Waving through

[John Evans 9]

Our seniors play a social competition in a block of four-balls, up to about 30 players and at this time of year are hard pressed to complete their round before it gets too dark. Frequently there are two-balls or singletons who tee off after them with no hope of finishing in daylight unless they are waved through. The waving through of faster players is often ignored in this situation as the seniors know that their round will be curtailed if they stand around to let others play through. And the game is painfully slow for those following. Depending on whether you are a senior or a follower what is the nicest way to address this problem ?

 

[GreiginFife]

Sometimes there is no "nice" solution and people just ned spoken to about how their behaviour affects others. Even then, depending on the mind set, it doesn't work. People are people.

At my previous club we had an almost identical problem in the winter. It got so bad that people voted with their feet in the end and mass resignations of memberships was the thing that spurred the club to take action. The groups in question were told that being allowed to block book their sweep was under the condition that they should let faster groups through, any complaints to the pro or seccy would see them lose their block booking privilege. They were also prevented from block booking sweeps within 4 hours of sunset (4 hours was slow at this course as it wasn't massively long).

This seemed to work quite well as a compromise and it did work for a number of years until the club got rid of the pro and the seccy resigned. Members of the group that ran the sweep "stepped up" to fill the vacancies and you can guess what happened next. I resigned my membership the following summer.

 

[Deleted member 29109]

Let faster groups through. Simple.

These seniors need to play a format that gets them round quickly, and to probably play off the forward tees.

 

[Slab]

I assume the groups of pairs/singles following the roll-up are teeing off with less daylight time remaining than the club stated pace of play for the course on that day?
If so they might hope to finish but I cant see how they can expect to finish
i.e dark at 6, course Pace of play = 4 hours, means anyone teeing off after 2 is potentially not gonna get finished regardless of their group size

Reason I assume there’s not enough time from tee off versus the measured pace of play is; if there is still sufficient time when they tee off then the problem is simply one of the roll-up in front not playing to the pace of play and its that issue that needs to be sorted
(or less likely but worse, maybe the pace of play hasn’t even been measured & its just been set at what someone thought it should be!)

 

[John Evans 9]

Let faster groups through. Simple.

These seniors need to play a format that gets them round quickly, and to probably play off the forward tees.

Everyone plays from yellow tees. The seniors are allowed an hour at a fixed time. Their speed is that of a slowish four-ball and I think they find it hard to bear that they should have their game ruined, for example, by a singleton who has the “right” to play through everybody. However they mostly do wave through, albeit grudgingly. Personally, I’d feel embarrassed to knowingly upset a lot of , literally, long-standing golfers just for my own benefit and I would not do it. I think there should be a bit more awareness and tolerance all round.

 

[Imurg]

Simple..make the Seniors start earlier.
If it gets light at 7.30 and gets dark at 4 there's plenty of time to get 30 Seniors round without chasing the sunset..

 

[John Evans 9]

I assume the groups of pairs/singles following the roll-up are teeing off with less daylight time remaining than the club stated pace of play for the course on that day?
If so they might hope to finish but I cant see how they can expect to finish
i.e dark at 6, course Pace of play = 4 hours, means anyone teeing off after 2 is potentially not gonna get finished regardless of their group size

Reason I assume there’s not enough time from tee off versus the measured pace of play is; if there is still sufficient time when they tee off then the problem is simply one of the roll-up in front not playing to the pace of play and its that issue that needs to be sorted
(or less likely but worse, maybe the pace of play hasn’t even been measured & its just been set at what someone thought it should be!)

I think you have got to the root of the problem. The club has no “pace of play” for any day of the week. I’ll propose that they set one and then everyone will know where they stand.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Our seniors play a social competition in a block of four-balls, up to about 30 players and at this time of year are hard pressed to complete their round before it gets too dark. Frequently there are two-balls or singletons who tee off after them with no hope of finishing in daylight unless they are waved through. The waving through of faster players is often ignored in this situation as the seniors know that their round will be curtailed if they stand around to let others play through. And the game is painfully slow for those following. Depending on whether you are a senior or a follower what is the nicest way to address this problem ?

Wave them through /end

Many years ago when I was in the IoM, I was a Castletown member, I played near every day with this guy, very similarly matched, and a very similar attitude to GTFOWI, we'd often be round in under 2.30hrs off the whites.
So this day we turn up, to our dismay we see just this situation, four groups of seniors have gone out ahead of us. We caught the last group on the third fairway. Every single group of old guys waved us through at the first opportunity, no hesitation, and we were round in 2 hrs 35 minutes. I still remember it to this day as it was by far the best example of great etiquette I've ever come across.

 

[Blue in Munich]

Alternatively get the singletons and two balls to pal up and play at a similar rate to the seniors? If it is a known sweep that the club endorsed then let those creating the problem behind them be the solution.

Won’t be popular I know but it’s an alternative solution.

 

[John Evans 9]

Simple..make the Seniors start earlier.
If it gets light at 7.30 and gets dark at 4 there's plenty of time to get 30 Seniors round without chasing the sunset..

Good solution except that early start times are like gold dust and the the general membership would not accept such a change.

 

[John Evans 9]

Wave them through /end

Many years ago when I was in the IoM, I was a Castletown member, I played near every day with this guy, very similarly matched, and a very similar attitude to GTFOWI, we'd often be round in under 2.30hrs off the whites.
So this day we turn up, to our dismay we see just this situation, four groups of seniors have gone out ahead of us. We caught the last group on the third fairway. Every single group of old guys waved us through at the first opportunity, no hesitation, and we were round in 2 hrs 35 minutes. I still remember it to this day as it was by far the best example of great etiquette I've ever come across.

Yes that is great and just what you’d expect but if by doing so the seniors condemned themselves to finishing early because of bad light then you have to appreciate that 16 players would have had their game ruined for the sake of of a two-ball.

 

[John Evans 9]

Alternatively get the singletons and two balls to pal up and play at a similar rate to the seniors? If it is a known sweep that the club endorsed then let those creating the problem behind them be the solution.

Won’t be popular I know but it’s an alternative solution.

It is a good solution but the pro who has charge of the first tee claims that joining up different groups is difficult ! Very poor.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Yes that is great and just what you’d expect but if by doing so the seniors condemned themselves to finishing early because of bad light then you have to appreciate that 16 players would have had their game ruined for the sake of of a two-ball.

3-4 minutes to play through, I rather doubt this is the issue they're making out

 

[Deleted member 1147]

Just ban seniors

 

[Slab]

I think you have got to the root of the problem. The club has no “pace of play” for any day of the week. I’ll propose that they set one and then everyone will know where they stand.

Well yes, if the club don’t have a known pace of play for their course then its tough to even say if the rollup group is slow or merely starting on the last available tee times with enough time to finish in daylight
Since pace of play is the expected time it should take for play of the course (on that day) it means late tee times are available where play of all 18 holes is not assured (often known as twilight rounds) and the reason these are sold at a discount etc

 

[Deleted member 29109]

Why is everyone so obsessed with playing 18 holes in winter? Play 12 or 14 and get more people round.

Like I said. Play from the forward tees in the winter when the ball doesn’t go as far.

 

[3offTheTee]

Doubt there are exactly 16 every week. If there are 4x3 and 1x4 who go out last. The one 4 group let the faster groups through and the 3 groups should be ahead and need to speed up. This means that only one Group the 4 is delayed as the others’ will be out of sight hopefully!

 

[Deleted member 1147]

Why is everyone so obsessed with playing 18 holes in winter? Play 12 or 14 and get more people round.

Like I said. Play from the forward tees in the winter when the ball doesn’t go as far.

Our winter league competitions are now 14 holes. It allows the GKs to work on holes that we aren't playing, and means more people can play the "full" round before dark.

 

[John Evans 9]

3-4 minutes to play through, I rather doubt this is the issue they're making out

Have you ever studied Queueing Theory ?

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Why is everyone so obsessed with playing 18 holes in winter? Play 12 or 14 and get more people round.

The ladies at my place go to 9 hole comps only through the winter. I'd happily do the same but the club wont change. We could certainly create a 13-14 hole route that would be perfect for winter but it wont happen in terms of winter comps. I do it myself if playing purely socially though.

The above is dependent on your course layout. Not all courses can be re-configured to be fair to them