Is pace of play a consideration when designing a course?

[Rob Marshall]

I would think length of walks between green to tee, starting with a hole that doesn't have penalty areas. Are things like that taken into account or is it just creating the best routing possible without any consideration to pace?

[Matt Schoolfield]

I can't answer you directly on that, but I have been contacted about developing a pace of play model based on some research I did on the subject. So, there are definitely folks out there who are interested in testing routings for pace issues.

I would be interested in building that model, and plan to build it when I can, but right now I've got a bit on my plate already. Gathering data on player behavior is the biggest hurdle.

[Tommy Williamsen]

I have made many suggestions to the GM about the resort course where we live. The only two that have been implemented concern the length of two holes. Other suggestions, like adding a fairway bunker, are met with the answer, "It would slow down pace of play."

[Tom_Doak]

I don't think pace of play is something that many designers spend a lot of time considering, because there is a general feeling that it's only going to make a few minutes' difference one way or the other, unless there are egregious green-to-tee walks and other obstacles that we would always try to avoid.


That said, I do think there are some general "rules" that most designers follow, such as trying not to have a reachable par-5 or a drivable par-4 early in the round, which might back up play.  Indeed, a lot of designers from the 1960s through the 1990s mostly eschewed half-par holes, partly on the grounds that they would slow down play. 


Personally, I don't care if a round takes ten minutes longer, if the golf is more fun.  If it took half an hour longer, that would be a different story, but I think you'd have to do a lot of crazy things to have it make that much difference.

[JohnVDB]

That said, I do think there are some general "rules" that most designers follow, such as trying not to have a reachable par-5 or a drivable par-4 early in the round, which might back up play.  Indeed, a lot of designers from the 1960s through the 1990s mostly eschewed half-par holes, partly on the grounds that they would slow down play.

On the Ghost Creek course at Pumpkin Ridge, the 10th is a reachable par 5.  But, when the course started play on #10 rather than #1, they found that play was 20-30 minutes faster.  This was because the back nine had a lot less places where ball searches were required so players got off to a good start, whereas they could lose balls on the front which slowed up play with searches.

[Mike Nuzzo]

To Tom's point, I don't think about time being separate from the routing process - it seems to be baked into the design including short walks and an intimate routing when desired.
Bill Yates's "Out of Time" book is a good reference.
As a result of Yate's feedback, I generally view tee time spacing as more of a culprit with a well-routed course.
I do like John's anecdote.


Preshot routines, and cheater lines have been discussed in the Treehouse regarding pace of play far more thoroughly.

[Tim Gavrich]

When I played it last October, the 2027 PGA Championship-hosting East course at PGA Frisco had an expected pace of five hours for regular play. Erin Hills is similar, as far as I know.

I don't know much, but I do know it takes longer to walk 8,000 yards than it takes to walk 7,000 yards.

[Michael Felton]

To Tom's point, I don't think about time being separate from the routing process - it seems to be baked into the design including short walks and an intimate routing when desired.
Bill Yates's "Out of Time" book is a good reference.
As a result of Yate's feedback, I generally view tee time spacing as more of a culprit with a well-routed course.
I do like John's anecdote.


Preshot routines, and cheater lines have been discussed in the Treehouse regarding pace of play far more thoroughly.

Yes agreed. From a pace of play perspective, if your tee time gap is shorter than the time it takes a typical group to play the longest par 3, you're going to have back ups that get worse and worse as the day goes on. I guess from that perspective, you might want to limit long difficult par 3s if you have a public course that's going to have 8 minute gaps.


I can also see how if you have a private club that doesn't have tee times, then opening with a reachable par 5 might well help since it will spread the field out nicely at the start of the round and then actual playing times are likely to be better.

[Tim Martin]

When I played it last October, the 2027 PGA Championship-hosting East course at PGA Frisco had an expected pace of five hours for regular play. Erin Hills is similar, as far as I know.

I don't know much, but I do know it takes longer to walk 8,000 yards than it takes to walk 7,000 yards.

An “expected pace of play” of five hours leaves me with the same feeling as when I read or hear a claim of “fastest greens in town, county or state(you pick).” That feeling is ugh.

[Kalen Braley]

To John's point.

Indian Canyon in Spokane originally started off with a triple whammy: two short 5s' followed by a short 4.  The start was always agonizingly slow, even though the holes on the back 9 were a more fun and interesting finish.  They switched the 9s, which was a bummer, but it really improved pace of play out of the gate.

Now the groups tend to stagger better by getting a bite between 9s at the clubhouse and 10-12 (orig. 1-3) go more smoothly.

[Jeff_Brauer]

There are other things you can do besides what is mentioned above, none of which is consistent with traditional routing principles.


The big ones are NOT to combine bridges to save money (which is tempting, but it takes all golfers on a less direct route.)


A course with all par 4's would play the fastest.  As would a course with the handicap ratings starting with the most difficult at hole 1, and the 18th being the easiest, theoretically allowing players ahead to get away from the group behind.  In addition, holes of equal but different challenges help flow, as opposed to the idea of a rhythm of easy, hard, and medium holes.  Rate the tee shot, approach shot, and putting for difficulty, i.e., 1-3, for 9 potential points.  All holes should average 6 points, rather than a 4 followed by a 9.


And more practically, make sure the holes after a par 3 are easy to help avoid backups after the par 3. Or, at least make the tee shot wide open.


Honestly, I wasn't aware of many of these ideas until later in my career.  But, I used to have a speed of play (or pace) section in my master plan reports where I would look at all those situations (and more) and if there was to be any re-routing, incorporate them there.

[Adrian_Stiff]

Yes I would say it is a consideration but its probably always factored and over-ridden by getting the best out of the land.


No early par 3 holes would be my first thought but I still have a lot of courses where my 2nd is a short hole so its not got past #the best out of the land#


I also had a par 3 start and specifically made it play in 8 minutes which it does. It's short, island type par 3, you are either putting pretty much or playing again off the tee. In that instance the land forced me to start that way.

[Tim_Weiman]

I would think length of walks between green to tee, starting with a hole that doesn't have penalty areas. Are things like that taken into account or is it just creating the best routing possible without any consideration to pace?

Rob,


I’d be inclined to say muni courses should be designed with pace of play in mind, but most, if not all, of those have already been built and are what they are for better or worse.


Tim

[Peter Flory]

To Tom's point, I don't think about time being separate from the routing process - it seems to be baked into the design including short walks and an intimate routing when desired.
Bill Yates's "Out of Time" book is a good reference.
As a result of Yate's feedback, I generally view tee time spacing as more of a culprit with a well-routed course.
I do like John's anecdote.


Preshot routines, and cheater lines have been discussed in the Treehouse regarding pace of play far more thoroughly.

Yes agreed. From a pace of play perspective, if your tee time gap is shorter than the time it takes a typical group to play the longest par 3, you're going to have back ups that get worse and worse as the day goes on. I guess from that perspective, you might want to limit long difficult par 3s if you have a public course that's going to have 8 minute gaps.

It would be interesting to test that by taking a public course with poor pace of play and moving the tees forward on the par 3s and measuring the results. 

It could be the easiest fix in the world and wouldn't require any investment. 

[Bill Seitz]

I started thinking about this last year after a lot of complaints (particularly about Cantlay) at the Masters, but Augusta, especially the front nine, seems to lend itself to slow play and breaks some of the rules Tom laid out above.  The first hole is fine, but then you have a par five that almost everyone can reach in two at the second, and then a potentially drivable third (at least they probably need to wait until the group in front is on the green before teeing off).  Then a couple long par 3s sandwiched around the fifth, and another reachable five at the eighth.  It seems like the 5th and 7th would allow for play to stretch back out a bit, but both are immediately preceded and/or followed by holes that tend to slow things back down.


Granted, almost every par 5 on tour is reachable, so maybe this is not a problem for everyday play during the season at Augusta, assuming it even gets enough regular play for pace to ever be an issue.

[Thomas Dai]

It ought to be. A round of golf takes too long to play these days.
Atb

[Tim_Weiman]

I started thinking about this last year after a lot of complaints (particularly about Cantlay) at the Masters, but Augusta, especially the front nine, seems to lend itself to slow play and breaks some of the rules Tom laid out above.  The first hole is fine, but then you have a par five that almost everyone can reach in two at the second, and then a potentially drivable third (at least they probably need to wait until the group in front is on the green before teeing off).  Then a couple long par 3s sandwiched around the fifth, and another reachable five at the eighth.  It seems like the 5th and 7th would allow for play to stretch back out a bit, but both are immediately preceded and/or followed by holes that tend to slow things back down.


Granted, almost every par 5 on tour is reachable, so maybe this is not a problem for everyday play during the season at Augusta, assuming it even gets enough regular play for pace to ever be an issue.

Bill,


Any idea how many Augusta members can reach #2 green in two shots or hit #3 green in one shot?


Tim

[Tom_Doak]

I started thinking about this last year after a lot of complaints (particularly about Cantlay) at the Masters, but Augusta, especially the front nine, seems to lend itself to slow play and breaks some of the rules Tom laid out above.  The first hole is fine, but then you have a par five that almost everyone can reach in two at the second, and then a potentially drivable third (at least they probably need to wait until the group in front is on the green before teeing off).  Then a couple long par 3s sandwiched around the fifth, and another reachable five at the eighth.  It seems like the 5th and 7th would allow for play to stretch back out a bit, but both are immediately preceded and/or followed by holes that tend to slow things back down.


Granted, almost every par 5 on tour is reachable, so maybe this is not a problem for everyday play during the season at Augusta, assuming it even gets enough regular play for pace to ever be an issue.

This is a problem for every PGA TOUR event, and one of the reasons that play is so execrably slow.  The staff try to make those types of holes boring on Thursday and Friday and set them up as long as possible so they can get 156 slow players around, but as you say, almost all of the par-5 holes are reachable now, so they are inevitably waiting on those.


It's one of the worst unintended consequences of the equipment debacle [and the Tour's determination not to upset their "partners" in the equipment business.  Who would have thought that enabling players to hit the ball further would lead to slower play?

[Thomas Dai]

It's one of the worst unintended consequences of the equipment debacle [and the Tour's determination not to upset their "partners" in the equipment business.  Who would have thought that enabling players to hit the ball further would lead to slower play?

Bingo! Well said.
Atb

[Adrian_Stiff]

Tom I disagree that slow play is down to waiting on par 5 holes because they are two shotters. All holes are two shotters for ALL tour players pretty much, so they play like par 4 holes. They wait on every hole, they nearly all play slow.


Slow play on the tour is because those players take so much care/faff. A lot of $$$ involved they want to know everything. It could change and be quicker if the rules changed. ON THE GREENS is the biggest area of time waste. Fast greens, contoured greens add the time. They take an absolute age in assessing every detail. I am not advocating FLAT SURFACES btw.


It takes 50-75 minutes to walk a golf course        (4800-6800 yd)
It takes 20-35 minutes to play the shots to the green (0-18 hcp)


The rest is the putting, the thinking, the waiting.


I am sure there are loads on here that on their own can complete the putting in 25 minutes.


Now think of 5 hour rounds thats 300 minutes. You are left with a terrible figure.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Tom I disagree that slow play is down to waiting on par 5 holes because they are two shotters. All holes are two shotters for ALL tour players pretty much, so they play like par 4 holes. They wait on every hole, they nearly all play slow.

So, if every player is hitting the green in two, your point stands, I think the obvious problem with that is that all it takes on a reachable par 5 is one single player somehow not have a shot at the green (say they have a bad drive). This creates a bottleneck effect that will ripple through the rest of the day. Remember, the pace is set by the slowest group throughout the day, not the average.

Because par 5s are holes that players are most likely to lay up on, and if there is a single player that is attempting to reach the green in two, while another lays up, then you dramatically increasing your cycle time, because the player laying up cannot advance to their lay up until the green clears. If/when this happens, according to Riccio's model, the cycle time of the par 5 should jump from 9 minutes per group (6.66 groups/hour) to a massive 14 minutes per group (only 4.28 groups/hour). This creates a larger bottleneck than even par 3s, which are a 10 minute cycle time (6 groups/hour).

Thus, we should expect any player not reaching that reachable par 5 in two shots to create extremely large slowdowns throughout the day.

This is, of course, exacerbated by the fact that the worst performing groups are placed in the earliest tee-time positions, which means that the players most likely to cause slow downs are in the positions where their poor play conflict with better play, and the result is slow downs that compound the through the day. Thus, barely reachable par 5s on tour are indeed the source of many a pace problem.

For further review: Riccio, L. (2012). Analyzing the Pace of Play in Golf: The Golf Course as a Factory. International Journal of Golf Science, 1(2), 90–112.

Here is a large citation (page 94-97) that refers to logic behind my argument, but it's incomplete without looking at the large Figure 2, on page 96 of the article:

Single Hole Bottleneck Analysis Model

The bottleneck analysis model simulated the regular play of one par 3, par 4 and par 5 and the play of a par 3 with “wave up.” The purpose of this model was to demonstrate how the different par types affect the overall capacity and waiting time of a course. The analysis assumed all groups were accomplished golfers with fixed times to play. For this example, those fixed times were: tee off in 3 minutes, take three minutes to walk to the next stroke (to the green on par 3s), 3 minutes to clear the second on par 4s and 5s and, on par 5s, clear the third shot. It also assumed a two-minute walk to the green from the fairway and on par 5s to walk to the third. It assumed all groups on all holes took 4 minutes to clear the green. Using these figures, it would take a group 10 minutes to play a par 3 (3 minutes to tee off, 3 minutes to walk to the green and 4 minutes to clear the green.) It would take a group 15 minutes to finish a par 4 and 20 minutes to play a par 5. Although the par 5 takes the longest, our experience tells us that par 3s tend to be bottleneck holes (where groups wait.)

Figure 2 confirms our experience. The numbers under the label “Time” are the times it takes each group to clear the next hitting zone or green, and to walk to the next shot. Looking at the first part of the chart—“Par 3 No Wave Up”—the first group clears the tee at time 3, walks to the green in three minutes (time 6), then putts out to finish the hole in 10 minutes. At that point group 2 can start to tee off. In this first case, it can be seen that each group takes 10 minutes to play the hole (throughput time) and that a group finishes every 10 minutes (cycle time.) The capacity of the hole is six groups per hour. The par 4 throughput time is 14 minutes for the first group to play. However the next group cannot begin play until after the first group hits its second shots and clears the hitting area.

In the paper by Tiger et al., this is called clearing the “gate.” The second group cannot hit their second shots until the first group clears the green. The spreadsheet models show that using these time estimates, the second group and each subsequent group must wait one minute for the group ahead to clear the green before they can begin hitting their second shots. As such the second group and each group after it will take 15 minutes to play the hole (throughput time.) However the model indicates that the time between groups starting and finishing the hole is 9 minutes (cycle time) yielding a capacity of 6.67 groups per hour. Interestingly, although the time to play the par 4 hole is larger, it has a higher capacity than the par 3. A similar analysis for par 5s shows that their capacity is the same as the par 4s, 6.67 per hour. Given that the capacity of the par 3s is lower than the capacity of the others, they are by definition the bottlenecks.

Unfortunately, most courses start with a par 4 or 5. Groups generally start as soon as the previous group clears the hitting zone (the first “gate.”) As shown above, the capacity of par 4s and 5s is 6.67 per hour or one group every 9 minutes. In this model, new groups enter the course every 9 minutes, 6.67 per hour. Since the capacity of a par 3 is 6 per hour, a queue has to build up. The optimal tee time interval for pace of play is equal to the cycle time of the hole with the lowest cycle time, generally the par 3s, not the opening hole. Sending groups out at a rate faster than the capacity of the bottleneck creates delays and significantly slows the overall pace of play. Now consider the par 3 “Wave Up” case. The first group reaches the green at time 6. It then waits for the second group to tee off. They resume putting at time 9 and finish the hole at time 13. Although it took them longer to play the hole, each successive group finishes the hole with an interval of 7 minutes. With “wave up”, par 3 capacity jumps from 6 groups to 8.57 per hour, a 46% increase. But the increase cannot be fully realized since the par 4s and 5s now become the bottlenecks. So by waving up, the capacity of the course goes from 6 to 6.67, a 10% increase.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

Tom I disagree that slow play is down to waiting on par 5 holes because they are two shotters. All holes are two shotters for ALL tour players pretty much, so they play like par 4 holes. They wait on every hole, they nearly all play slow.

No, because the waiting on par fives is often for the players ahead of them to take 2.7 more strokes, not 1.95 more strokes.

That's the shorter version of what Matt probably said.

[Bill Seitz]

I started thinking about this last year after a lot of complaints (particularly about Cantlay) at the Masters, but Augusta, especially the front nine, seems to lend itself to slow play and breaks some of the rules Tom laid out above.  The first hole is fine, but then you have a par five that almost everyone can reach in two at the second, and then a potentially drivable third (at least they probably need to wait until the group in front is on the green before teeing off).  Then a couple long par 3s sandwiched around the fifth, and another reachable five at the eighth.  It seems like the 5th and 7th would allow for play to stretch back out a bit, but both are immediately preceded and/or followed by holes that tend to slow things back down.


Granted, almost every par 5 on tour is reachable, so maybe this is not a problem for everyday play during the season at Augusta, assuming it even gets enough regular play for pace to ever be an issue.

Bill,


Any idea how many Augusta members can reach #2 green in two shots or hit #3 green in one shot?


Tim

Tim, I have no idea how long either of them play from the member tees.  I'm guessing not many though.  I don't think it makes Augusta any less of course, just got me thinking about how its hole order affects pace of play, at least on the front, and that's limited to the Masters.

[Sean_A]

I started thinking about this last year after a lot of complaints (particularly about Cantlay) at the Masters, but Augusta, especially the front nine, seems to lend itself to slow play and breaks some of the rules Tom laid out above.  The first hole is fine, but then you have a par five that almost everyone can reach in two at the second, and then a potentially drivable third (at least they probably need to wait until the group in front is on the green before teeing off).  Then a couple long par 3s sandwiched around the fifth, and another reachable five at the eighth.  It seems like the 5th and 7th would allow for play to stretch back out a bit, but both are immediately preceded and/or followed by holes that tend to slow things back down.


Granted, almost every par 5 on tour is reachable, so maybe this is not a problem for everyday play during the season at Augusta, assuming it even gets enough regular play for pace to ever be an issue.

This is a problem for every PGA TOUR event, and one of the reasons that play is so execrably slow.  The staff try to make those types of holes boring on Thursday and Friday and set them up as long as possible so they can get 156 slow players around, but as you say, almost all of the par-5 holes are reachable now, so they are inevitably waiting on those.


It's one of the worst unintended consequences of the equipment debacle [and the Tour's determination not to upset their "partners" in the equipment business.  Who would have thought that enabling players to hit the ball further would lead to slower play?

What is the time difference between waiting for reachable par 5 greens to clear and hitting the extra shot on unreachable par 5s?

Assuming sensible tee time gaps, I believe the biggest causes of slow play for Joe Blow golfers are player behaviour and course set up/presentation.

Ciao

[Matt Schoolfield]

What is the time difference between waiting for reachable par 5 greens to clear and hitting the extra shot on unreachable par 5s?

My wall of text directly addresses this. It has to do with carry capacity of a hole. Specifically, the groups/hour that the hole can maintain.

As I stated above, using Riccio's model, an unreachable par 5 has a carry capacity of 3 groups, and moves groups at 6.66 groups/hour. A reachable par 5, where most groups have at least one player is going for the green and one laying up, will have a carry capacity of about 2, and moves only 4.28 groups/hour. This happens because the person who lays up has to wait to approach and play their layup, because they must wait for both the green to clear and then for the other players to play their balls as they try to reach the green. This also means the folks back at the tee can't tee off until after the green clears either.

Since most holes move at least 6 groups/hour, a hole that only moves 4.3 groups/hour is a bottleneck that backs up all day.