Legitimategolf Forum 2.0

@DougE , is your course "Pace Rated?" What is the rated pace? What do you do to make sure everyone plays at the proper pace? If a group is "on pace" but has 2-3 open holes in front of them, is that group expected to close the gap? Are they expected to allow faster groups to play through?

Lately I have noted a lot of foursomes who are on pace but have many open holes in front. They often refuse to allow faster groups through since they are on pace. Sort of like driving the speed limit in the left lane of a highway. Technically they may be in the right but most of us think they need to change lanes.

FWIW our courses push for a 4 hour round. It's on the cart GPS and is constantly telling players where they stand. Quite honestly, except the men's group that plays competitive hole out everything rounds, it's almost never really a problem. But no, they won't push a group with open holes ahead if they are on pace. The majority of members are going to let singles and doubles through even if they are on pace. The exceptions seem to be the younger crowd - don't know if they are vacation rentals or children of members, but they seems to be the most common make up of players who don't let others through when they should.

Thanks for the feedback, @GBOGEY . The groups I see that refuse to allow faster groups through are most often made up of 4 people like me (old white males).

Simple solution - move south. You'll struggle to find an excuse to not play year round. The retired guys here play so much that they don't take the time to play well, just play fast. You'd make a killing in the money games.

bkuehn1952.2 wrote: Sun Oct 06, 2024 9:41 am @DougE , is your course "Pace Rated?" What is the rated pace? What do you do to make sure everyone plays at the proper pace? If a group is "on pace" but has 2-3 open holes in front of them, is that group expected to close the gap? Are they expected to allow faster groups to play through?

Lately I have noted a lot of foursomes who are on pace but have many open holes in front. They often refuse to allow faster groups through since they are on pace. Sort of like driving the speed limit in the left lane of a highway. Technically they may be in the right but most of us think they need to change lanes.

Hey, BK, thanks for the question. First off, I have to tell you all I have been passively following along here in the LG forums, but just haven't been finding time to sit and write. Since your post specifically mentioned me, it inspired me to make some time to sit down at my desk and join in. Unfortunately for you all, it is another of my patented long-winded posts.

I don't have great answers. Just my golf-industry perspective.

We TRY HARD to keep the pace moving, but it is nearly impossible on a very difficult course such as ours at P.B.Dye. With a slope rating of 143 from the tips (138 from the blues and 134 from the whites), very few level lies, 7 or 8 blind shots off the tee (plus multiple other 2nd shot blind shots) and with no fringe around the greens, it has slow pace as a fact of life. Plus, our rough is often like US Open length and thickness. Finding a ball just off the fairway can be time-consuming and sometimes nearly impossible to do in the allotted 3 minutes, especially when you have no idea where to begin searching for it when the tee shot was a blind one. (I can't tell you how many times I have hit a great shot right down the middle, only to come over the ridge and not see it in the middle of the fairway where I expected it to be. It's so frustrating, especially when it's a brand new Pro V1x, right out of the box!) IMO, it really should not be played by golfers with high handicaps on a weekend, yet, we can't stop them from paying their 120 bucks, so we have rangers trying to balance keeping ALL happy who pay that rate, whether they play fast or slow.

The rangers beg us not to allow large groups on weekend mornings. I will not book groups of more than one foursome on weekend mornings, unless I know the group and that they always play quickly. It is a recipe for slowing the course down for the entire day. Yet, we have people upstairs who just want solidly packed tee sheets on weekends. Personally, I don't think it helps our high-end image (or at least the high-end image we strive to build and maintain). If there is one recurring complaint we see on Google and other online reviews it's about the slow pace of play on weekends. We will often give rainchecks to those who can't deal with the slow pace, which is a regular occurrence on some weekends, when the weekend warriors all come out to test their barely capable skills alongside other groups of guys playing competitive rounds for money, reading every putt from 6 different angles. After two weeks of rain recently, add a Cart Path Only mandate to the mix and it is even worse. To top it off, there are certain types who are just purely oblivious to others or were raised in a culture where others outside their own group don't matter, which adds further tension some days. Their entitlement is palpable. And, the "me" generation just exacerbates the issue.

During the week, it is not quite as bad, but 4 hours and 30-45 minutes on a moderately busy day full of foursomes is still about average on a midweek day. Our stated pace is 4 hours and 20 minutes. Our carts have a GPS system which keeps everyone clearly updated as to how slow they may be playing and our ability from the Pro Shop to send individual messages to any cart in the fleet helps us to stay on top of things. But, for many groups, they just don't react...or care. When I notice a group falling into the red zone (more than 10 minutes behind pace) I will send a polite messages to give them a heads up and move them along. If they continue to lose pace and room opens up ahead of them, the next message is a bit more forceful, without "please" and "thank you." If still no increase in pace, the ranger will visit them and say the Pro Shop has asked him to go "speak" with the group specifically to let them know we are getting calls from the groups behind them (even if no one has called yet, because we know that phone will be ringing shortly). The ranger will give them options/suggestions to improve their pace, but will ultimately ask them to pick up and move to the next tee if things do not improve quickly. He will also offer them an invitation to stop in the Pro Shop to get a raincheck if they can't keep up.

This has been a problem in the industry since golf became popular over the last century. If you are a Pinehurst or Pebble Beach and the pace gets slow, you can remove the players from the course with no worries about online reviews. The reality is, most public courses are competing for customers and can not afford to get negative reviews online. Consequently, it is a very common, yet difficult issue with no good solution. That's the biggest difference between us and a sought-after country club. We are public. A country club has rules and your membership may be on the line if you don't follow them. If you don't follow rules at a public course and don't like that the course gives you a hard time about it, you just go play somewhere else public. That hurts the course more than it does the slow golfer.

Depending on the circumstances, I believe slow groups who are not necessarily behind pace should allow fast groups through. Unfortunately, there are too many entitled people playing the game who don't always agree. I don't understand it, personally. If there is a fast group behind mine, I am the first to say, "Let's let them through." I really don't want someone on my ass. It affects my game. At the same time, if there is a slow group in front of me, I hate to play through. It, too, will affect my game, usually negatively. I'd rather skip a hole and go around if possible. Of course, that only works if you are not keeping an official score as I rarely do, unless I'm playing in a competitive group. This is also one of the reasons I do not enjoy playing on busy mornings. I enjoy afternoons much more as things are usually lighter then.

Not sure I answered your questions satisfactorily, but at least I dove in again.

Just curious - what guidance do you give players about which tee to play for a course that difficult and trying to maintain pace of play? I know that in NJ, guys playing the wrong tee box was a HUGE contributor to slowing things down. Not near as much in TN - the issue there was the good old boys more interested in their drinking than their playing.

FWIW, Whistling Straits and TPC Sawgrass plan on you playing a 5 hour round, so the course difficulty doesn't really impact pace of play. One interesting side note was that while playing Whistling Straits the caddie master / pro came to our caddies to get us to speed up. Apparently, the issue wasn't pace of play, it was Mr. Kohler was coming up behind us and they didn't want him to be slowed down. My caddy said, "bleep this, these guys are on pace and they payed $500 to play here. We're not speeding up."

GBOGEY wrote: Tue Oct 08, 2024 4:34 pm Just curious - what guidance do you give players about which tee to play for a course that difficult and trying to maintain pace of play?

Not much. Most of the players around here would not listen anyway. However, when someone who has never played the course before asks for advice and what to expect the first time out, I will tell them that even the white tees can be a handful for better players, in addition to hints and tips on how best to play it. What they do with that info is up to them. I also suggest they may want to buy extra balls before the round.