Slow play

[Jigger]

Comps average about 4hrs on my course and is usually 15mins one way or another. With nobody in front of us we would average around 3:30 in a friendly knock so I don’t think 4hrs is bad.

However…… I also play in a winter league with a few slow players (walking ability) and have been behind plenty of societies and they take on average 30mins longer for the slow ones.

It can disrupt your usual rhythm but but in the grand scheme of things it isn’t that bad and you can usually adjust when behind a society.

At club level I’m of the opinion that slow play is largely the perception of the impatient by a good 75%+ of the time. Had this in an open. We had a group of non members shouting at us on hole 4 for loosing a hole and we explained that we lost ground due to someone playing out of a bunker on our fairway so by the time he raked it and everything we’d lost ground. We’d caught up 2 holes later and the member we were playing with was saying we’re actually ahead of time.

In the end of the day, if you can’t allow yourself 4hrs to play our course with some added contingency then you need to look at playing 9 holes.

 

[RichA]

Oh joy. Just a few weeks until we return to the misery of mark, pick, walk over to trolley, clean ball with towel, return to marker, place ball, return to trolley, select club...
GET ON WITH IT!

 

[Teebs]

4 hours for a 3 ball in a comp is about right.

My record for a solo 18 holes is just a shade under 3 hours, so an extra hour for 2 additional people including scoring is ok.

I do hate playing with really fast players in comps, puts me right off my game..

Playing in a 4BBB at the weekend so it'll be interesting how long that takes.

 

[Swango1980]

At my old course, which is pretty short, competition rounds were almost always over 4 hours, and you'd be lucky to finish in under four and a half hours.

At my new course, a bit longer, almost all competition rounds are under 4 hours. Of course, there are sometimes exceptions, but nothing drastically longer than that.

Perhaps there are a couple of main reasons. My new club is a bit more higher profile, the last was more a beginners course. I'm not sure if this means there were a few too many players at the last club that were less bothered about the etiquette of not holding others up, whereas more golfers at my current place seem to want to play much more promptly. Also, and maybe a bigger issue, is that if you missed a fairway at my last club, you could be in the hedges bordering many of those fairways. And if over the hedge, you were in the jungle. That causes a lot of searching time. My new club is also tight and considered a pretty difficult course, but it is still much easier to find the ball off the fairway, it just means you have a shot to get out of the trees.

 

[Backsticks]

"People should just speed up and play quickly like I do."
"Just stop faffing around and delaying."
"If people played faster there would be no problem"
etc.

This is just old man shouting at cloud stuff.
Its just a moan, not a solution.
Time-to-here signs, notices on the board, round in circles discussions on the topic at AGMs. These have been going on for decades. Time to play a round has not decreased in anyway. Definition of insanity, etc.

Something different is required if people truly want less time on the course. Stop doing stuff that takes time is a real action. But most are still stuck in a "my stuff takes no time, everyone else should just speed up", and dont actually want faster rounds. They prefer to keep doing the extra stuff that adds half an out to a fourball. Accept action, or stop complaining and blaming everyone else.

 

[Imurg]

How fast do you want to go..?

 

[Mandofred]

How fast do you want to go..?

4 hrs

 

[Imurg]

4 hrs

As a 4 ball in a comp?
All our comps are 3 ball only and we get round in just under 4 hrs.
Social 3 ball is 3 1/2.
Any faster and we'd be running..

 

[Mandofred]

As a 4 ball in a comp?
All our comps are 3 ball only and we get round in just under 4 hrs.
Social 3 ball is 3 1/2.
Any faster and we'd be running..

I find I can live with 4 hrs. As a 2 ball?.....a bit faster. 3 or 4 ball, the waits are liveable at 4 hrs.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

There should imo never be a figure that people must go round the course because there are multiple variables - course length , walk between holes , par 3 early , size of group , competition or social , strokeplay or matchplay

Imo the pace of play should be simple

Keep up with the group in front of you , if you can’t keep up then let the group behind through if you are holding people up

Ensure the group behind you are not waiting in every shot for you

Follow ready golf

Put your trolley in the right place , mark your card at the right time , sort out your distance and shot selection whilst someone else is playing, dont all go searching for the one ball and finally use common sense

If everyone followed the same principles then people will go around the golf course in a time that’s suitable for that day

Unfortunately each club has those very small minority of people who are unaware of others on the course and will cause issues - we have a group that play behind us by the end of the round they have prob lost anywhere between 30 and 40 mins from our last group and cause issues behind with the rest of the field , these are the sort of people that won’t let singles or matchplay through and every Friday they always hold up groups because in their eyes “ we are only doing 9”

 

[IanM]

You can spot the slow players from their comments on this thread!

 

[Backsticks]

There is nothing wrong in itself, taking 30 or 40 minutes longer than another group. What is inexcusable in that scenario is not letting other groups play through so that the gap is filled.
No group has a divine right to determine the pace of other golfers. But that cuts both ways.
A quicker group cannot expect a slower group to keep up with it - all four in the slower group might be lasering every shot for example, as they are entitled to do under the current rules.
A slower group cannot expect a faster group behind them - all four might be no-practice-swing merchants - to play at the slower place if space has opened up in front of them.

 

[srixon 1]

Remedy Oak has some very long walks between holes. I reckon this alone accounts for at least 15 mins per round there.

 

[Backsticks]

Remedy Oak has some very long walks between holes. I reckon this alone accounts for at least 15 mins per round there.

Slow play, and long rounds, are two very different things. Long walks between holes influences the second. And that is not normally what people speak about when they talk about a rounds being slow. If people played a 3.5 hour round but were waiting on every long shot on the last 6 holes, they would still say the rounds was slow. A gourp taking a 5 hour round, but not waiting a second on the group ahead will not consider it a slow round (correctly so. It isnt one). But people tend to conflate the two, as already evidenced by some posts in this thread.

 

[rulefan]

There should imo never be a figure that people must go round the course because there are multiple variables - course length , walk between holes , par 3 early , size of group , competition or social , strokeplay or matchplay

As England Golf and my County say on their Hard Cards - For groups of 3.
Each hole is given a maximum completion time, primarily based upon its length and difficulty.
In addition, extra time is allowed per 100 yards of extra walking time between green and tee.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

There is nothing wrong in itself, taking 30 or 40 minutes longer than another group. What is inexcusable in that scenario is not letting other groups play through so that the gap is filled.
No group has a divine right to determine the pace of other golfers. But that cuts both ways.
A quicker group cannot expect a slower group to keep up with it - all four in the slower group might be lasering every shot for example, as they are entitled to do under the current rules.
A slower group cannot expect a faster group behind them - all four might be no-practice-swing merchants - to play at the slower place if space has opened up in front of them.

Why are you going on about “lasering” every shot - a laser doesn’t contribute much to slow play when it takes 10 seconds to find your distance compared the time it would take someone to find a yardage marker on the course and then look at a yardage book.

 

[Backsticks]

Why are you going on about “lasering” every shot - a laser doesn’t contribute much to slow play when it takes 10 seconds to find your distance compared the time it would take someone to find a yardage marker on the course and then look at a yardage book.

Are you a laserer ?

Why are you going on about yardage books ? Gone the way of telex machine and VHS. GPS.

GPS is a 1s second glance. So a saving of 9s (assuming your 10s per laser is correct - time someone next time you have the chance). Thats still probably 10 minutes per fourball lost to lasering. No lasering - round 10mins faster on that component alone.

 

[Deleted member 15344]

Are you a laserer ?

Why are you going on about yardage books ? Gone the way of telex machine and VHS. GPS.

GPS is a 1s second glance. So a saving of 9s (assuming your 10s per laser is correct - time someone next time you have the chance). Thats still probably 10 minutes per fourball lost to lasering. No lasering - round 10mins faster on that component alone.

How about there is no extra time because I laser the pin when someone else is playing a shot or getting ready for a shot

It’s called ready golf , maybe you need to educate yourself on it

Distance measuring devices are used at the appropriate time so when it’s your turn to play you know the distance and are ready to hit.

And many people still use yardage books and course markings because not everyone uses a distance measuring device - I use a yardage book also at courses I haven’t played before

And I use a combination of laser and gps

 

[KenL]

4 hours for a 3 ball in a comp is about right.

My record for a solo 18 holes is just a shade under 3 hours, so an extra hour for 2 additional people including scoring is ok.

I do hate playing with really fast players in comps, puts me right off my game..

Playing in a 4BBB at the weekend so it'll be interesting how long that takes.

Not for me. Usually 3hr 30min at my place in a medal, 6600 yards

 

[Swango1980]

Are you a laserer ?

Why are you going on about yardage books ? Gone the way of telex machine and VHS. GPS.

GPS is a 1s second glance. So a saving of 9s (assuming your 10s per laser is correct - time someone next time you have the chance). Thats still probably 10 minutes per fourball lost to lasering. No lasering - round 10mins faster on that component alone.

So, to solve slow play, each club should buy their members a GPS device? Or would that be a condition of membership, they should buy one?

No GPS or laser wouldn't save all that time, as golfers would clearly still want to know their yardage, in general. That takes time, finding markers and then working out where they are in comparison. Especially difficult if they are in unusual spots.

A laser generally doesn't take up any extra time at all anyway. It can often be done while you are waiting for your partner to play a shot, or the group in front to get out of the way.