I've been reading Spirit of St. Andrews lately and I'm amazed at all the references to 2 1/2 hour rounds of golf!

When did it change?

Why did it change?

Can we change it back?

Steve,

I think the answer lies beyond format.

For about 4 years I played a 2 hour 18 hole round almost  every monday am. I teed off at first light and walked the 6,000 semi-hilly course.

I hardly hear the word "ready golf" any more.

I also will almost never play a public access course when I have to tee off between 9 and 1 on a weekend.

I think it was Shivas who lamented the fact that with a family you just can't afford to burn 8 hours on a normal weekend to play golf.


Can GCA do anything to speed this up?

We spend time every year at Elie.  I play golf early morning and regularly play 18 in under two and a half hours.  My father in law plays at Muirfield.  They expect a foursome(alternate ball to you guys) to take two and a half hours and a singles to take under three.  They frown on more than two balls in a group.

I regularly play in a fourball at my home club which gets round (first out) in three and a half or less.  There is no excuse, ever, for a round of golf to take any more than four hours and it is rare for rounds to take longer at UK private clubs.  In the end, slow play happens because people accept it, so clubs don't act against the perpetrators.

I believe GCA do their part by having multiple tee boxes, but ego gets in the way for many golfers and they end up playing from the wrong set of tees.

I have to wonder if this really has anything to do with it. I admit I didn't read the thread, but there was a thread on why are there so few tee boxes in GB. So it would seem they all play from the same tees, which would put the high handicaps playing from the same tees as the low handicaps, and they don't seem to have a problem with long rounds.

If the course is such that the back tees result in lost balls or balls in hazards, I can expect wrong tees to result in long rounds.

I did an experiment recently concerning this subject, and found I take less than 15 seconds to take my practice swing and then hit the ball. So if I shoot 10 strokes higher from the back tees, I have used up an entire 2 1/2 minutes.

Inconsiderate people cause slow play. Not high handicappers or "wrong tees".

IMHO, GCAs have been doing the wrong thing with multiple tees. The only place they are needed is when hazards force their use. My entry into the Lido Competition had a single tee for all golfers.

When I was a kid, my dad and his buddy would give my brother and I their three irons and instruct us to play behind them. We took twice as many strokes, but we were the ones waiting on them and we didn't need no stinking forward tees.

I repeat, inconsiderate people cause slow play. Not high handicappers or "wrong tees".

Equating "golf" and "exercise" is going to be awfully difficult to achieve in a golf culture where the guys in the pro shop look surprised when you say you'll be walking.

... and when the majority of the teenage kids are riding around an easily walkable golf course in carts. Nothing bugs me more.

I don't want to hijack Jeff's thread but I want to tell the group what happened to myself and my 13 year old son as we were walking our home course yesterday:

The two of us went out about noon yesterday and there is nothing better than carrying your bag and talking to your son about nothing important and just enjoying each other's company.  We were on the 3rd hole which is the furthest from the clubhouse when the skies opened up - it poured - we went under some trees as there was no lightning but we were still standing there about 15 minutes getting totally soaked.  We just laughed and laughed and I told him we would never forget this.  Eventually, we just gave up and walked in through the downpour.  We were soaked thru and thru and went home laughing all the way.  If we were riding in a golf cart we never would have this memory to treasure forever.

Jim Colton:

Multiple tees are part of the problem, not the solution.  If golf course architects built courses with fewer back tees ... shorter courses with greens and tees closer together ... that might help some, as it certainly does overseas.

1962

Could two factors be...

1.  Lots more players on the courses, similar to how more cars on the freeway jam traffic, and

2.  Longer courses?  

Golf carts have slowed play.  Or I should say, inefficient use of carts have has slowed play.  I will play in a walikg forball and watch the cart fourball in fron of us drive to each ball, watch each other hit, wait for the player get back in the cart and drive to the next ball.  It makes me crazy that a waliking fouball has to wait for four knucleheads waste so much time watching each other.  Keeping carts on the cart path just makes it worsee.

There's a Harry Vardon quote where he warns that you shouldn't play too much golf in one day. You can easily overdo it.

Three rounds sound be the limit.

Bob

 

I repeat, inconsiderate people cause slow play. Not high handicappers or "wrong tees".

Why can't it be both?  No matter how fast a golfer is, if he can't ever reach N holes in regulation, then that's N more instances of

get to the shot
        (certainly exacerbated if two cartballers* refuse to do any walking whatsoever.)
get a yardage
pick a club
practice swing
etc.

This doesn't mean said person will automatically be slow, but it does make it more likely.

* as opposed to golfers who happen to be using a cart.

ps.  oh, and what what Doug Wright said about teenagers in carts on reasonably walkable courses.  Yeesh.

I do think the long grass or woods features cause a lot of lost time as groups go looking for balls - and don't play a provisional.

TV does not help matters as pros spend their measured time in looking for a lost ball, then finding relief, taking a drop, etc. Now every player on the course thinks they can go into the woods and hit it out, or into the long hay. Also, pros take 4 hours usually to play 18 and they are in threes and twos - and they all have +5 handicaps.


What do you think the average time will be at Oakmont for the threesomes?