A GOOD pace of play story

larrybud · August 4, 2008

Playing one of top notch courses in my area yesterday, The Orchards. We had a 10:50 tee time, and the starter was going to let us off early. He emphasized pace of play (telling us no more than 14 min / hole, etc), and as we were waiting to tee off, he let the group making the turn know where they stood (5 minutes behind).

We played 36 holes in 8 hours, which is awesome for a Sunday afternoon! They also had a good replay rate of $30 and the course was in great shape.

They also did some things which help pace... The tees were a bit forward, and there were no tricked out pin positions. Rangers were visible and active. They checked our pace a couple of times during the round, and we were praised for being so far ahead of time.

777twist · August 4, 2008

Playing one of top notch courses in my area yesterday, The Orchards. We had a 10:50 tee time, and the starter was going to let us off early. He emphasized pace of play (telling us no more than 14 min / hole, etc), and as we were waiting to tee off, he let the group making the turn know where they stood (5 minutes behind).

We played 36 holes in 8 hours, which is awesome for a Sunday afternoon! They also had a good replay rate of $30 and the course was in great shape.

They also did some things which help pace... The tees were a bit forward, and there were no tricked out pin positions. Rangers were visible and active. They checked our pace a couple of times during the round, and we were praised for being so far ahead of time.

hehehe, so I guess you are saying to fix the pace of play problem, they just need to make the courses easier? Hehe, man one of my buddies I play with would be on board with that. He always complains when the rough is too rough, the pins are too tough or the green is too fast. I always say "isn't that part of the challenge?" and he always says, "not that challenging!" which reminds me of Jerry asking Kramer about his hot coffee incident... "isn't coffee supposed to be hot"... Kramer replies, "not that hot."

I said in another thread that the course conditions have A LOT to do with how long a round takes.

larrybud · August 4, 2008

While the course could have been set up a little harder for the blue tees, it was still set up within each blue tee box. And no pins were set on any ridiculous slopes. I give credit to the rangers and management to make both rounds move so smoothly.

golfortennis · August 5, 2008

That's funny you say that about the Orchards. We had the opposite experience after playing Shepherd's Hollow in the morning. I had made a tee time for probably a hal hour later than I needed to since we weren't sure how long it would take. We got to the Orchards and everyone was great. The starter had said we could go any time, since the tee sheet was open for the 25 minutes until our time. We decided to hit a few balls since we had been in the car for a good 45 minutes. Unbeknownst to us, a foursome had teed off, and then a twosome of young kids.

So we teed off and came up to #2, had no idea the kids were teeing off 30 yards to our left on the golds. We were heading to the cart and they came around. They asked if we wanted to join, but my buddy just wanted to stay back. I think the kids intimidated him a little bit. So we let them go, and get to three, and we are waiting. A twosome of walkers(wish we'd have known they allowed walking) came up behin us. Asked if they wanted to join, but the other guy "was a bit of a loner" and so they would hang back.

I lost a ball from the fairway on 3, so since we weren't going anywhere and we were in a cart I went back to rehit. I told the other guys to go ahead and hit as well, and I would just go on ahead. They a) didn't want to do that, and b)I ink they got a little pissed, but we did not hold play up at all. We waited on the next tee. anyway, it was like this all day, but I don't know if they knew the foursome was infront of us. they had let the kids play through, but were not doing it for us, so we just hung back.

On 16, the long par 5, the walkers almost hit into us, and while we were on the green, the one guy was laying down on the fairway. I looked at my watch, we were at 4:10 coming off 16. 17 and 18 did not go much quicker.

I do recall making the comment that the pincutter had not gotten any action the previous night, and there was a good bit of space in front of the foursome. Barey ever saw a marshal.

Having said that, my buddy and I both enjoyed the Orchards so much we will replay the two courses(SH is always played when I go over) as opposed to trying out a different course. I think it was more of a freak foursome as opposed to a problem with the course.