Tee times and pace of play

[Tommy Williamsen]

I read an article in The Golf Journal, The Anatomy of the Four hour Round. It made several good points but one stood out that I also had long thought was important: the interval of tee times. The interval should be different for each course. Some courses play faster than others. The tee times should reflect that. If you can't comfortably play a hole in nine minutes then eight minute tee times will jam up the course. I played a course this summer that had eight minute tee times. We teed off early and played in about 4:15. When we got to the 18th tee I could see two groups on the second tee. A few holes earlier we saw three groups on one early hole.


I have a friend who used to manage a course that received about 40,000 rounds a year. He had seven minute tee times. By one o'clock he was already one hour behind.


It seems that it is possible to get around in the mornings with shorter intervals between tee times but as the day drags on it is not the case. Do you know any courses that start the day with, say eight minute tee times, then move to ten or so? Would that make a difference? Or is slow play just the price for playing in the afternoon?


My home club has fifteen minute tee times and slow play is seldom a problem.

[Rob Marshall]

Played two rounds at Innisbrook last week in 5.5 hours. They used 10 minute intervals. It was brutal. If I wasn’t with a member friend I would have walked off. As  the starter told me too much drinking going on on the course. No rangers…..


Copperhead was in good shape the rest not so much…

[Tim Martin]

My home club has fifteen minute tee times and slow play is seldom a problem.

Tommy-Yale has had fifteen minute tee times this year and the place of play has been terrific.

[Pete_Pittock]

The first club that I belonged to had alternating tee times of 7 and 8 minutes =two groups every 15 minutes = eight groups every hour = 32 groups every four hours.  That is a full course, assuming 4 par 5s and 4 par 3s, par 72. After 11 a.m. it was pretty much gridlocked.
The course I now belong to has 9 minute intervals and there are a couple of short waits. I have played courses with 15 minute intervals and never seen the group in front.


I think it is mentally easier to have a lot of times at regular intervals ( minute ends in 0 or 5). A rule of thumb could be to have tee time intervals longer than the time it takes to play the easiest par 3 on the front side. The "killers" are par 3s and other holes reachable for good golfers.

[jeffwarne]

The same reason there are traffic lights regulating how many people can get on the LIE at one time on entrance ramps.
It's  simple-if too many people rush out, they are doomed to wait, especially later as the day goes on.


We start at 7a m with two balls 7 minutes apart for an hour, then we go to 10 minutes for an hour(4 balls mostly consisting of fast players)
Then we go to 11 minutes for hour 3, then 12 minutes the rest of the day.
Works like a charm, and we're doing 180 players in prime season.


The ONLY time people wait is when an impatient group tees off ahead of their time, without waiting for the starter to tell them, followed by another group doing the same.


This used to happen frequently on slow days when we had no tee times or starter-always cracks me up to see the only three groups on the courses waiting every shot.


Fifteen minute intervals would seem a massive waste of prime time space for the first couple of hour.

[Sean_A]

You can mess around with time gaps, group sizes or both. I like the idea of 2balls only for the first hour or two, then 3balls for an hour or two, then 4balls starting late AM or noon.

Ciao

[Pete_Pittock]

The dreaded words I've heard from a lot of starters "I'll get you off a few minutes early".

[Tim Martin]

You can mess around with time gaps, group sizes or both. I like the idea of 2balls only for the first hour or two, then 3balls for an hour or two, then 4balls starting late AM or noon.

Ciao

You won’t get 2 balls at public courses in the U.S. Jeff Warne posted that his club has them and I wonder how prevalent they are across a broad spectrum of U.S. privates?

[jeffwarne]

You can mess around with time gaps, group sizes or both. I like the idea of 2balls only for the first hour or two, then 3balls for an hour or two, then 4balls starting late AM or noon.

Ciao

You won’t get 2 balls at public courses in the U.S. Jeff Warne posted that his club has them and I wonder how prevalent they are across a broad spectrum of U.S. privates?

Tim, Maidstone and Atlantic do it, Sebonack and Friar's and probably many more in the MET area.
Not exactly a broad spectrum but all I know.
Young players with kids love it.

[Tim Martin]

You can mess around with time gaps, group sizes or both. I like the idea of 2balls only for the first hour or two, then 3balls for an hour or two, then 4balls starting late AM or noon.

Ciao

You won’t get 2 balls at public courses in the U.S. Jeff Warne posted that his club has them and I wonder how prevalent they are across a broad spectrum of U.S. privates?

Tim, Maidstone and Atlantic do it, Sebonack and Friar's and probably many more in the MET area.
Not exactly a broad spectrum but all I know.
Young players with kids love it.

Jeff-Thanks for that. I would be interested in others chiming in that have knowledge of the practice in other parts of the country.

[A.G._Crockett]

The dreaded words I've heard from a lot of starters "I'll get you off a few minutes early".

This always sort of stuns me, too.  I see starters who act is if they are getting paid by the group rather than by the hour.  Has to be an education problem from management.

[Sean_A]

You can mess around with time gaps, group sizes or both. I like the idea of 2balls only for the first hour or two, then 3balls for an hour or two, then 4balls starting late AM or noon.

Ciao

You won’t get 2 balls at public courses in the U.S. Jeff Warne posted that his club has them and I wonder how prevalent they are across a broad spectrum of U.S. privates?

Tim, Maidstone and Atlantic do it, Sebonack and Friar's and probably many more in the MET area.
Not exactly a broad spectrum but all I know.
Young players with kids love it.

Jeff-Thanks for that. I would be interested in others chiming in that have knowledge of the practice in other parts of the country.

You could get 2balls at some publics for a premium rate...if a quick round can be delivered. Now is the time to try alternative pricing, while demand is high. These days, a significant percentage of golfers are willing to pay extra for the better experience/service.

Ciao

[jeffwarne]

You can mess around with time gaps, group sizes or both. I like the idea of 2balls only for the first hour or two, then 3balls for an hour or two, then 4balls starting late AM or noon.

Ciao

You won’t get 2 balls at public courses in the U.S. Jeff Warne posted that his club has them and I wonder how prevalent they are across a broad spectrum of U.S. privates?

Tim, Maidstone and Atlantic do it, Sebonack and Friar's and probably many more in the MET area.
Not exactly a broad spectrum but all I know.
Young players with kids love it.

Jeff-Thanks for that. I would be interested in others chiming in that have knowledge of the practice in other parts of the country.

You could get 2balls at some publics for a premium rate...if a quick round can be delivered. Now is the time to try alternative pricing, while demand is high. These days, a significant percentage of golfers are willing to pay extra for the better experience/service.

Ciao

Ciao

No question-a very good idea

[Ira Fishman]

We do not have official 2 balls, but for most of the season 7am is first time on weekends and 7:30am during week. People know that if you are one of the early times, you are expected to play fast. We are usually in the first or second tee time and very rarely do not finish in less than 3 hours. It does put stress on the grounds crew, and we may be putting on greens that are cut or not. But it works.


Ira

[Jeff Schley]

We start at 7a m with two balls 7 minutes apart for an hour, then we go to 10 minutes for an hour(4 balls mostly consisting of fast players)
Then we go to 11 minutes for hour 3, then 12 minutes the rest of the day.
Works like a charm, and we're doing 180 players in prime season.

Jeff has this always been the case or just since Covid?  Also the 2 balls at 7 am, I assume in the summer the ground crew has enough time to do their maintenance, but in the spring or fall does it give them enough time for the 2 rabbits batting lead off? I know many supers want a foursome off first to ensure their crews have enough time for needed maintenance each morning.

[Rick Sides]

I go back to my theory in people playing wrong tees . I just joined a private club and to be honest there are a lot of members that are really not very good golfers , surprised they are paying thousands a year to hack it around , and a lot of them play the wrong tees causing delays

[Jeff_Brauer]

I think it's pretty well known that 7-8 minute tee times don't work, and that 10-12-15 minute splits are better, with the more spacing the better. 


I haven't seen a course give up the two extra players at the prime 7 AM tee slot in the name of the pace of play.


I also think the tee time splits might be somewhat dependent on the course, i.e., if tough holes with forced carries are early in the round, they may back up play more, and require wider tee time spacings.


Contrary to conventional design wisdom, increasing the flow (if not pace) of play would have 18 similar length par 4 holes, the hardest hole on the course as no. 1, gradually getting easier as you go to 18, which would be the easiest, and all holes of similar difficulty, rather than a blend of hard and easy.  For flow, it's actually better if they are equally challenging but different.  If we assign a value of 1, 2, or 3 to tee shot, approach shot, and putting, most par 4 holes should have an approximate value of 6 (i.e., an average of medium (2) difficulty, and sometimes, if putting is hard, the course can move tees up, widen the fw, etc., to avoid making that hole an unnecessary bottleneck.  Since par 3 holes always back up play, they should be easier for flow, rather than the old Ross idea that since the ball is on the tee, they can be harder, etc.


But, for existing courses, most of what can be done really falls on management, and spreading tee times out to 10+ minutes is one of the best tools.

[PCCraig]

Tee times, what are those?

[Jerry Kluger]

Whether golfers are members or customers, their satisfaction is the primary concern. So all of the suggestions are great in a perfect world but in most instances the question becomes how do you keep your clientele happy?  I think that most, if not all, courses would work quite well with 10 minute intervals along with rangers to monitor pace of play.  (Fifteen minute intervals is a luxury which would only apply in very rare cases.) I am not a big fan of golf carts with built in GPS screens although they do have one very positive advantage which is that they are usually tied into a monitor in the golf shop which shows the position of all carts on the course and they can quickly see if a group is falling behind.  Public courses need to keep the financial model working while private clubs need to keep the members happy.  With regard to member courses I think that guest play during peak hours is a factor which can help. Another is to have playing status limited within a membership, so for example, at prime playing times only one designated member within a membership can sign up to play - there is no restriction as to who can be the primary player for the purpose of playing during peak hours.

[Sean_A]

Jerry

It's easy for one walker in a group to carry a GPS device for tracking purposes. It is probably not a bad thing for walking clubs to do one summer to gage the bottlenecks and reasons why.

Ciao

[Tommy Williamsen]

Very interesting to send of twosomes first. An old club of mine in DC did that, as well as sending them off on both nines in the morning, which I did not like.


I had friends at my club yesterday. The super had the greens more quick than normal. My guests were not used to this and they had a boatload of five footers for the second putts. A few times they had fifteen footers. Both were good players. Very fast greens do slow down play, although we did play in about four hours flat.

[jeffwarne]

We start at 7a m with two balls 7 minutes apart for an hour, then we go to 10 minutes for an hour(4 balls mostly consisting of fast players)
Then we go to 11 minutes for hour 3, then 12 minutes the rest of the day.
Works like a charm, and we're doing 180 players in prime season.

Jeff has this always been the case or just since Covid?  Also the 2 balls at 7 am, I assume in the summer the ground crew has enough time to do their maintenance, but in the spring or fall does it give them enough time for the 2 rabbits batting lead off? I know many supers want a foursome off first to ensure their crews have enough time for needed maintenance each morning.

A great question.
yes, we have always had the 7 am speed slots(we had them at Atlantic where I worked 1996-2001)
We are on the east end of the time zone, so it gets light way earlier in The Hamptons than it does in Georgia(being further nother helps), and the days are obviously long in the summer.We don't open till April 15th and the weather sucks in the spring so by the time demand is high, there is a ton of daylight-twilight starts at 4:40am in June.
We move the starts back 30 minutes in the fall as we start to lose daylight-post Labor Day, and demand is lighter by then.
We also ask the first group to play the front in exactly 1.5 hours-it's a big course so this is reasonable(but seems slow to some rabits who don't putt out), but sometimes it means they stop for a brief break at the halfway house(to slow down) as we ask them not turn before 8:30. If they speed up and play the back faster, maintenance is usually well gone by then, so they could play in 2;45, but it's usually close to 3.
So the first two-three groups play in three hours then it drifts back to 3:30 or so for the 9th group, which gives plenty of clearance for the first lalrger group, often a three ball, then 4 balls.
Truthfully, there is more congestion early in the two balls with 9,10 or 11 groups squeezed out in an hour before 3 and 4 balls, but it's "fast paced" congestion(still a fast paced round 2:45-3:15 on a big course), and it resolves itself once the 4 balls start.
Almost universally, the faster 2 balls want early times and the slower 2 balls want later times(or we assign them later times as we have 20 years of data on historical pace of all members play) , so it all works.
The most requested time is the first, or LAST 2 ball(usually a parent and child, or a newer player, who knows he won't have another 2 ball pushing them, but rather a 3 or 4 ball)
 Occasionally, we get a slower player wanting an earlier time,and if they insist, they have the pleasure of me escorting them around and politely pointing out the gap they are creating by not playing at a more appropriate time(30 minutes later), and the problem goes away for the future.
The Bridge is not a course designed for fast play-big scale, lost ball opportunity on every swing, and lightning greens, but the pace is fast on a busy weekend  as that's the culture-which doesn't happen by accident-but we have the luxury of ample and low turnover staff.
The slowest play we get is outside groups on a quiet day with no pressure from behind. The next you know the only group on the course has taken 5 hours to play due to a lack of pressure from behind or awareness of the time-big place.


GPS for each group is the next step, the caddy software we employed this season was supposed to have it, but it was fraught with bugs.Having a map of every group from my office would help but also it wouldn't hurt for groups(especially smaller groups) to be able to see themselves on their GPS app that the "problem" is not directly in front of them, but perhaps 3-4 holes ahead, or perhaps just a full course.(assuming reasonable pace of play of course)

[JJShanley]

My opening 4 holes at my home club are fairly tough. 400 yds, 420 yds, 460 yds, and 195 yds from the back tees. We have 8 minute tee times, regardless of whether there's a medal or social. It just needs a couple of bad shots from a group to back things up. It's one of the only criticisms I have of the place that we don't do 10 minute tee times on a Saturday morning.

[Daryl David]

Tee times, what are those?

+1   

[Dave Doxey]

If it takes a group 5 hours to play 18, what does it matter  if they start 15 minutes after the group in front of them, or  7 minutes?