What do you think about rule 6-7 pace of play enforcement in a club event?

[A.G._Crockett]

Bill Brightly,
At the risk of oversimplifying, on a typical Saturday morning at a private club, you have two basic groups playing. 

One is people who come out very early because they have other stuff on their agenda for the day.  They play quickly; in fact, the club may keep tee times on a weekly basis for them as pace setters.

The second group are the regulars who are in some sort of a money game, be it points, skins, or their regular foursome with a standing game.  They tend toward playing quickly, too; they are relatively serious golfers and in most of the games they pick up at double bogey.  They know the golf course and hit provisionals routinely, know their distances for layups, etc.

Play tends to get slower in the afternoon when families come out, when the guys with coolers full of beer come out, and so on, but very few of the core groups care about that; they are long gone by then.

Fast forward to a tournament, which is like Easter Sunday at a church.  The course is more crowded than usual anyway.  People are playing who only rarely play real, competitive golf, maybe only once a year. They hit more bad shots and they take longer to do it.  They have to take stroke and distance penalties, and they have to putt out.  They think they are on TV, and go through elaborate preshot routines.  Medal play tournament rounds are SLOW!

My objection and concern about the pace of play enforcement is that you have your regulars from the two core groups who play fast mixed in with the people that are really slow.  Now a marshal rides up and tells the entire group that they are out of place and "on the clock". 

The guys in the group that play fast EVERY week know that the club knows that, and yet they are being warned!  They have steam coming out their ears, and there is little or nothing that they can do about it anyway.  (If it sounds like I've been that guy, it's because I have, and very little makes me more angry on a golf course.)

Here's my advice:  If you want a good pace of play in medal tournament play, have every marshal/starter/ranger/shop attendant/club pro on the staff out on the course and positioned at places where balls disappear acting as spotters.  That'll help a little.  If that isn't enough, put in some drop zones and see if that helps. If that still isn't enough, then limit scores to double par, which isn't desirable, but might help a little. 

Beyond that, leave an hour or so empty on the tee sheet after the last tournament group goes out so that the non-tournament patrons don't get pissed and just live with it.  Medal play tournament golf is SLOW, and comparing it to regular weekend play and wishing it was like that isn't realistic.

[Paul Gray]

Just implement the rule. No ifs and no buts. It's the only solution. Peter's letter could be a nice softener but stick with it when the complaints start coming in.

[Jud_T]

Bill Brightly,
At the risk of oversimplifying, on a typical Saturday morning at a private club, you have two basic groups playing. 

One is people who come out very early because they have other stuff on their agenda for the day.  They play quickly; in fact, the club may keep tee times on a weekly basis for them as pace setters.

The second group are the regulars who are in some sort of a money game, be it points, skins, or their regular foursome with a standing game.  They tend toward playing quickly, too; they are relatively serious golfers and in most of the games they pick up at double bogey.  They know the golf course and hit provisionals routinely, know their distances for layups, etc.

Play tends to get slower in the afternoon when families come out, when the guys with coolers full of beer come out, and so on, but very few of the core groups care about that; they are long gone by then.

Fast forward to a tournament, which is like Easter Sunday at a church.  The course is more crowded than usual anyway.  People are playing who only rarely play real, competitive golf, maybe only once a year. They hit more bad shots and they take longer to do it.  They have to take stroke and distance penalties, and they have to putt out.  They think they are on TV, and go through elaborate preshot routines.  Medal play tournament rounds are SLOW!

My objection and concern about the pace of play enforcement is that you have your regulars from the two core groups who play fast mixed in with the people that are really slow.  Now a marshal rides up and tells the entire group that they are out of place and "on the clock". 

The guys in the group that play fast EVERY week know that the club knows that, and yet they are being warned!  They have steam coming out their ears, and there is little or nothing that they can do about it anyway.  (If it sounds like I've been that guy, it's because I have, and very little makes me more angry on a golf course.)

Here's my advice:  If you want a good pace of play in medal tournament play, have every marshal/starter/ranger/shop attendant/club pro on the staff out on the course and positioned at places where balls disappear acting as spotters.  That'll help a little.  If that isn't enough, put in some drop zones and see if that helps. If that still isn't enough, then limit scores to double par, which isn't desirable, but might help a little. 

Beyond that, leave an hour or so empty on the tee sheet after the last tournament group goes out so that the non-tournament patrons don't get pissed and just live with it.  Medal play tournament golf is SLOW, and comparing it to regular weekend play and wishing it was like that isn't realistic.

My experience exactly.  You can send the fast guys out together early so they don't sit there grinding there teeth, then just deal with the fact that if you're going to ask the B & C flight to play real Medal play and actually follow the rules of golf, then it's just going to take a while. 

[Brent Hutto]

Fast forward to a tournament, which is like Easter Sunday at a church.  The course is more crowded than usual anyway.  People are playing who only rarely play real, competitive golf, maybe only once a year. They hit more bad shots and they take longer to do it.  They have to take stroke and distance penalties, and they have to putt out.  They think they are on TV, and go through elaborate preshot routines.  Medal play tournament rounds are SLOW!

My objection and concern about the pace of play enforcement is that you have your regulars from the two core groups who play fast mixed in with the people that are really slow.  Now a marshal rides up and tells the entire group that they are out of place and "on the clock". 

Here's my advice:  If you want a good pace of play in medal tournament play, have every marshal/starter/ranger/shop attendant/club pro on the staff out on the course and positioned at places where balls disappear acting as spotters.  That'll help a little.  If that isn't enough, put in some drop zones and see if that helps. If that still isn't enough, then limit scores to double par, which isn't desirable, but might help a little. 

Beyond that, leave an hour or so empty on the tee sheet after the last tournament group goes out so that the non-tournament patrons don't get pissed and just live with it.  Medal play tournament golf is SLOW, and comparing it to regular weekend play and wishing it was like that isn't realistic.

Couldn't have said this myself nearly as well as A.G. has. If you insist on having medal play tournaments with large fields, either accept that the groups teeing off toward the end are staring at 5-hour rounds or else take concrete steps to speed play. Posting spotters at look-for-your-ball areas is a big help. Drop zones everywhere you can conceivably justify them may help a bit.

Basically the idea is to find every spot on the course where multiple groups per round are likely to waste 2, 3, 4 minutes or more searching or dropping or arguing over proper procedures and find a way to streamline those couple dozen traffic blackspots. Which ends up requiring both knowledge of how play proceeds during tournaments and the manpower to throw marshal/volunteer/spotter help at the problem. But having a slow play penalty policy with teeth to it, while justifiable, is almost certain to create inequity and hard feelings at some point during club play.

In the end, using Stableford scoring (along with a few spotters and drop zones) can probably do more than any practical slow play penalty policy could hope to achieve.

[Bill Brightly]

A.G nailed it pretty well. He described my club to a tee! As much as I want to follow Paul Gray's advice and simply say: "These are the rules, abide by them" I know that steam will be coming out of a few guys' ears if they get put on the clock because of a really slow player in their group. Even though these guys are not slow and will not take more than 40 seconds, they'll have to worry about "the shot clock," something they've never had to do before. If they fail to qualify, I'm sure they'll be looking for me after the round...

Personally, if I were the Golf Chair I'd like to go through process and deal with the bitching, because even though it might create a stir, it will underscore our club's total intolerance for slow play. It would make the point to a handful of guys who emulate what they see the pros doing on television: stalking putts from all four sides, taking an UNLIMITED amount of time, just because they are playing in an important event.  While I don't mind being a hardass, our current Golf Chair is a real nice guy and won't want to do this. And like a few pros (Jeff and Jim) posted above, the professional staff really does not want to have to implement the rules and penalties. So I guess we'll just have to live with rounds that take 4:30 to 5 hours in two-man team matches and medal play qualifying...