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

[patricks148]

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!

i sort of see your point, but only for social golfers not playing comps.

in comps you want to be rewarded for good play ie hitting the fairway

Remember watching a mate play against a really long hitter in a scratch final. the club in question had cut most of the rough down and the big hitter just sprayed it everywhere , i only remember him hitting one fairway and that was with an iron. found his ball every time and in most cases had a great lie and was only hitting a wedge.

 

[Oddsocks]

Patrick, in your opinion should a ball be lost the minute it hits the semi rough?

I'm all for rewarding good shots with fairway lies / first cuts, but to me being able to 1) find it, 2) hack out with say a 8/7i should be punishing enough.

Missing a fairway by 15 foot should not be a lost ball, punish me yes, but that's just pointless

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Instead of penal rough I like trees and bushes that have the ground around them short. You find your ball but you don't have a clear shot. That works perfectly, penalty without slowing play. Not always possible obviously but courses with that type of set up seem to chug along very nicely in terms of pace of play. More money to spend in the club afterwards rather than having to replace a load of lost balls as well.

 

[MikeH]

long rough is something we covered in our big slow play feature/video series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcXHfsxCFYY

yep it does take extra resource/effort to keep it under control but benefits on pace of play/enjoyment are tangible

interestingly the GM team played up at the Belfry the other week and they cut all the rough right back to 1st cut length under trees on the Brabazon. meant ball hunting was quick, no one lost a ball unless they hit in the water and pace of play (even from mixed group of handicaps 3 to 23) was decent - 4hrs including a 1/2 way hut stop

didnt make the course any easier - best score in was 35 by me (which included a 2 at the 10th although I don't like to talk about it)

 

[Deleted Member 1156]

long rough is something we covered in our big slow play feature/video series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcXHfsxCFYY

yep it does take extra resource/effort to keep it under control but benefits on pace of play/enjoyment are tangible

interestingly the GM team played up at the Belfry the other week and they cut all the rough right back to 1st cut length under trees on the Brabazon. meant ball hunting was quick, no one lost a ball unless they hit in the water and pace of play (even from mixed group of handicaps 3 to 23) was decent - 4hrs including a 1/2 way hut stop

didnt make the course any easier - best score in was 35 by me (which included a 2 at the 10th although I don't like to talk about it)

Agree with what you say Mike, I played up there on Saturday with a couple of the forum lads and all the balls lost in our group were in the water apart from a wild OOB drive by Slasher Nash.

Talk us through this 2 on the 10th......thinned chip that hit the flag and dropped in?

 

[patricks148]

Patrick, in your opinion should a ball be lost the minute it hits the semi rough?

I'm all for rewarding good shots with fairway lies / first cuts, but to me being able to 1) find it, 2) hack out with say a 8/7i should be punishing enough.

Missing a fairway by 15 foot should not be a lost ball, punish me yes, but that's just pointless

Baz prob not, but expect you to be punished for missing the fairway with with a wedge out the rough at least.

Just not in favor of cutting everything back while there are comps on

 

[daverollo]

Great point Smiffy, I thought I'd mentioned it somewhere else, back in August last year

Their are many issues though that can affect slow play and one that I can't see that has been discussed is the course itself. Quite often I'll see holes that have long rough only 10-15 yards off the fairway, or the grass not strimmed back in the trees on holes. The main cause of slow play is folk looking for balls. These two areas are linked, the average golfer will spend more time off the fairway than on it, so makes sense to set the course up appropriately to encourage easy finding of balls and quicker play.

If if it means the scoring average drops by a shot or two what's the problem

 

[NorfolkShaun]

Mentioned this myself a month or so ago.

Our course is like this with thick deep rough just a few feet from the fairway. Nearly every time you go in it is a lost ball.

It looks a bloody mess and frankly just lazy from the green keepers wish they would just cut it properly.

 

[MikeH]

Agree with what you say Mike, I played up there on Saturday with a couple of the forum lads and all the balls lost in our group were in the water apart from a wild OOB drive by Slasher Nash.

Talk us through this 2 on the 10th......thinned chip that hit the flag and dropped in?

drive landed on the bridge or wooden bits fronting green (my eyesight isnt great) went right to back of the green, flag at front. boxed a 70 odd foot putt

I'd birdied 9, then par at 11 and birdied 12

considered turning pro at that point... then the wheels came off!

as I say don't like to talk about it much

 

[Oddsocks]

Baz prob not, but expect you to be punished for missing the fairway with with a wedge out the rough at least.

Just not in favor of cutting everything back while there are comps on

I agree.

Got to be honest in saying if our course continue to grow the rough/non maintain it I may not be there next year.

Went a ball bumbles 6inchs out of the first cut its almost sure to be a lost ball and it's just not fun. Give me a parkland course where i can take my punishment but still find my ball...... I'm bored of 430/500 hour rounds when setting off at 7.30am

 

[fundy]

Baz prob not, but expect you to be punished for missing the fairway with with a wedge out the rough at least.

Just not in favor of cutting everything back while there are comps on

missing a fairway by 15 ft and only get a wedge at it, cant say id be rushing to play a course like that week in and week out!!!!

far too many courses end up using overly penal rough to compensate for the course design. Far better imo adding some more hazards (trees/bunkers/water etc) and keeping the rough much shorter, at least until way off line

 

[Smiffy]

The other member I played with yesterday commented that he had been up to Wentworth last week and walked "most" of the course.
He said that nowhere on the course did he see rough as bad as ours.
Just goes to show you how pampered pro's are.

 

[Deleted member 1147]

I left a club because the rough was daft, knee length just a couple of metres off the fairway.
I was told by the chairman, in response to a letter of complaint, that his job as chairman wasn't to keep the members happy. Well he succeeded in that and quite a few of us left.

We don't hit all the fairways, even the Pros don't, but we don't have fans, TV and spotters out on course to help locate errant shots. So we lose balls and get frustrated, and consider our options (something clubs need to remember).

Shorter rough in the trees should allow people to find the ball and hack out sideways if blocked out, or take a risk/reward shot through or over trees.

If people score well because of the rough being down the CSS should go down accordingly.

 

[Radbourne2010]

Good point, well made. I played at a Crown Golf venue at Chesfield Downs yesterday. GM did an article on them a few years back when they introduced a clock system on every fourth tee to advise of where they should be in relation to their start time (see attached). Very innovative & visual way to nudge people in the right direction regardless of how they're playing.

Of note was the fact their rough was light so the ball could be found but punishing so you struggled to reach the green which should be the penalty for missing the fairway by 15 yards. Certainly slowing greens down & cutting rough back is a much more sensible option for most ordinary club golfers to enjoy their game along with not playing off the back tees every time :thup:

 

[HowlingGale]

Completely agree. We played the Carrick at Loch Lomond yesterday and it took us 5 hours. The main reason was that if you were 2 ft off the fairway your ball was gone. Very little first-cut. Straight into foot-high rough. Nightmare!

I lost about a dozen balls, had my lowest stableford score in years and my putting was atrocious. But I really enjoyed it.

 

[shewy]

Played 9 at ours today and agree played very nicely for me level in 6 and 3 over for 9 holes, but every time I slightly missed the fairway I was 2/3 minutes looking for it and it wasn't more than 1/2 ft in the rough, completely covering the ball. The 4 ball in front of me who kindly let me through were ages in the rough, I found 2 of there balls barely off the fairway while playing though, barely visable.

 

[Smiffy]

I haven't received a reply from the Secretary as yet....

 

[ruff-driver]

I haven't received a reply from the Secretary as yet....

Patience robert, it's a 2 day course to get a ride on mower ticket

 

[TonyN]

Most annoyingly, the rough under our trees is getting out of hand. The trees are such, that 9/10 times you have to come out sideways, sometimes to the wrong fairway.

Double penalty is frustrating. If I miss and find the trees, i want to be able to find my ball and then not have to play a gripped down punch lobwedge to get out 20 yards left.

 

[Smiffy]

Well, 9 days later and I still haven't heard from the Secretary, not even an acknowledgment of my email.