How Golf Lost the Millennials

[B.Ross]

John - After reading this post below i suppose it's obvious you and i don't see eye to eye, but that's also okay. what i don't get is why you have an issue with people playing quickly. maybe that 2 some doesn't have the benefit of spending 6+ hours at the club. i don't know what club/course youre playing at, but i don't think it's fair at all to disparage those of us that like to play quickly... and i wonder at what age does walking the course, carrying or w/ a caddie, is deemed exercise. at 28, it does nothing for me in terms of producing results, even if its a near 4 mile walk.

i hate to say it, but i tend to side with aforementioned "rake & runners" or the evil eye givers. if we were all considerate to 1 another on the course in terms of pace of play, it'd be more enjoyable for all. and if you feel that taking more than 30 seconds to execute a shot is okay in a friendly round, or even in a 20 dollar nassau, then i guess we'd be at an impasse. club championships and tournaments are one thing, the friendly saturday round for lunch is another, and this is coming from a highly competitive individual. i blame the tour mostly for setting an abhorrent example for pace of play.

The rake and runners are driving me from the game. Yesterday my foresome teed off at 8:10 and were followed by a twosome whose tee time was 8:20. At 8:19 we had to step back from our putts to let them play through on the first green. They simply play for exercise.

The time before that I played a twosome decided to start on 10 and began their day with hands on hips giving us the evil eye. I waved them on and it took each of them three strokes to reach our drives. By the time we could hit our approach there were two more groups on the tee.

I understand that playing on one of the most difficult courses in the world while putting everything out is no longer allowed in this culture of run and rake. The only defense I have left is the Joshua theorem. I'm done until the fair weather non golfers put their clubs up for winter.

Exactly what golf needs, more people like me quitting who enjoy spending seven to eight hours a day at the club.

[Andrew Buck]

John - After reading this post below i suppose it's obvious you and i don't see eye to eye, but that's also okay. what i don't get is why you have an issue with people playing quickly. maybe that 2 some doesn't have the benefit of spending 6+ hours at the club. i don't know what club/course youre playing at, but i don't think it's fair at all to disparage those of us that like to play quickly... and i wonder at what age does walking the course, carrying or w/ a caddie, is deemed exercise. at 28, it does nothing for me in terms of producing results, even if its a near 4 mile walk.

I can certainly attest that in my 30's, walking and carrying (it's actually about 5.5 miles) and burning the near 1,000 calories make about the same difference for me as if I spend 45 minutes doing cardio. 

[John Kavanaugh]

A perfect example is to let a group reach the green on the first hole of the day before you tee off.  There are as many fast play etiquette rules as slow play ones.  I have actually been on a full course with no where to go where a member of the group behind us has walked up on the green while we are putting.

All I want is for my first encounter of the day with a group behind me is for it to be courteous.  I'm going to let you go through, not because I have to, because I want to.  Body language is rarely an accident.

Neither of us are bad people yet the group in front is seen as a burden.  With this rhetoric I am trying to get people to understand that it is a two way street.  The finish of the PGA and the reaction after was my golfing highlight of the year.  Faster isn't always better.

[Jason Thurman]

John - After reading this post below i suppose it's obvious you and i don't see eye to eye, but that's also okay. what i don't get is why you have an issue with people playing quickly. maybe that 2 some doesn't have the benefit of spending 6+ hours at the club. i don't know what club/course youre playing at, but i don't think it's fair at all to disparage those of us that like to play quickly...

i hate to say it, but i tend to side with aforementioned "rake & runners" or the evil eye givers. if we were all considerate to 1 another on the course in terms of pace of play, it'd be more enjoyable for all. and if you feel that taking more than 30 seconds to execute a shot is okay in a friendly round, or even in a 20 dollar nassau, then i guess we'd be at an impasse.

John may be a lunatic with an aversion to great romantic comedies, but he's always been exactly right on the topic of pace of play. The only way to solve the pace of play issue is for everyone to play at the same pace. The rake and run guys who want to play in 2 1/2 hours on a weekend morning are just as much a part of the problem as the wannabe pros who take 5 hours to get around the course.

I love to play quickly, drink to excess, and have sex with my wife. It would be nice to do any of those things anytime I want, but that's not how it works. Life got a lot easier when I learned that I can do one of those things on weekend mornings, one of them over a weekday lunch, and one of them in the evening. It would suit me just fine if I could play through the golf course in 2 1/2 hours any time I wanted, and it would suit me just fine if I could play through the bedroom in 2 1/2 minutes. Sometimes life is about playing at the pace of others instead of just making sure that I finish in an amount of time that lets me keep my schedule while leaving others feeling tense, dissatisfied, and inconsequential.

[B.Ross]

This Goes out to Everyone who's contributed since my post led to Eric Strulowitz (i totally just butchered the spelling of your last name, i apologize):

First, I absolutely adore this topic, it is wonderful to discuss and here the differing opinions/takes on. One thing I think we've lost sight of is that the point that I was making, and then Eric echoed on, was about slow play at courses accessible to the public.  Slow play at a private club should NEVER be a problem, and if a few foursomes/players are notoriously slow, elevate it to the clubs governing board / pro shop. At the same time, at a private club, if said slow players are also excellent self gardeners of the course (divots and ballmark repairs) then they should deserve a pass.

And while I love this concept of dynamic pricing / 3somes vs 4 somes / diff time of day, the optimist in me thinks that we need to convert golf into a 3-4 hour 18 hole activity at ANY time of the day, beginners/ladies/seniors/scratches/drunk players be damned. People just do not know, or learn how to play ready golf any more. They take far too long to execute a shot. They don't read putts from the other side while their playing partners are putting out. It's absolutely a domino effect, as someone mentioned, it only takes 1 or 2 groups to slow down an entire course. That is why I am a strong believer in my idea of a pace of play security deposit. To reiterate or expand, When municipal national takes its $60 dollar greens fees in either cash or credit, it takes an additional fully refundable $30 pace of play deposit from you too (i like the idea of a deposit being 50% of the greens fee). As soon as a group begins to fall behind its pace of play, which to me should be 3:45 but i could live w/ 4:15, a ranger is sent out to warn them and let them know hey you're on the verge of pissing away another $30 bucks, pick it up. If they don't pick it up and lose theyre deposit, well then theres nothing you can do. The key is though you only penalize the FIRST group to fall behind, b/c it's not fair to penalize groups behind them for keeping up with the group in front of them.  Point being, i can't imagine many people out there willing to pay $90 for a $60 course. Of course, this takes some organization and effort from the pro shop, not to mention the employment of a couple rangers, but it also means you could improve the pace of play and enjoyment of your patrons.

As it was echoed earlier, waiting sucks and at least IMO, it can throw off your game, at least it does to mine. I become irritable, impatient and nearly pissed off when I have to wait all the time, ESPECIALLY if i'm not expecting it. When i play bethpage black, i know its going to be a 5 hour ordeal, but i also know that i'm walking a 4+ mile course that's brutal tee to green and is a special place.

its nearly all other munis, espeically those w/ carts that we have a problem. golf cannot continue to be an activity where a guy in his late 20s to early 40s who's engaged/married/married w/ kids has to disappear for 6+ hours on a weekend in order to get a round in. We need to shorten the time that has to be spent on a course, or we'll continue to lose players.

@John I saw your post regarding letting the group in front of you reach the green on the 1st tee. I tend to agree, but it depends on the course. At a public course where multiple groups congregate around the 1st tee (as in groups in the hole or even 3rd up), it creates a bad look to see a guy wait until a group is 350 yards out and then hit it a drive no better than 225.  At private clubs, i've stupidly seen pros/assistant pros encourage you to hit as soon as the group in front is out of range, even if the group in front contains a notoriously slow guy. But yes regarding the 1st hole / letting people reach the green, at private clubs, this should become rule/doctrine and not preference. i 100% agree with you there.

@Andrew - that's interesting, I'm just curious where you get its 5.5 miles? that comes out to 9680 yards, seems like a lot to say youre walking nearly 150% more yards than the average course.

@Jason, i love the humor, and agree to an extent. if you want to play in 2.5 hours on a sat/sun morning, tee off before 7:30 am. then it's appropriate. having said that, i think we need to encourage EVERYONE to play as fast as possible, as i said above.

[Andrew Buck]

@Andrew - that's interesting, I'm just curious where you get its 5.5 miles? that comes out to 9680 yards, seems like a lot to say youre walking nearly 150% more yards than the average course.

We have about a 250 yard walk from parking lot to 1 and 18 greens, about 40 yards on average (some shorter, some longer, but 40 yards isn't that far) between tees so that's an extra 1,500 yards on top the 6,900 the course plays.  On top of that I'm not always down the middle  

http://www.insidegolf.com.au/news/how-far-do-you-really-walk-during-18-holes/

According to the above article, the guys tested this on a 5700 M, (6,300 yard) course and averaged 9.5km (including from parking lot) or 5.9 miles.

[Garland Bayley]

...

• Want to play before 9 am? You have to have a handicap of 15 or better, have completed a free rules and etiquette lesson with a PGA pro, and have been rated a 4 hour or less player by our staff

...

Go take a hike!

If the rules were a 5 handicap, I would go take a bike ride and then tee off at 9am. Or I could find a course has a slower pace of play. There are 15,000 courses in the USA, so there is no reason for them all to have the same basic model.

The reality is better players want to play with better players, Jaka wants to play at his pace os play, so why not find a system that can work better for both?

If the rules were a 5 handicap, then the course would be backed up all day, because it seems to me that to high of a percentage of those players take too long to play. I got in a round with both the men's and women's club champions at my club this summer. Talk about boringly slow! Grinding to maintain a low single digit handicap is not pleasant.

Jaka wants to play at his pace of play, so I have no problem with a system that puts him on the course with others that play that slow.
It has nothing to do with handicap.

[Brent Hutto]

Exactly.

Unless there's someone holding them up or pushing them from behind, any golfer will take about as long to play as he thinks it's supposed to take. Some people think a round of golf takes 2-1/2 hours. Others think it takes 5 hours.

A slow golfer doesn't play faster if his handicap drops five strokes and a fast golfer doesn't play slower if he suddenly starts shooting 85 instead of 80.

Now in theory, a totally raw beginner who can't finish any hole in less than 8 or 10 strokes would be forced to play slowly.  Except I recall when I was at that stage and I'd go play after work with my buddy (who was a single-digit handicapper yet for some reason seemed to enjoy playing with me) we'd play nine holes in about an hour forty minutes as a twosome.

Apparently, my mental image of how long a round should take was formed by playing with that guy and absorbing by osmosis his own preferred pace of play. Even years later when he was a 3-4 handicap and I was shooting in the low 90's we'd still tend to take an hour and a half or a bit longer for our nine-hole weekday rounds. Left unobstructed on a golf course today I still am most comfortable at a similar pace.

[Jud_T]

I'm really not sure where this discussion is going.  We wax philosophical about semi-private clubs with 6000 yard F&F courses where one can play in 3 hours with a pushcart.  Either join a golf club that doesn't have tee times on weekends, move to the UK or get a life.  I used to routinely play 36 in a cart in under 3 hours at my old club.  I got to play so much golf that I realized the course's design and maintenance shortcomings all that much sooner.  Be careful what you wish for.

[B.Ross]

Brent Hutto nailed it, it's all about what your expectations are. I'll never forget hearing at the impressionable age of 9 or 10, at a sports summer camp that had some golf, the comment of 1 of the counselors who came from the UK. he told us all over there that the Brits expect 4 somes to walk 18 holes in 3 hours, so even as struggling juniors, we ought to be ashamed if 9 holes takes longer than 2 hours. it's a goal i've strived to complete forever.

there are so many little tricks that people don't employ to pick up pace. E.G. if you are walking, when you see a sprinkler head / yardage marker that's on the way to your ball, start walking off the distance so that by the time you put your bag down or by the time the caddie gets to you, you know your yardage measurement to the middle of the green. similar things can be done with carts, though its obviously a bit more difficult.

@Jud_T - i think golf losing the millenials is more unique to the USA, thus we are discussing reasons as to why it's occured. as such, there's a sentiment building, one that i champion, that this is in large part to golf taking too long to play. hence all the talk about pace of play.

[Jud_T]

BR,

2 local public courses come to mind.  One is a very nice track, but they have tee times every 7 minutes and it's 5 1/2 hours on the weekend.  Another, also a nice track, has Marshals that could have worked for the SS in another life and will literally stop you from getting a dog and a beer at the turn if you're 1/2 second behind the required 4:15 pace and keeping up with the group in front of you.  Neither is a pleasant experience...

[Sean_A]

BRoss

You won't find me handing over an extra $30 and be asked to "earn" it back when I am at the mercy of other golfers or management representatives.  I suspect not many other people would be keen on the idea. 

Ciao

[Mike Sweeney]

BRoss

You won't find me handing over an extra $30 and be asked to "earn" it back when I am at the mercy of other golfers or management representatives.  I suspect not many other people would be keen on the idea. 

Ciao

Like I said earlier, golf needs to get smaller to get stronger. If we lose Arble to Red Wings re-runs, golf will be stronger

[Sean_A]

BRoss

You won't find me handing over an extra $30 and be asked to "earn" it back when I am at the mercy of other golfers or management representatives.  I suspect not many other people would be keen on the idea. 

Ciao

Like I said earlier, golf needs to get smaller to get stronger. If we lose Arble to Red Wings re-runs, golf will be stronger

Well, golf will definitely get smaller if golfers have to pay deposits based on speed of play    The thing is, who would volunteer $30 up front in the hope of getting it back if everybody else behaves and the management sees things your way?  I think its a loopy idea which uses negative reinforcement.  If money is going to be a stick, make it positive reinforcement.  Give $5 back or free beer (or whatever) if they play in less than 4 hours during busy times. 

Ciao

[Jeff_Brauer]

there are so many little tricks that people don't employ to pick up pace. E.G. if you are walking, when you see a sprinkler head / yardage marker that's on the way to your ball, start walking off the distance so that by the time you put your bag down or by the time the caddie gets to you, you know your yardage measurement to the middle of the green. similar things can be done with carts, though its obviously a bit more difficult.

Please share more, if you have them!

[Josh Tarble]

This is an extremely good read and one that touches on a lot of subjects in this thread...although mainly being about GCAs favorite lightning rod.

http://deadspin.com/what-happens-to-golf-after-tiger-1621609188?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

[Paul Gray]

How Golf Lost the Millennials (seemingly in America):

Supposedly educated golfers on this site can go on for over 11 pages arguing about whether one should or shouldn't be courteous enough to allow a quicker group to play a round in under four hours. Does that sound appealing? 

[Jeff Bergeron]

Golf is social and fun for 99% of us. Yet most everyone on this site is grinding all day. Who wants to grind? Bring out the Millennials and show them a good time. My son is 32 and plays 20 rounds a year. The 10 rounds he plays at the Rock each year brings him back. No grinding and a full, rich Lagavulin upon completion. Let's make golf fun and social again.

[Ben Malach]

I am one of the lost generation that this tread speaks of. The main thing for me and my friends is the cost of a round of golf. Time is not really the problem we have no complaints about spending time on a golf course. But $50 to play 18 hole vs the fact that we can play some local short 9's for $30 is a factor. One of the other major things that I have noticed as well is that when me and my friends who a majority have played the game for a good amount of time. Go to play a better public golf course or a semi-private facility is the amount of time they spend with us on expectations about pace of play and etiquette. When they very rarely do this to people over the age of 30 or 40. It lead us to feel singled out. Making us want to play at these facilities less. Therefore spending less time and money on golf. The industry seams to in one moment want us and in the other say maybe not yet. I do not want golf course to implement youth nights or other promotions all I am asking for is parity. If they want to put in a youth rate from 18-25 that would be nice but unnecessary unless they would do the same for other groups that golf is seaming to court such as women. But as the point of this tread was lost long ago I will leave on this note. Golf did not lose the younger generation we are just going to play a more simple game until the rest of you get on board.   

[Mike Sweeney]

.

[John Kavanaugh]

It's not cool to try and fail. Beat your ball and chase it in circles like a three legged rescue. Hipster golf, that's gonna work.

[B.Ross]

i must have done a poor job of making myself clear. my idea was you only punish the group that starts the slow play at the course, and the groups behind them dont get punished merely for keeping up but playing slowly. the idea is that if the 8:20 4 some is on a 5 hour pace, they lose their deposit, but the groups after 8:20 do not.  i admit to it being a very out there idea.

BRoss

You won't find me handing over an extra $30 and be asked to "earn" it back when I am at the mercy of other golfers or management representatives.  I suspect not many other people would be keen on the idea. 

Ciao

Like I said earlier, golf needs to get smaller to get stronger. If we lose Arble to Red Wings re-runs, golf will be stronger

Well, golf will definitely get smaller if golfers have to pay deposits based on speed of play    The thing is, who would volunteer $30 up front in the hope of getting it back if everybody else behaves and the management sees things your way?  I think its a loopy idea which uses negative reinforcement.  If money is going to be a stick, make it positive reinforcement.  Give $5 back or free beer (or whatever) if they play in less than 4 hours during busy times. 

Ciao

[Sean_A]

i must have done a poor job of making myself clear. my idea was you only punish the group that starts the slow play at the course, and the groups behind them dont get punished merely for keeping up but playing slowly. the idea is that if the 8:20 4 some is on a 5 hour pace, they lose their deposit, but the groups after 8:20 do not.  i admit to it being a very out there idea.

BRoss

You won't find me handing over an extra $30 and be asked to "earn" it back when I am at the mercy of other golfers or management representatives.  I suspect not many other people would be keen on the idea. 

Ciao

Like I said earlier, golf needs to get smaller to get stronger. If we lose Arble to Red Wings re-runs, golf will be stronger

Well, golf will definitely get smaller if golfers have to pay deposits based on speed of play    The thing is, who would volunteer $30 up front in the hope of getting it back if everybody else behaves and the management sees things your way?  I think its a loopy idea which uses negative reinforcement.  If money is going to be a stick, make it positive reinforcement.  Give $5 back or free beer (or whatever) if they play in less than 4 hours during busy times. 

Ciao

But this will take a savvy marshall (I suspect many marshalls) to identify all the problem people and keep the clean guys out of trouble.  Bottom line, I wouldn't loan $30 to a stranger so why would I trust a marshall to get my $30 back?   I know I have never been the cause of a 5 hour round so there is no need for me to gamble to break even.

Ciao 

[Ulrich Mayring]

It takes one marshal to identify the slow player(s) in the group with an empty hole in front of them. Why not install an emergency "slow play number" that anyone waiting on the group in front can call from his cell phone, which will bring out the marshal in a cart to check who's ultimately responsible for the backup?

Ulrich

[Sean_A]

It takes one marshal to identify the slow player(s) in the group with an empty hole in front of them. Why not install an emergency "slow play number" that anyone waiting on the group in front can call from his cell phone, which will bring out the marshal in a cart to check who's ultimately responsible for the backup?

Ulrich

Now you want me to be a nark    I just wanna play golf in a reasonable time so I will choose places that accomodate my wishes.  The last thing I want is to have to earn my money back or be a police informant when I am trying to hit a straight drive  .

Ciao