92 said:

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case. Most HS golf teams are getting to use club facilities for free (at least to the students) and occasionally club members will complain about "getting stuck behind those day HS kids, couldn't finish my quick 9 holes before dark on my way home from work. If they are gonna be here using all our stuff, taking up range and putting green space, the least they can do is be quick about it". 

That's not to mention that when I played HS golf the season started when it still got dark at 5:30pm and we got out of school at 3:30. Everyone learned to go quick so you could finish as many holes as possible for the first month or so.

More than likely it's just a cultural thing that in any other context wouldn't be an issue. It's only in organized tournaments where people care about tee order. 

officiated a HS sectional tournament at my home course last year and if the kids played honors, instead of an 7hr round for the last group, it would of been closer to 9.

[JohnB92]

8 hours ago, SNIPERBBB said:

officiated a HS sectional tournament at my home course last year and if the kids played honors, instead of an 7hr round for the last group, it would of been closer to 9.

LOL I 100% believe that. I played in a couple of those 7 hr rounds myself. When I played the setup was 6 kids played, top 4 scores taken. Every year in our Regional Tournament there were 4 or 5 teams (of 9 or 10) who had only a single player post a score below 90. The top two teams (who advanced to State) always posted 4 scores in the 70s. It's kind of difficult because what do you do? Is it fair to tell those kids they don't even get a chance to play? When I was 15 or 16, I would have probably been ok with it. As an adult I'm a lot more understanding of the view that it's important to let those kids just have the experience. 

Do you know of any HS tournaments that do things like put in 10 shots or 3 penalty maxes per hole or anything like that? I do wonder if it would speed things up. If you hit 3 balls in the water or OB, you're probably not making less than 10 anyways. Those Par 3s or approach shots over water, or holes with hazards/OB on the right were always brutal on some kids. At some point it feels like you gotta accept that its more important for the kids who won't break 120 to play in 5 hours than to putt every ball out on every hole.

Golf is just a weird game in that it's probably the only game where skill level can affect how long the game takes. In any other game a huge skill difference just leads to a blowout that ends quickly (tennis) or the clock gets run out. 

[SNIPERBBB]

I think most players were just guilted into playing so the school could have a team .. 

 

From what I was told, the actual max score per hole during the regular season was 8. The tournament was 12.

[rogolf]

Switch to Stableford scoring.

[Augster]

My son plays D3 college golf and they have a 10-shot max. 

[JohnB92]

5 hours ago, SNIPERBBB said:

I think most players were just guilted into playing so the school could have a team .. 

 

From what I was told, the actual max score per hole during the regular season was 8. The tournament was 12.

 

Ahh yea, I saw that happen with the girls' team or at small schools a few times. Usually there's a coach who wants to play free golf and he needs a team to get the free golf (aka "practice").

 

2 hours ago, Augster said:

My son plays D3 college golf and they have a 10-shot max. 

That D3 rule sounds reasonable in almost all cases. The only environments that shouldn't have a 10-shot max are those where it wouldn't ever be used anyways.

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Augster said:

My son plays D3 college golf and they have a 10-shot max. 

 

To be clear that's not the case across Division III. We've never had a tournament with a stroke limit.

[ChipNRun]

OP didn't give much info to tell what was actually going on.

 

In a scramble, team often decides a rotation for tee shots: often it goes safety guy, OK guy, A player, OK guy.

 

If safety guy puts ball into play, the other three can be pretty aggressive on their tee shots.

[antip]

In club competition golf (stroke play, mostly Stableford), I'm always happy to run with order of play from the Rule book if that is what folk want - on one proviso - the player up needs to get up there and launch their stroke routine, not faff around making others wait, marking a card/scoring, cleaning their clubs, consulting their map of the hole etc, etc. If they are doing that, I'm going to step up and proceed. Match play, of course, is different. In this part of the world, fortunately, ready golf from the tee is well entrenched - but there is a hardened minority of dilettantes.

[Hawkeye77]

7 hours ago, ChipNRun said:

OP didn't give much info to tell what was actually going on.

 

In a scramble, team often decides a rotation for tee shots: often it goes safety guy, OK guy, A player, OK guy.

 

If safety guy puts ball into play, the other three can be pretty aggressive on their tee shots.

He said it was a tournament and described stroke play - I don’t play in hardly any scrambles any more and yep, there is some element of strategy  - just me, but I left that to those interested in strategizing a long time ago and just went with the flow - for some the strategy was out the window by the second shot and 6th beer, lol. 

[Imp]

On 2/15/2024 at 9:25 PM, golowgolf801 said:

I’m actually a fast player and have no issue with ready golf.

If I had a buck every time my slow playing friends said that. When I'm not in their group, but a different group playing in league, they're usually a hole behind by the 5th hole. One of him HATES waiting and he takes his foot off the gas (aka, overly deliberate) to give breathing room to the group in front, so he/his group, and always walk up to their ball and go, instead of going up and waiting. Meanwhile, while everything was play, pause, play, pause, in all groups, group(s) behind them, now it's 2 groups (theirs and the group behind) on the tee...  and they get to "play play play and the group behind is WAITWAITWAIT, play pause play pause play to green. 

Very same guys can't see what they're doing, much like the prius in the left lane doing the speed limit saying "traffics not bad this morning! no one in front of me" (because they don't care about the mile long traffic behind them.

Comments they've had to justify it... "You/they play too fast in front of us". "I play too fast when playing with them and they feel rushed", and my favorite, "we were playing to the expected course pace".

Edited February 28 by Imp

[alittleoverpar]

I'm guessing it was probably just lack of knowledge on their part.  I'm sure they are encouraged to play ready golf.  I doubt they were ignoring the courtesy, probably just not aware of it or it wasn't front of mind for them.  Most young players that I play with are polite and are generally not the ones holding up play.

 

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I asked my son after seeing this while I was taking him to school. He's a sophomore on the HS JV team. He said that they're basically encouraged to play ready golf and that especially at this early portion of the season, need to be quick to ensure they can finish the rounds before dark. 

 

So it doesn't seem like order of play is really taught at that level. 

[rogolf]

13 minutes ago, betarhoalphadelta said:

I asked my son after seeing this while I was taking him to school. He's a sophomore on the HS JV team. He said that they're basically encouraged to play ready golf and that especially at this early portion of the season, need to be quick to ensure they can finish the rounds before dark. 

 

So it doesn't seem like order of play is really taught at that level. 

Are other Rules and etiquette taught at that level?

[betarhoalphadelta]

53 minutes ago, rogolf said:

Are other Rules and etiquette taught at that level?

 

I don't know how much is actively "taught". I know they're expected to follow the RoG but beyond some of the very basics I don't think even the classroom portion of the class is spending a lot of time on rules and interpretations. 

 

I think for a lot of the kids, they've learned the etiquette they've learned the way many of us did--from our parents. And for about half the team (not my son), they're part of families who are members of private clubs, so they've been around golf a long time before they stepped foot on the HS campus. But I know that I was teaching my son golf etiquette from the first time we started playing on little par 3 pitch & putt courses. That said--I've also always played ready golf. Order of play for us in typical muni casual games hasn't ever been a point of contention.