Yesterday I was playing at one of my favorite local courses. Favorite because it is the most interesting and quirky course for at least an hour, maybe two, in any direction, favorite because its few trees and large elevation changes really brings the wind into play, and favorite because rounds rarely take even four hours there and since it is well away from town its often possible to call up at noon on Saturday and make a tee time for an hour or two later.
So my dad and I started off at our 1:50 time secured at noon, him riding and me walking, as per usual. The first two holes we didn't have to wait at all, on the 3rd we caught up with a threesome in front, and when we got to the fourth tee we could see there was a twosome in front of them, a foursome in front of that twosome and so on. No problem, it was a nice day, and we didn't expect to be able to play in three hours on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon.
We waited often from them on, but none of the waits were more than a few minutes, and we finished the front nine in about 1:40. Had to wait a bit more on #10, but that's usual as some people take more time at the turn than others, but when we get to the green we see the group in front of us waiting and the group in front of them just teeing off! One of the guys from the group ahead said that there was a group a few holes ahead who had THREE holes clear in front of them and the ranger had forced them to skip a hole.
On the 12th tee, a par 3, the arrival of my dad and I made four groups on the hole -- one just finishing up on the green and three on the tee! We could see the 15th green about 50 yards from there, and saw FOUR carts and SEVEN guys apparently all playing together, and the 16th (a long uphill par 5) was totally empty. Guess they were the ones! A ranger drove up while we watched and we could see some discussion, clearly the guys were not happy about what they were being told. After about five minutes the ranger drove off, and then the four carts all left. At first it looked like two of them were going to move to 17 and the others move to 16, but the ones driving towards 16 stopped by the tee for a moment, and then drove on and left by way of the path back up the hill to the 11th tee, so clearly they were not just skipping another hole.
I've always said that if I owned a course I'd kick people off for slow play. You give them a warning, and if they don't listen, tell them to take a hike. Some people think that's too harsh or claim you can't turn away paying customers. But I have no problem with kicking out the 1% of problem players and keep the 99% non-problem players happier and more likely to return. From talking to the groups ahead and behind us opinion was divided, half thought it was the right thing to do, half thought it was too harsh.
Obviously part of the reason they were kicked off is that undoubtedly the ranger had told them they couldn't all play together, and that was one of the big reasons they were slow, and they were probably drunk by then also judging from the number of beer cans in the wire trash baskets next to each tee. But I think its great regardless to see people actually kicked off a golf course for this, instead of doing like most would do and figure "well they've only got three holes to go, we don't want to lose them as customers in the future so we'll just let them finish" It took a few holes to work out the logjam but by the time we got to the 14th tee the waits on the remaining holes were pretty standard and we finished in about 4 hours even, which isn't bad considering that 11-13 probably took us over an hour.