Slow play. It's finally dawned on me.......

[Smiffy]

Played in the Mens Invitation at Cooden yesterday, lovely day weather wise and the course, with regards tees, fairways and greens was in immaculate condition.
But the rough (and semi)!!
For some reason it has been allowed to grow "stupidly" thick and seems totally out of character with the rest of the course.
Our fourball, which was the 1st out off the 14th, got round in just over 4 hours. Not excessively long by any stretch of the imagination.
But at least 15-20 minutes was spent searching for balls that had literally missed the fairways by no more than 3 or 4 feet.
On two occasions the full 5 minutes searching time was taken up looking for balls that should have been found more or less straight away!
And if you do find your ball, it is sitting down so deep in the rough that you are literally hacking out. It's worse than playing out of thick heather!!
Now I know that a course has to have it's defences, that's why we have OOB, hazards, bunkers etc.
But to have to spend 20 minutes of a round looking for balls that you should be able to walk straight to is a bit of a joke.
Only two weeks ago I hit what I thought was a lovely drive down the right hand side of our 10th fairway. It just rolled into the "semi" by a few yards.
I spent 5 minutes looking for the bloody thing, ended up calling the following group through, and then proceeded to blob the hole because I still couldn't find my ball!
After receiving a second email from the club last week regarding the curse of slow play, I felt that I had to respond to it and emailed the secretary this morning about the state of the rough.
I know the secretary's office is not the proper "channel" to complain about the condition of the course, but the website does not have an email address for the chairman of the greens committee, and I wouldn't have a clue who he is anyway!
I hope I don't get kicked out.

 

[Imurg]

I think you're right.
Our rough is getting silly too. Fragger lost a ball on Friday in an area of about 3m X 2m because the grass was so deep.
It does slow things down
It's especially bad where the rough is out of sight from the tee
We have a couple of hedges that we go over and on one side the rough is manic. If you slice off the tee you can't see the ball finish - you're looking blind and more often than not you lose the ball.
I'm not saying cut it all down to 1st cut length but at least be able to find your ball...I'm out there to play golf, not spend 1\2 an hour wading through thigh high grass

And to those who say " hit it straighter" - yeah, we'd all love to but we all hit bad shots.

 

[HawkeyeMS]

There is a lot to be said for sensible rough. Losing a ball 3 or 4 feet off the fairway shouldn't happen. If you miss fairways you should punished in that the rough should be thick enough to cause you a problem but not lose the ball

Our rough isn't too bad at the moment (at least it didn't look to bad from the middle e of the fairway ). It is thick and long in places but you have to hit a bad shot to be in it. The problem is you still get people moaning about it. As someone who tends to be fairly straight off the tee I think that straight hitting should be rewarded but there needs to be some common sense involved.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

It's happening at a lot of clubs and it's not being done on purpose but at the moment a symptom of extremely good growing conditions

Because of the amount of rain we have all had all that moisture is sat there and when the hear arrives the grass is growing at massive rates and when the greenkeepers cut it , it's just growing back and thicker - it's hard right now to keep on top of it and get it to the level where is punishing but you are still able to find your ball but the greenkeepers will be concentrating on the greens and fairways

Give it a couple weeks and it will have calmed down a bit

Being three feet of the fairway and loosing the ball is a bit daft so hopefully they will get that cut because you should have about 4 feet of first cut then about 10 feet of second cut where you should find your ball - anything more and you are in rough

 

[chrisd]

Ours is not stupid long but certainly long enough to add a fair bit of searching time to a round. If and when the ball is found its almost impossible to move it any distance as it's thick grass and grabs the clubhead. I do just wonder if it's growing at a rate that they struggle to keep up with the amount of mowing, or, if they think it should be like that

 

[Smiffy]

Ours is stupid thick, thicker than I've ever known it. Bearing in mind the club has quite a high percentage of elderly members who are lacking a little in wrist strength, I can imagine quite a few are struggling with putting a decent score together. Guy we played with yesterday was a 9 handicapper, big lad (apparently he has been down to 3 before now), and even he was struggling trying to get any distance at all out of the rough. I can understand it if you are miles off line with your drive, you deserve to be penalised, but I don't consider a drive that misses the fairway by 3 or 4 feet to be a bad one.

 

[SteveJay]

Can relate to this too. Played my first handicap cards submission round yesterday and lost 3 balls that we saw land, just off the fairway but never found. So frustrating. That was a significant contribution to a disappointing +26. Was my first foray off the whites though !

Hoping for better later this week as it is being cut, though will no doubt grow quickly again as stated above.

 

[HomerJSimpson]

Think you are bang on Smiffy. At my club we now have fairway and then a line of so called semi-rough which is four or five inches long and the ball sinks to the bottom which means it's not always found straight away even when you are a foot or so off the fairway.

A lot of members are asking why there isn't an intermediate cut first, a few inches deep to make a difference without making it hard to move the ball to be found and then moved forward. We've new machinery arriving next week so hoping the new mowers can do this. I'm all for penal rough, especially deep stuff way off line where you deserve to be hitting three off the tee if you go in it, but you shouldn't be spending time search in two feet off the fairway

 

[Slab]

Often wondered how much the available manpower/equipment has to play when it gets like this

I'm sure there's daily/weekly tasks that need to be done anytime and at certain times of the year the frequency of cutting the rough will increase and it cant be a quick job to do a whole course (maybe a bit like painting the Forth bridge) so maybe there just isn't the manpower available to increase the frequency to maintain 1st cut rough length

How many green-staff is a typical number at a course?

 

[Imurg]

It's deliberately left long at AP....it's considered a defence for the course.
The Greenkeepers have time to cut it - often see them mowing grass on the far side of the car park that is never used

 

[Capella]

At our course the problem is not so much the length of the rough (it is not even that long), but the fact that it has so much clover in it. That stuff just swallows golf balls alive and burries them never to be found again. And since it does not look that long and bad from a distance, you don't even consider hitting a provisional after it, because you are sure you are gonna find your ball. It is annoying. On the other hand, we have quite a few holes where the rough serves as a welcome barrier, preventing your balls from rolling and skipping oob or into a hazard in places, so I don't think I want the greenkeepers to mow it too short.

 

[bladeplayer]

Out watching a club match yesterday and we were cutting across to different points on the course to see bits of the 4 matches & the comments re the rough and slow play came up , as per Mike below , short coarse rough is the trick IMO , find your ball but u have to take a more lofted club & get back in play , alota moans & groans in our place at present , some good work being done but some of what we have is been neglected as a result ..

There is a lot to be said for sensible rough. Losing a ball 3 or 4 feet off the fairway shouldn't happen. If you miss fairways you should punished in that the rough should be thick enough to cause you a problem but not lose the ball

I think that straight hitting should be rewarded but there needs to be some common sense involved.

 

[Tashyboy]

Spoke to our head green keeper last week and told him that the course looked lovely. His response was that " at the moment it is a %*.$^!~ pita grass factory". Said they are spending all day keeping the fairways to a height that should not be first cut, first cuts to first cut and rough that's findable and playable. other jobs they were hoping to do now are at the back of the line.
Lazy sod, always excuses.

 

[Oddsocks]

Our is the same rob, 10-15ft of first cut then 6-10 inches of thick clumpy crap about 20-30ft wide On every hole. Not to bad some may say but being a downs based course that's exposed to a lot of wind, it's very easy to miss fairways by 5-10 feet - cue slow play city!

We were a 4 ball 2 weeks ago, we got around in 4 1/2 hours but easily spend 30-45 mins looking for balls.

I don't see why semi round can be cut 4-5 inches max at s consistent length

 

[Foxholer]

It's happening at a lot of clubs and it's not being done on purpose but at the moment a symptom of extremely good growing conditions

Because of the amount of rain we have all had all that moisture is sat there and when the hear arrives the grass is growing at massive rates and when the greenkeepers cut it , it's just growing back and thicker - it's hard right now to keep on top of it and get it to the level where is punishing but you are still able to find your ball but the greenkeepers will be concentrating on the greens and fairways

Give it a couple weeks and it will have calmed down a bit
...

Happens every year at around this time (it's a little late this year I think)! The conditions that are making greens rather great are also making the rough severe! Greenkeepers just haven't the resources to do justice to both, so they (rightly imo) concentrate on Greens and Fairways and try to catch up with the growth spurt as best as they can!

 

[patricks148]

a can see that this slows down comps, but at ours its the same culprits that are slow regardless of the rough.

it does have an effect on the visitors, afternoon golf for the next few months is a no no. place will be packed with visiting 4 balls with caddies spraying it to all parts and taking 5 hours to get round.

good for finding Prov 1 s though

 

[ScienceBoy]

Why does a course need a defence like stupid rough against weekend golfers and casual members? Cut the rough and stop using a silly excuse.

Cut rough under trees, give a decent first cut of rough and let us hit our ball, find it and hit it again!

 

[chrisd]

Why does a course need a defence like stupid rough against weekend golfers and casual members? Cut the rough and stop using a silly excuse.

Cut rough under trees, give a decent first cut of rough and let us hit our ball, find it and hit it again!

Agreed! I think that's what the R & A are saying with the new pace of play recommendations too

 

[rksquire]

I think you're right.
Our rough is getting silly too..........
I'm not saying cut it all down to 1st cut length but at least be able to find your ball...I'm out there to play golf, not spend 1\2 an hour wading through thigh high grass

And to those who say " hit it straighter" - yeah, we'd all love to but we all hit bad shots.

Played a match yesterday, oppo hits a fade, perfect for the hole as it doglegs rights, ball lands centre of the fairway, bounces forward right and then because the fairway slopes up to the right the ball starts to roll left. It was a good drive, but 5 mins later the search is abandoned as the rock hard hard fairway slopes straight to 2ft high rough. Killed his round to be honest, seems the only way to stay on that hole was to flirt with the OOB right off the tee.

 

[Lord Tyrion]

I've donated a good number of balls to the rough at my course this year. At the moment it is so dense that if you do not find your ball within 30 seconds you may as well give up. Thankfully I am only playing social golf but with a card in your hand it would be crippling.