Slow Play and Tree Management

[Patrick Kiser]

I had a chance to play the Fallbrook GC over Xmas and this quickly turned into a 5+ hour slog.

What really struck me this time around was how much of the slow play was due to the complete lack of tree management.

I mean ... there were trees everyfreakingwhere.  Trees in the fairways on several holes for no apparent reason.  Certainly not in my mind for the hazard value.  There was even a tree blocking the actual green (11th). 

So here's a question for y'all ...

When it comes to slow play, how often can we say the lack of effective tree management is a big culprit?

[Sam Morrow]

I've never even associated the two. Slow play is usally a product of intervals between times being to short, poor etiquette, holes that bottleneck, etc. Never though have I looked at tree management as being an issue.

[Kalen Braley]

Patrick,

I've always felt these two could be related on tree lines courses.  In a group of 4 at least one person is usually in the trees leading to the eventual stalking back and forth from watching the pros while trying to figure out a way to get it near the green.  Then almost always they give up and just do a punchout.

However, I'm not sure what type of number to assign to it in terms of what % delay it causes.  In my experience its long pre-shot routines and not playing ready golf that leads to the biggest % delays.

[Garland Bayley]

If you are talking about not being able to find the ball in the treed area, then it may result in slow play. Otherwise, it is just the ignorant slow play of the player in the trees who is going to slow you down where ever he is.

[Mike McGuire]

An over treed course leads to lost balls. Lost balls add time to the round.

You hit into a grove off the tee - unseen caroms can send the ball anywhere. If you are playing USGA rules - you look for five minutes and then slog back to the tee. If everyone hits a provisional every time they hit one in the trees that adds time to the round as well.