For those of you are aghast at playing at anything but a four-ball, you probably would have to turn down in invitation to San Francisco Golf Club. I haven't been there for some years but it was not uncommon to see a seven-ball in action.
Bob
My first round of golf in the US was at San Francisco GC, there were five of us going to play, we were going to play as a 3 and a 2 but they said on the first tee why not play a five, so off we went as a five on around the 14th one of the caddies said to us that they had never seen a group of five visitors keep ahead of 4 members before!
The last time playing there a couple of years ago, we start off on the back nine as a five, a couple of holes in another member joined us to make a 6, we played the back nine in about 1h 45 minutes and we then played the front nine in around 1h 20. They know how to play quickly there.
One of the major issues is that golfers don't know what it feels like to play briskly. It is not that difficult to play most courses in under 3 hours but most have no idea how to do it.
On tour they walk quickly between shots, don't have to look for balls, the caddies rake bunkers, the bag is always left in the right position in relation to the next green, the card is marked on the next tee, don't take a massive amount of shots to get to the green, everything required to speed up play but golfers take the bad habits from tour not the good ones!! This also shows how long tour players take to play shots!!