[SB]

Kevin, but you've discovered the key to slow play!

[Mike Benham]

two of them- A and B - played the very backs, and while they were both quite long, they spent an awful lot of time in the desert looking for balls..

But wouldn't they still be in the desert even if they played up a tee box?  (assuming the course or a course didn't have numerous sharp doglegs)

[PThomas]

two of them- A and B - played the very backs, and while they were both quite long, they spent an awful lot of time in the desert looking for balls..

maybe, maybe not...perhaps they would have felt less pressure to hit the ball so far if thye played up, which may have helped them


But wouldn't they still be in the desert even if they played up a tee box?  (assuming the course or a course didn't have numerous sharp doglegs)

[Dan Kelly]

Count me a Joe Sixpack when it comes to conditioning -- at least of the greens.

I'd just as soon stay home if well-struck putts don't roll true.

[PThomas]

Count me a Joe Sixpack when it comes to conditioning -- at least of the greens.

I'd just as soon stay home if well-struck putts don't roll true.

then Hogan is Sixpack too Dan, cause he said he didn't care about the fairways as long as the greens were ok

[Cassandra Burns]

two of them- A and B - played the very backs, and while they were both quite long, they spent an awful lot of time in the desert looking for balls..for ex, they both hit two off our fist tee, and couldn't find any of the 4 balls

the other played the backs, and he shouldn't have been there....18 is a 490 par 4, and there's no way he could be near that hole in 2..he said something like he wanted to get his money's worth

I think most guys prefer to play from the very back, without a thought to the yardage.  I think it's an ego thing.  And I've noticed that if I play as a single and pick the white tees (I like playing from 5800-6000 yards myself), the guys in the group will move back to the blue tees.  What's up with that?  Maybe by the end of the round they want to have some kind of excuse for why I just beat them?  

Most of the time - 4-5 days a week? - I'd like to see the superintendent keep all the tees up front as much as possible, effectively lowering the yardage. Joe Sixpack could still get his ego-boost playing from "the tips", plus with the added benefits of thinking he's driving the ball really well that day, scoring lower, and taking less time to play.  

I also wonder if it would speed up play if the starter or the marshall suggested the Muldooney Revisions for the high-handicappers - like, pick up after you've reached double or triple bogey, play OB like any regular hazard, and of course the Gimme.  

Then again, most golfers are masochists...

[Matt_Ward]

Jeff:

Just because people plunk down money keep in mind that OTHERS have also plunked down the same amount of money and when the inmates are allowed to run the asylum then management is the ones who belong in the rubber room.

One other point -- failure to take on the primary culprits means a bigger issue -- you will certainly lose those who want to follow the letter and spirit of golf etiquette.

[Jeff_Brauer]

Matt,

I am frustrated with slow play, etc. as anyone else.  I just think a heavy handed approach would lose the customers for sure, (and maybe there are a few the course would just assume lose) and figure no course would "admonish" anyone.  There are gentler ways to remind someone that are more effective than hitting them head on.

[Matt_Ward]

Jeff:

Gentle sounds very nice -- but there are folks who need more than a gentle reminder that simply because they have money that they can simply disregard all the polite notices and continue with their noses up in the airs.

Jeff, I'll all in favor of less aggressive stances -- but just try to realize that failure to take all steps as needed will only mean a complete disrespect from those EQUAL PAYING CUSTOMERS who see the reality that those who violate the spirit of the game are not dealt with accordingly.

The folks in the UK and Ireland have no issue with admonishing people who don't demonstrate the proper respect for the game -- the same should be copied here as well. Losing those folks by returning their $$ would not be a loss but a gain to the vast majority of people who do follow the rules of the road in terms of speed of play.

[tlavin]

note:  I'm a Joe Sixpack.  Two of my favorite moments at Riviera was hearing the story about the Bogart tree and feeling like that cool dude was standing there with his cig hanging on his bottom lip and then seeing the White Shadow come in the dining room during lunch.  I am also not a fan of finishing par 3's even though I am a member of a club that has both 9 and 18 as 3 pars. (Quail Creek in Robinson, IL..a Killian restobomination.)  Just one reason I don't get out there much.

I also plead guilty to being a Joe Sixpack in many ways.  And I took the beer belly on the road to Riviera on a few occasions.  My favorite Riviera experience (which topped seeing Larry David anxiously padding around the halfway house trying not to return eye contact...a great Curb moment) was the day I played with three other Chicago beer drinkers (okay, we also put the Ketel to the metal) and our "forecaddie" was an elderly gentleman named Bobby Jones.  

After three holes, Mr. Jones was given the golf cart and he became our every-couple-holes refreshment cart.  Drinking and driving are allowed at the Riv, so Bobby slaked his LA thirst with ten or more cans of beer (maybe he's a Joe Twelve-Pack!) and seldom got out of the cart to pull a flagstick or stand over a putt, but he was willing to mentor us from a distance as he slumped across the seat of the cart.  Without a doubt it was one of the great caddie experiences ever; this guy had been there 30 years, was comfortable in his own skin and just decided to basically take the day off and get paid at the same time.

After golf, we repaired to a Beverly Hills restaurant where we sent back a $300 bottle of Cristal on the basis that it wasn't bubbly enough, but that's another story.  I have played Riviera on a number of occasions, sometimes in the company of one of the senior statesmen of the club who orchestrated the fabulous restoration approximately ten years ago, sometimes in the company of the professional and sometimes in the company of the Sixpackers of the world.  All enjoyable, but you can let your hair down on the golf course every once in a while, even at a shrine like Riviera.

[Craig Sweet]

Wow..lots of interesting comments....!!!

First of all, I never saw in Pauls original post that the round was slow or that anyone got "bad service on the course", yet several posters mentioned slow play and poor service...

The tee one plays from has nothing to do with the length of round....a good golfer should play the back tee at the same speed as the 15-20 handicapper hitting from the front or middle tee...in this case it sounds as if the guys hitting from the back tee would have been smacking it into the desert regardless of tee area...so would it had mattered much if they had moved up?

Personally, where I play, I rarely see the regulars play from the very back tees....99% of their golf is played from a mix of forward tees....and they still take 4 1/2-5 hours to play!

[George Pazin]

Great post, Craig (and very entertaining post, Terry).

Everyone seems to just assume it's Joe Six-Pack who's playing the wrong tees and slowing everyone else down.

Interesting.

[Tom Huckaby]

Great point/question/observation, George.

It's been my experience in GCA events that well... perhaps we should not be throwing stones in this glass house.

 

[A.G._Crockett]

I've played at Myrtle Beach with Joe Sixpack (whomever I am paired with) for many years for my summer week there, and my feeling is that the higher the price tag/reputation attached to the course, the more likely that players will go to the tips.

I don't do it, but I think it is natural and understandable.  As long as it doesn't slow play, then it matters not.  As has been covered here many times, the number of players on the course has much, much more to do with pace of play than tee selection.

Re the comment about a par 71, we should never forget that we here on GCA are but a tiny, tiny subset of the golf world, and the vast majority care no more about GCA than they do about calculus or physics.  We're the freaks, not Joe and his buddies.

[Tom Huckaby]

I've Re the comment about a par 71, we should never forget that we here on GCA are but a tiny, tiny subset of the golf world, and the vast majority care no more about GCA than they do about calculus or physics.  We're the freaks, not Joe and his buddies.

Perfectly stated, AGC.  That ought to be set out somewhere here as a mantra....

 

[tlavin]

I've Re the comment about a par 71, we should never forget that we here on GCA are but a tiny, tiny subset of the golf world, and the vast majority care no more about GCA than they do about calculus or physics.  We're the freaks, not Joe and his buddies.

Perfectly stated, AGC.  That ought to be set out somewhere here as a mantra....

 

THAT IS THE REALITY CHECK OF ALL TIME FOR THIS SITE!

[John Kirk]

Re the comment about a par 71, we should never forget that we here on GCA are but a tiny, tiny subset of the golf world, and the vast majority care no more about GCA than they do about calculus or physics.  We're the freaks, not Joe and his buddies.

Yeah, but we're the smart ones.

[A.G._Crockett]

Re the comment about a par 71, we should never forget that we here on GCA are but a tiny, tiny subset of the golf world, and the vast majority care no more about GCA than they do about calculus or physics.  We're the freaks, not Joe and his buddies.

Yeah, but we're the smart ones.

Perhaps I should have said savants rather than freaks...

[Dave Bourgeois]

I play muni/public golf almost 100% of the time. It is quite remarkable how many feel that the quality of the golf course is mostly related to the difficulty of it.  Often they equate difficulty with length, but if the greens are highly contoured, that is not difficulty but goofyness.

I played at good old Maple Moor in White Plains with a couple of guys that insisted we play the back tees (still less than 6500 yards) because the Whites were too easy.  Neither of these fellows broke 100!  

On another note, I played with a couple of guys at The Links at Unionvale and convinced them to move up a tee box after hearing them talk about how much of a ball buster the course was.  We all played together, and after the round they let me know that it was one of the most enjoyable rounds that have had.  It was still plenty challenging, but they had opportunities to execute shots that they would not have been able to from a tee back.  At first they felt that they would be facing a course that was too easy, but in the end realized that this allowed them to think more about what they were doing and play golf (as opposed to hanging on and making a # every so often).  

I think that being on a tee that is out of your ability makes you push more, and that leads to more erratic play.  More lost balls, poor shots, etc. with a slow round as the result.  

[Craig Sweet]

Out here in the wide open, wild west, most fairways are defined by rough....trees are not plentiful...thus, the degree of difficulty, and the quality of golf, has much to do with how many balls were lost.

Any other design features are ignored, or hardly thought about.

[John_Conley]

George

I think the proper set of tees are the ones which allow the player to finish in close to 3.5 hours.  The target of 4.5 hours is crazy and perhaps the reason why it takes 4.5 hours to play at many places in the States.

Ciao

A little out of touch?  Since you concede it takes 4 1/2 to play at many places, how are you going to get around in 3 1/2?  It matters not which tee you play.

One of my peeves is when people make asinine statements about pace of play.  It takes FIVE HOURS if you want to play an upscale daily-fee course around the PGA Show in Orlando.  The tees you choose to play have nothing to do with it.

[Jason McNamara]

I think the proper set of tees are the ones which allow the player to finish in close to 3.5 hours.  The target of 4.5 hours is crazy and perhaps the reason why it takes 4.5 hours to play at many places in the States.

Remember, Sean, that these days you're playing UK courses which are more likely to be older, i.e. more compact, houseless, etc.  Clearly some pace issues result from dolts trying to break 100 from the tips, but some delays in the US are built into the course.  How often does one have to cross the street to get from one hole to the next at Kington, Enville, BD, The Worcestershire, etc.?

[Phil McDade]

I've played public golf in both the US and UK, and I think it's fair to say pace of play is far, far more of an issue here than over on the old sod. And from what I saw, it has little to do with course design, layout or -- to some extent -- folks playing from the correct tees. Mostly it has to do with -- generalizing here -- American golfer obsession with distance, club selection, wind direction, lie, and practice swings. UK golfers seem less obsessed about these things -- they get to their ball, guage the distance, grab a club, and hit it. Then they walk briskly to their ball.

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