Is pace of play a consideration when designing a course?

[Sean_A]

Am I reading the math right? 6 groups per hour…does that mean each hole takes roughly 10 minutes to play? Does that mean a total of 180 minutes or 3 hours to play the course in this model? So if there is one bottleneck the pace of play drops to 4.5 hours for the round after the bottleneck? So in theory if the bottleneck doesn’t happen until the 18th the time for the round should be about 3:05?

Ciao

[Adrian_Stiff]

They miss greens in two shots at par 4 holes too.


Yes the longer the hole the more likely they are to miss the green, but I suspect three players playing most holes one member of the trio will miss the green in two strokes.


I don't think Par 5 holes are a significant reason for tour golf taking an eon.

[Matt Schoolfield]

Let me reiterate here, I think these questions are entirely sensible. This is complicated math. I just want to do my best to explain the gate theory of pace of play, and how it applies to reachable par fives. I hope I'm not coming off as shouty.

Am I reading the math right? 6 groups per hour…does that mean each hole takes roughly 10 minutes to play? Does that mean a total of 180 minutes or 3 hours to play the course in this model? So if there is one bottleneck the pace of play drops to 4.5 hours for the round after the bottleneck? So in theory if the bottleneck doesn’t happen until the 18th the time for the round should be about 3:05?

The model has par 3 hole taking 10 minutes, par 4 holes taking 15 minutes (importantly with cycle time of 9 minutes, since two groups can be on the hole at the same time), and par 5 holes taking 20 minutes (cycle time 9 minutes with 3 groups on the hole at a time). In the most ideal conditions, every player playing to the green in two, I'm not entirely sure off hand whether the cycle time changes, it depends on whether or not they clear the green quickly enough, but it definitely does when someone in the group lays up.

I will reproduce Figure 2 here for you:

They miss greens in two shots at par 4 holes too.


Yes the longer the hole the more likely they are to miss the green, but I suspect three players playing most holes one member of the trio will miss the green in two strokes.

The missing time you're not accounting for is both the extra walking, and the fact that lay ups also miss the green, which still adds additional time. This is a very crude model. It doesn't even account for anyone missing shots at all. The point is that we assume that any mistakes that happen on par threes, par fours, and par fives, will all effect each hole the same. The important issue is the carry capacity that the holes have, which lower the cycle time of the holes.
---

The paper is called "The Golf Course as a Factory" because, like an assembly line, nobody can move forward until the group in front has already moved. Thus, pace moves quickly when everyone is moving about the same speed, but any time there is a hole with a slower throughput, it necessarily means waiting, which causes a slowly cascading pace issue throughout the day unless the tee time intervals account for the slowest hole's cycle time (typically a par 3).
Obviously Riccio's model is very, very crude, but the point remains. Modern models that run, say, monte carlo simulations with good shots and bad shots would be more informative for individual courses when accounting for missed greens.

[Adrian_Stiff]

So, we play our course in 3 hr 15 min normally.


Competition day its 4 hr 15.  How has the course changed?  The extra 1 hour is CARE. The golfers just spend extra time keep lining their putts up and surveying from 6 diff angles!


Easiest thing to speed up play would be one simple rule change:


YOU CAN ONLY MARK THE BALL ONCE ON THE GREEN.

[Jeff Schley]

I know everyone bemoans pop constantly here, but for walking a course, which will be roughly 5-7 miles, while taking 90-100 shots (embarrassing I know) it takes time. I played a round as a three ball at a top 25 course in the USA recently with caddies. They were ushering us along, handing driver to whoever holed putts first to go tee off. We played in 3 hours, some may say well done.  However, add 30 minutes to the round and I would have enjoyed watching everyone putt out, slow down the urgency to enjoy the course and day with conversation included. I don't want to get off the course asap, only to talk about it for another hour or two after in the clubhouse. I'm not a fast walker admittedly, so appreciate an unrushed round to enjoy.

[Michael Felton]

So, we play our course in 3 hr 15 min normally.


Competition day its 4 hr 15.  How has the course changed?  The extra 1 hour is CARE. The golfers just spend extra time keep lining their putts up and surveying from 6 diff angles!

It's also that normally you're probably either playing match play or people pick their ball up once their score is too high. Competition day you can't do that, so everyone has to hole out rather than raking putts. Also you'll have someone lose a ball in the regular rough and on a normal day, they'll throw a ball down and play from there. Competition day they have to go back to the tee. That really backs things up. Tee sheet might be fuller too.

[Michael Felton]

Let me reiterate here, I think these questions are entirely sensible. This is complicated math. I just want to do my best to explain the gate theory of pace of play, and how it applies to reachable par fives. I hope I'm not coming off as shouty.

Am I reading the math right? 6 groups per hour…does that mean each hole takes roughly 10 minutes to play? Does that mean a total of 180 minutes or 3 hours to play the course in this model? So if there is one bottleneck the pace of play drops to 4.5 hours for the round after the bottleneck? So in theory if the bottleneck doesn’t happen until the 18th the time for the round should be about 3:05?

The model has par 3 hole taking 10 minutes, par 4 holes taking 15 minutes (importantly with cycle time of 9 minutes, since two groups can be on the hole at the same time), and par 5 holes taking 20 minutes (cycle time 9 minutes with 3 groups on the hole at a time). In the most ideal conditions, every player playing to the green in two, I'm not entirely sure off hand whether the cycle time changes, it depends on whether or not they clear the green quickly enough, but it definitely does when someone in the group lays up.

I will reproduce Figure 2 here for you:

They miss greens in two shots at par 4 holes too.


Yes the longer the hole the more likely they are to miss the green, but I suspect three players playing most holes one member of the trio will miss the green in two strokes.

The missing time you're not accounting for is both the extra walking, and the fact that lay ups also miss the green, which still adds additional time. This is a very crude model. It doesn't even account for anyone missing shots at all. The point is that we assume that any mistakes that happen on par threes, par fours, and par fives, will all effect each hole the same. The important issue is the carry capacity that the holes have, which lower the cycle time of the holes.
---

The paper is called "The Golf Course as a Factory" because, like an assembly line, nobody can move forward until the group in front has already moved. Thus, pace moves quickly when everyone is moving about the same speed, but any time there is a hole with a slower throughput, it necessarily means waiting, which causes a slowly cascading pace issue throughout the day unless the tee time intervals account for the slowest hole's cycle time (typically a par 3).
Obviously Riccio's model is very, very crude, but the point remains. Modern models that run, say, monte carlo simulations with good shots and bad shots would be more informative for individual courses when accounting for missed greens.

So here is how I would imagine a reachable par 5 that someone lays up on plays for a fourball. Four drives. Walk to the ball. One guy laying up lays up, then the others wait for the green to clear. They hit their three shots and move on. Meanwhile the lay up guy should be well ahead of them and already walking once the last ball is hit. He gets to his ball, no need to wait for the green to clear, hits it on the green (hopefully) and then they all go play their around the green shots. Since he hit his lay up while the group ahead were on the green, I don't see where the extra time has gone. If anything I'd think that this was quicker than all four going for the green, because the approach from the lay up spot should be closer to the hole than it would have been from 250 out in the fairway.


Basically whether they all go for it or only some of them, you have to walk from that spot to the green and hit four shots to the green once the green has cleared. That's the same amount of time whether you do some walking, then hitting, then walking again or just hitting and then walking. Unless the lay up is to somewhere nowhere remotely close to a straight line to the hole, there isn't any additional walking. If the guy waits for the green to clear before hitting his lay up then maybe it would delay things, but that would be pretty dumb on the part of the player there.

[Jim Lipstate]

Routing no doubt a consideration but I find the bigger problem on a lot of courses is how the superintendent has it set up. Narrow fairways bordered by high rough and then unmaintained “rough” with tall grass, brambles, trees and bushes greatly slows down play. Recent rainy weather left our rough grown up with a tendency for the ball to sit down making searches difficult even with a good idea of where the ball went. Keeping the course maintained so that wayward balls are findable will keep players forging ahead in a timely fashion.

[Charlie Goerges]

I fully believe that behavioral and conditioning reasons have major impact on slow play. But I feel like some folks blame those exclusively and totally discount the carrying capacity situation. We are in a case where all of the above can be true. That carrying capacity of the short par 5 or the par 3 is inherent in the course. Slow behavior and difficult conditioning is on top of the bottleneck issue. All three impact the speed of play.


That said, I'm actually glad the architects, as a general rule, don't seem to be overly concerned with speeding up play through design. I want them to mostly be concerned with building fun/great holes. I'm not a speed demon out there. I'd rather play a fun/great course in 4+ hours than a lame one in 3hrs 15min. I know not everyone agrees with me on that.

[Matt Schoolfield]

So here is how I would imagine a reachable par 5 that someone lays up on plays for a fourball. Four drives. Walk to the ball. One guy laying up lays up, then the others wait for the green to clear. They hit their three shots and move on. Meanwhile the lay up guy should be well ahead of them and already walking once the last ball is hit. He gets to his ball, no need to wait for the green to clear, hits it on the green (hopefully) and then they all go play their around the green shots. Since he hit his lay up while the group ahead were on the green, I don't see where the extra time has gone. If anything I'd think that this was quicker than all four going for the green, because the approach from the lay up spot should be closer to the hole than it would have been from 250 out in the fairway.


Basically whether they all go for it or only some of them, you have to walk from that spot to the green and hit four shots to the green once the green has cleared. That's the same amount of time whether you do some walking, then hitting, then walking again or just hitting and then walking. Unless the lay up is to somewhere nowhere remotely close to a straight line to the hole, there isn't any additional walking. If the guy waits for the green to clear before hitting his lay up then maybe it would delay things, but that would be pretty dumb on the part of the player there.

So yea, ready golf really diminished the problems of reachable par fives in day-to-day play. I just brought all this up specifically because we were referring to tournament golf via Tom's comment:

This is a problem for every PGA TOUR event, and one of the reasons that play is so execrably slow.

Tournaments are where reachable par fives really throw a wrench in the works.

Slow behavior and difficult conditioning is on top of the bottleneck issue. All three impact the speed of play.

That said, I'm actually glad the architects, as a general rule, don't seem to be overly concerned with speeding up play through design. I want them to mostly be concerned with building fun/great holes. I'm not a speed demon out there. I'd rather play a fun/great course in 4+ hours than a lame one in 3hrs 15min. I know not everyone agrees with me on that.

I fully agree with you here Charlie. I'm probably the only person in the room that doesn't mind a five hour round too much. I just like being on the golf course. The only reason why I went down the rabbit hole in researching pace, is that the "people should just play faster" response never really made much sense to me, and I wanted to understand why. Obviously ready golf helps, but it's where we put 100% of our energy when there are other factors involved.

If anyone has read what I've written about pace, they know my solution to pace issues isn't to completely eliminate them, that's just an arm's race. People will start demanding 3:30 rounds instead of 4 hours, I mean, we already pretend 4 hours in "normal" when it's actually closer to 4:20. No, my solution is to intentionally find the bottlenecks, and place services at them (food & beverage huts that open after the backup starts), so that when these bottlenecks occur, there's something to do while waiting.

Course design should be focus on good golf, period.

[Michael Felton]

So yea, ready golf really diminished the problems of reachable par fives in day-to-day play. I just brought all this up specifically because we were referring to tournament golf:

I'd still expect that the person going for it is going to be closer to the green than the person laying up. Unless they're in the rough, but even then you'd have to hit it quite a bit further before the lost roll out didn't have it be your go anyway. Tournaments allow you to play and I've regularly said something like "I'm laying up, so I'll go" if I'm not out and someone else is waiting. No one has ever said no to that. At least not to me.

[Matt Schoolfield]

So yea, ready golf really diminished the problems of reachable par fives in day-to-day play. I just brought all this up specifically because we were referring to tournament golf:

I'd still expect that the person going for it is going to be closer to the green than the person laying up. Unless they're in the rough, but even then you'd have to hit it quite a bit further before the lost roll out didn't have it be your go anyway. Tournaments allow you to play and I've regularly said something like "I'm laying up, so I'll go" if I'm not out and someone else is waiting. No one has ever said no to that. At least not to me.

You still have to wait for the green to clear before advancing to the lay up. If you are waiting for any reason, that wait is typically compounding behind you.

So instead of: hit -> walk -> hit -> walk -> hit -> walk -> green (seven stages), you have: hit -> walk -> hit -> wait -> walk -> hit -> walk -> green (eight stages).

[John Kavanaugh]

So golfers who work on their game should be denied eagle putt opportunities so a gaggle of hacks can save 8 minutes?

[Charlie Goerges]

So golfers who work on their game should be denied eagle putt opportunities so a gaggle of hacks can save 8 minutes?

Literally no one said anything remotely close to this. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.

[John Kavanaugh]

I thought it was clearly said that people who wait on greens to clear are slower than those who lay up.

[Ira Fishman]

I think data is great. I think that culture matters more. Why is the pace of play better at UK&I courses generally than at US courses? It cannot be primarily the design. High fescue, gorse, heather, wind, blind shots. The only UK&I courses that I have experienced that played slow were the ones chock full of my fellow Americans.

[Charlie Goerges]

I thought it was clearly said that people who wait on greens to clear are slower than those who lay up.

Yes, but nobody said they shouldn’t be allowed to wait, which is what you implied.

[Kalen Braley]

I was under the impression that advocating for half par holes were one of the core values of this site?

If half par 5's are undesirable, does this mean we also get rid of long par 4s?  For the average joe, there is no fundamental difference in playing time for a 440 yard par 4 vs a 470 yard par 5.  For most it will still require a very long second shot and plenty of waiting around for the guy who attempts the hero shot.

P.S.  Ira nails it, slow play is almost entirely a cultural issue, not a physical one.

[Cal Carlisle]

I know everyone bemoans pop constantly here, but for walking a course, which will be roughly 5-7 miles, while taking 90-100 shots (embarrassing I know) it takes time. I played a round as a three ball at a top 25 course in the USA recently with caddies. They were ushering us along, handing driver to whoever holed putts first to go tee off. We played in 3 hours, some may say well done.  However, add 30 minutes to the round and I would have enjoyed watching everyone putt out, slow down the urgency to enjoy the course and day with conversation included. I don't want to get off the course asap, only to talk about it for another hour or two after in the clubhouse. I'm not a fast walker admittedly, so appreciate an unrushed round to enjoy.

Agreed. While I don't want to be trapped at the dinner table for 3-4 hours at Alinea, I also don't want to drop ¥550,000 at Sukiyabashi Jiro for a dinner that is over in 30 minutes.

[John Kavanaugh]

Why study a problem if your intent isn’t to mandate change?

[Matt Schoolfield]

Why study a problem if your intent isn’t to mandate change?

To quote Jeremy Webb…

[Michael Felton]

You still have to wait for the green to clear before advancing to the lay up. If you are waiting for any reason, that wait is typically compounding behind you.

So instead of: hit -> walk -> hit -> walk -> hit -> walk -> green (seven stages), you have: hit -> walk -> hit -> wait -> walk -> hit -> walk -> green (eight stages).

But if you're waiting for the green, then that wait just comes before the hit, so it's still eight stages. If you're 250 yards away from the green, you can either hit one shot or two shots (don't lay up vs lay up). If the group ahead is still on the green, then if you hit one shot, you have wait, hit, walk, green. If you hit two shots, you have hit, wait, walk, hit, walk, green. So yes it's an extra step in there, but that's really because one 250 yard walk has turned into one 150 yard walk and one 100 yard walk. Those take the same amount of time don't they?


Having said that, I thought about this a bit more and I think the issue is actually mixing and matching going for it and not among different groups. I went through the bottleneck math for alternating going for it and not.


If everyone lays up:


Group 1 plays tee shots (3) walks (3) hits second shots (3) walks (2) hits third shots (3) walks (2) green (4) = 20 minutes


Group 2 has to wait 9 minutes for this group to clear before they hit their tee shots. So they wait/finish prior hole (9) play tee shots (3) walk (3) hit 2nd shots (3) walk (2) hit third shots (3) walk (2) green (4), so they finish the hole at 29 minutes after group 1 tees off and I think that's consistently how long the field should take. And the 9 minute wait matches the prior hole's approach shots (3) walk (2) and green (4).


Alternatively, if all players go for it in 2, I think it would look like:


Group 1 plays tee shots (3) walks (3) hits second shots (3) walks (4 - since they have to walk the same distance as in the prior example) green (4), so 17 minutes and now group 2 again has to wait 9 minutes while they clear the prior hole. Then they tee shots (3) walk (3) wait (2 - since group 1 takes 8 minutes to finish the hole after clearing the tee shot area and it only takes 6 minutes to hit tee shots and walk) second shots (3) walk (4) green (4). That's 19 minutes total. Group 3 are going to wait 2 minutes on the tee, then 2 minutes in the fairway as well, so every group is going to have to wait an additional 2 minutes over the previous one, so 11 minute gate time (I think).


If you have a mix of going for it and not, let's first look at it as group 1 lays up and group 2 goes for it. Now:


Group 1 tee shots (3) walk (3) second shots (3) walk (2) third shots (3) walk (2) green (4)


Group 2 finishes prior hole in 9 minutes then tee shots (3) walk (3) - that's 15 minutes total, so they have to wait 5 minutes for the green to clear. Wait (5) second shots (3) walk (4) green (4). 31 minutes since group 1 started. Now group 3 lays up, so they have to wait 14 minutes till they can tee off, They have a five minute wait on the tee, so wait (5) tee shots (3) walk (3) second shots (3) walk (2) third shots (3) walk (2) green (4) so that's 25 minutes for them on this hole.


Group 4 is also going for it. They have to wait 5 minutes on the tee also (group ahead 5 + 3 + 3 + 3 - 9), but that should be it because group 3 can hit their lay ups without further waiting (group 2 being on the green at this point). Now group 4 waits (5) tee shots (3) walks (3), so that's 6 minutes after group 3 cleared the driving area. But group 3 are going to take 14 minutes to finish the hole after clearing the driving area, so group 4 after waits (5) tee shots (3) walks (3) wait ( second shots (3) walk (4) green (4).


Group 5 gets to the tee 9 minutes after group 4 did. But they have to wait 5 + 3 + 3 + 8 + 3 - 9 minutes which is 13 minutes. Things are getting ugly.

[Charlie Goerges]

Why study a problem if your intent isn’t to mandate change?

To quote Jeremy Webb…

Good pull!


That, said John, Matt did give some examples of what could be done with this information, including better placement of things like snack shacks and bathrooms and things like that. It doesn’t require the banning of anything to improve the flow (if not the outright speed).

[Jim Lipstate]

I previously commented on course set up not just routing influencing pace of play but I did not talk about pin placements. On Good Friday just before Easter virtually everyone in South Louisiana has the day off. The sign in sheet for the day was packed. We use a computer system to pick pin placements. Generally 6 easier pins, 6 moderate and 6 difficult. On this day for some reason the first three holes had pins placed in very difficult spots. The par five 3rd hole, in particular, had a narrow shelf back pin with fall offs all around. Groups were routinely 3 putting or worse not to mention multiple chips trying to get close. Backed up the whole course from the gitgo.


We brought it up in committee and decided on high traffic non-tournament days pins would be placed in more accessible positions. Worked like a charm the next holiday weekend.

[John Kavanaugh]

Boring works!!!