Waving through

[Swango1980]

I always find the "letting quicker groups" through more subjective than some make out. Not for one minute saying a slower group should just not let a quicker group through. Although, there used to be the caveat "if the slower group has lost a hole in front of them". It seems, to many, that caveat does not apply. They demand to be let through, no questions asked. However, if I'm playing solo, or in a 2 ball, then I to want to be let through by the slow group in front. However, if I'm following a competition, where there are many slow groups in front, personally I'd prefer not to be let through at every given opportunity. I feel I end up rushing my game, and also am conscious that by allowing me to play quickly, the group have had to slow down their game as a result. So, they lose out to my benefit. So, my personal point of view is that I'd rather play slowly behind them, and perhaps only be considered to be let through if they end up looking for a ball and it is the least disruptive option. Every situation is different.

Also, if I teed off late in the day for a social round of golf, I may not expect to complete the round anyway, especially if I knew there was a regular block booking in front of me.

But, people have provided options in which the issue could be somewhat alleviated. Starting earlier would be one option, so that the last groups are not teeing off at a point where it gets dark soon after they finish. Another is playing in 3 balls rather than 4. This makes a huge difference, even if no one loses a ball, an extra player in the groups means you add on at least the extra time it takes that player to play all their shots and go through their pre-shot routines (as players do not play consecutively). Not to mention helping them look for a ball, chatting to them, etc. It would require a few more slots, but the flow would be much better. I suppose you could reduce the tee slot and limit numbers, but I'm sure that would not be popular within the group.

If those are not options, then it is likely it is just something you'll need to live with. The club can say the block booking is important, and keep it going. If it wasn't, they'd stop the block booking and allow social / green fee golfers to play earlier.

 

[Banchory Buddha]

Have you ever studied Queueing Theory ?

I gave a perfect eg of my own experience when just this situation arose.

Let's take a worst case scenario, the 2 ball takes 10 minutes to play the full hole, and the oldies don't play a shot in that time.

time added to oldies round = 10 minutes. However likely in reality to be less than that. There is no queue, because the back 4 ball are the first ones to stop, and in that time the groups ahead are still playing and moving forward.

 

[Swango1980]

I gave a perfect eg of my own experience when just this situation arose.

Let's take a worst case scenario, the 2 ball takes 10 minutes to play the full hole, and the oldies don't play a shot in that time.

time added to oldies round = 10 minutes. However likely in reality to be less than that. There is no queue, because the back 4 ball are the first ones to stop, and in that time the groups ahead are still playing and moving forward.

But the last group have lost 10 minutes. And then, if there are other quicker groups behind, they lose another 10 minutes every time they let them through, and so on (or whatever time it takes). The second last seniors group do the same, then the third last group, etc.

I've been behind a group in front, who have not caused me much, or any delay. The group in front of them lets them through on the next hole. Once my group gets to the tee, the group that WAS in front of me are still in the process of walking to their tee shots as they are being let through. They hit their second and walked on up the hole, out of my range. However, the group letting them through are still in range, and cannot go until the group they let through are out of the way. So, my group are now sat on the tee for an absolute age whilst the slow group in front are waiting for the green to clear. This is an example where letting groups through can have a rippling effect on everything that follows. The first group (following the Seniors) may benefit overall in terms of time, but this can cause huge increases in time to other following groups, as well as the Seniors that let groups through. Not so bad if there are gaps in play, but if the course is busy then there is no real relief for this issue.

 

[G1z1]

Just ban seniors

This gets my vote. pro at my local clubs is always going on about the seniors because the practice area i get lessons at runs along side the 1st. He would regularly say look at this and the amount of old people who can’t even get the ball off the ground, pro says when you get to that stage you should not be aloud to renew your membership.

 

[LincolnShep]

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..

I'd go the other way. If this group wants to block book, and block up the course, they have to take the last tee times that will still get them round before dark. They can play as slow as they like if there's no one behind them, but they might hurry up a bit if they see the sun going down...

 

[Sports_Fanatic]

Seniors switching to three balls probably feels like a good starting point to keep pace of play a little quicker even if it means taking up more tee slots. I'd probably try that for a while and potentially think about who are slow players to make sure they arent grouped together for a while.

Some times a challenge is that people don't notice rounds getting slowly slower and accept 4, 4.5hr rounds as norm. If you have a period of faster rounds then you may find that some speed stays when you go back to four balls on lighter evenings.

 

[Canary_Yellow]

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!)

That's very situation dependent though, the 4 hour pace of play, in your hypothetical example, is presumably for a busy course? If the course is not busy, rounds should be completed quicker than that.

I don't get it when people don't let others through, except where the course is simply full.

 

[chrisd]

The group at mine that play in 4 balls and won't let anyone through is a mid week swindle. They range through the ages from about the 40's to 60's - most of the vets play 18 holes early in the morning and take 4 hours, if they go between 8 and 9am they will be on the last (say) 5 holes by 11 to 12 o clock. We have a 2 tee start and anyone going off at 11 to 12 am will not catch them, and if they do the delay is no real problem. I have played many times and have not been let through by much younger players

 

[Deleted member 1147]

This gets my vote. pro at my local clubs is always going on about the seniors because the practice area i get lessons at runs along side the 1st. He would regularly say look at this and the amount of old people who can’t even get the ball off the ground, pro says when you get to that stage you should not be aloud to renew your membership.

there's enough young people who can't do that!

 

[Slab]

That's very situation dependent though, the 4 hour pace of play, in your hypothetical example, is presumably for a busy course? If the course is not busy, rounds should be completed quicker than that.

I don't get it when people don't let others through, except where the course is simply full.

It just to illustrate that a cut-off exists. It doesn't matter what the example pace is:
i.e if its dark at 6, course Pace of play = 3 hours, it means anyone teeing off after 2pm 3pm is potentially not gonna get finished regardless of their group size

but as we've learnt there is no pace of play set up and since we don't know tee times etc we cant say where the problem (& the fix) lies

Separately
I think the fact the roll-up consisted of 'seniors' in the opening post is maybe 'tricking' folk into thinking they're playing slowly, but that has not been claimed at all
its irrelevant if they are seniors or on a club 18-30 roll-up, there's limited hours of daylight left so everyone teeing off after a certain time of day (whether that's 3 or 4 hours before dark) cannot be assured to get finished, regardless if its a single or another 4-ball that's following them

 

[Canary_Yellow]

It just to illustrate that a cut-off exists. It doesn't matter what the example pace is:
i.e if its dark at 6, course Pace of play = 3 hours, it means anyone teeing off after 2pm 3pm is potentially not gonna get finished regardless of their group size

but as we've learnt there is no pace of play set up and since we don't know tee times etc we cant say where the problem (& the fix) lies

Separately
I think the fact the roll-up consisted of 'seniors' in the opening post is maybe 'tricking' folk into thinking they're playing slowly, but that has not been claimed at all
its irrelevant if they are seniors or on a club 18-30 roll-up, there's limited hours of daylight left so everyone teeing off after a certain time of day (whether that's 3 or 4 hours before dark) cannot be assured to get finished, regardless if its a single or another 4-ball that's following them

Yes, makes sense, it's just that whenever I've seen a pace of play set, that's based on a busy course. As opposed to being a target time regardless of the circumstances.

 

[Slab]

Yes, makes sense, it's just that whenever I've seen a pace of play set, that's based on a busy course. As opposed to being a target time regardless of the circumstances.

I think each course should have it so they can manage the days field and to know what tee times they can possibly sell to visitors etc

in this case if a single &/or pair are teeing off say an hour after the 4-balls, they will probably still catch the tail of the roll-up with fading light while there's 2 or 3 holes still to play
Which means that depending on whether they are let through or not. Either the later starting groups or the roll-up would not complete due to darkness...

Which should it be ?

 

[3offTheTee]

Have you ever studied Queueing Theory ?

Yep Can you explain please?
Balance equations[edit]
The steady state equations for the birth-and-death process, known as the balance equations, are as follows. Here

denotes the steady state probability to be in state n.

The first two equations imply

and

By mathematical induction,

The condition

leads to:

which, together with the equation for

, fully describes the required steady state probabilities.

 

[chrisd]

Yep Can you explain please?
Balance equations[edit]
The steady state equations for the birth-and-death process, known as the balance equations, are as follows. Here

denotes the steady state probability to be in state n.

The first two equations imply

and

By mathematical induction,

The condition

leads to:

which, together with the equation for

, fully describes the required steady state probabilities.

Pretty much what I was thinking

 

[toyboy54]

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 ?

Shoot them?
Also, Graham is that your recipe for Cumberland Sausage?

 

[Canary_Yellow]

I think each course should have it so they can manage the days field and to know what tee times they can possibly sell to visitors etc

in this case if a single &/or pair are teeing off say an hour after the 4-balls, they will probably still catch the tail of the roll-up with fading light while there's 2 or 3 holes still to play
Which means that depending on whether they are let through or not. Either the later starting groups or the roll-up would not complete due to darkness...

Which should it be ?

I don't disagree that there shouldn't be an expectation of completing the round if you tee off in that window. But equally, if the course isn't busy, and people apply decent ettiquette, playing at a reasonable speed for the circumstances they are faced with, there should also be the possibility that it could be.

I think the other side of a stated pace of play is that it is treated as a target rather than a maximum.

 

[3offTheTee]

Shoot them?
Also, Graham is that your recipe for Cumberland Sausage?

No that’s just the skin. The sausage meat is far more complicated. Trust you are well

 

[RichA]

There are no easy answers to some of these problems. If the club are happy to take the money off several consecutive four-balls, then they should be managing the timings of the groups around them.
My regular playing partners and I are generally fairly quick, especially if there are only a couple of us - 3 hours for a two-ball on a long course. Realistically though, that's only ever going to happen if you're the first group out at the crack of dawn. Sometimes, if you're behind a society, you just have to slow down a bit and suck it up. If I haven't got 5 hours to spare, I generally don't book in to play a round of golf, just in case.
If it's quick, there's time for a coffee afterwards. If it's slow, at least we've had a nice round of golf.

 

[Deleted member 23344]

This gets my vote. pro at my local clubs is always going on about the seniors because the practice area i get lessons at runs along side the 1st. He would regularly say look at this and the amount of old people who can’t even get the ball off the ground, pro says when you get to that stage you should not be aloud to renew your membership.

What an ignorant git he sounds. Does he not realise that they pay a sizeable chunk of his wages? Would he refuse to give them paid lessons if they wanted them … or is he a hypocrite as well as an ignorant git? If I heard him say that, I would report him to the club manager. I am 70 and play in numerous seniors comps and matches and I have never played with anyone who cannot hit the ball a reasonable distance … and yet I have seen plenty of young pay and play visitors take regular air shots and dig up the ground instead of hitting the ball. Crap golf is not the preserve of any particular age group.

 

[PJ87]

Played today

2 of us.. we got played through by a 4 ball on the 8th and then on the 11th the next 4 ball let us through

Didn't see another player after that

Few weeks ago I played as a 1 ball

On the 5th I caught a group of seniors (4 of them) they let me through on the 10th after waiting on every shot .. and they were running and rushing their shots

I was thinking why ruin your game? Just let me pass

I even slowed myself right down

But on 10th I got through and finished a clear hour ahead of them