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Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
How to make golf even more expensive and take more time to play?
Here are a few as starters -
Let’s make the greens faster
Let’s have perfect consistent sand in all the bunkers
Let’s make longer holes
Let’s have thicker rough
Let’s have golf balls that go further
Let’s have clubs that hit the ball further
...... by all means add some more ....
Atb


Later edit - see also this thread - https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,68660.0.html - for an attempt to view matters from the opposite perspective.




« Last Edit: August 04, 2020, 10:16:08 AM by Thomas Dai »

Carl Rogers

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #1 on: August 01, 2020, 03:13:34 PM »
R u having a bad day today?
I decline to accept the end of man. ... William Faulkner

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #2 on: August 01, 2020, 03:35:49 PM »
The initial post is from a UK poster so perhaps he can be forgiven for missing the obvious:
Let's require that everyone pay $25 extra to take a golf cart, but then to make the turf better, let's restrict the carts to the paths so that everyone has to walk 30-40 yards to and from the cart for every shot!

John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #3 on: August 01, 2020, 03:44:42 PM »
I’ve seen it a million times. When a course becomes everything anyone would want at a great price it gets more crowded each day as the word spreads. If you want the course to yourself you’ve got to be willing to put up with a touch of awful.


Nothing Ty Dai listed has anything to do with pace of play. That is 100% determined by the other people on the course.

Greg Smith

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #4 on: August 01, 2020, 04:17:12 PM »
By golly, I think I'm finding myself agreeing with JK.

"Make golf more expensive" and "take more time to play" aren't necessarily the same thing -- at least design-wise.  The things Thomas cites are true, but I think a bigger factor than all of them is simple density of golfers. 

Any public operation has to keep the tee sheets chock full to afford all the bells and whistles on the course -- yielding a terrible pace of play.

A nice club could have all those bells and whistles but keep traffic reasonable by restricting membership size (which of course will make the golf VERY expensive).

The perfect operation would have a clientele who understands which conditions are critical and which aren't (i.e. tolerating a little touch of awful in some respects), thereby obviating the need for all those expensive design/maintenance items.

So, I'd say the determining factor in golfing quality of life (if you want NOT expensive, yet still expeditious) is not design/architecture, but rather the golfing IQ of your target public.  The UK is simply gonna have a lot more golfers with a high golfing IQ -- hence the larger number of pleasantly "holistic" golf operations.

O fools!  who drudge from morn til night
And dream your way of life is wise,
Come hither!  prove a happier plight,
The golfer lives in Paradise!                      

John Somerville, The Ballade of the Links at Rye (1898)

Tom_Doak

  • Karma: +2/-1
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #5 on: August 01, 2020, 04:42:03 PM »
The presumption that good design leads to expensive features is ridiculous.


But the whole purpose of hiring an expensive designer is to convince the public to pay more.  The maintenance cost doesn't have anything to do with it, directly - that only serves to reinforce the appearance of costliness.

Peter Pallotta

Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #6 on: August 01, 2020, 05:10:15 PM »
I played with a woman in her late 60s the other day. She didn't hit it far but was very straight, with a good short game from 40 yards in and a lovely touch on the greens. And she was a quick player -- always ready to hit and taking little time over the ball. We started talking about area courses she's played, and she said she'd never go back to Nicklaus North (in Whistler BC). She said the course was fine but she felt quite uncomfortable there, and unwanted: she and a friend were paired up with two men. They all were playing well and keeping up with the group in front. (Seeing her play I believed her.) But on the 8th hole a young marshal drove up and told her and her friend that they had to speed up. Then on the 14th hole he drove up again, and again told them they needed to speed up. (I couldn't imagine her holding anyone up.) When she told him that she thought they were playing quickly enough, he said 'Well we've gotten complaints -- members here pay a lot of money to have an enjoyable round and they expect a good pace of play". Then he drove off and stop to chat to the two men in the group. After the round she asked them what the marshal wanted, and they said he'd asked them if the women were slowing them down; they told him 'no'. When they finished their round the two women went straight to their cars and drove away, determined never to come back.
All of which is to say: I've complained about pace of play too (though not for several years now); but I wonder how much of that complaint is a function of a myopic and privileged (not to say spoiled) world view and set of expectations.


jeffwarne

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #7 on: August 01, 2020, 05:59:18 PM »
How to make golf even more expensive and take more time to play?
Here are a few as starters -
Let’s make the greens faster
Let’s have perfect consistent sand in all the bunkers
Let’s make longer holes
Let’s have thicker rough
Let’s have golf balls that go further
Let’s have clubs that hit the ball further
...... by all means add some more ....
Atb


never mind...
« Last Edit: August 01, 2020, 06:04:32 PM by jeffwarne »
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Pete_Pittock

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #8 on: August 01, 2020, 06:46:54 PM »
Make tee time intervals tighter.
Enforce old OB rules and change penalty area to stroke and distance.
Steeper green slopes and cut holes near the edge of false fronts or 3 degree gradients or steeper.
Bigger bunkers and smaller rakes to increase clean up time

Daryl David

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #9 on: August 01, 2020, 07:16:09 PM »
Several beverage carts roaming the course simultaneously
Food at each comfort station
World class halfway house
Several holes with scenic photo opportunities


John Kavanaugh

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #10 on: August 01, 2020, 07:57:34 PM »
How to make golf even more expensive and take more time to play?
Here are a few as starters -
Let’s make the greens faster
Let’s have perfect consistent sand in all the bunkers
Let’s make longer holes
Let’s have thicker rough
Let’s have golf balls that go further
Let’s have clubs that hit the ball further
...... by all means add some more ....
Atb


never mind...


I agree with your now removed take on chipping areas. They are a con job foisted on golf. They became popular as bad golfers claimed they increased options around the green.

jeffwarne

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #11 on: August 01, 2020, 08:11:52 PM »
How to make golf even more expensive and take more time to play?
Here are a few as starters -
Let’s make the greens faster
Let’s have perfect consistent sand in all the bunkers
Let’s make longer holes
Let’s have thicker rough
Let’s have golf balls that go further
Let’s have clubs that hit the ball further
...... by all means add some more ....
Atb


never mind...


I agree with your now removed take on chipping areas. They are a con job foisted on golf. They became popular as bad golfers claimed they increased options around the green.


Wow-I have as many live readers as listeners (1)
Yep, putter and hybrid......zzzzz
The best is the chipping area full of divots(generally from one or two players who tried to use a wedge......repeatedly) because you have to take a divot to reach a groove-but at least the divots create needs to use a wedge :)
"Let's slow the damned greens down a bit, not take the character out of them." Tom Doak
"Take their focus off the grass and put it squarely on interesting golf." Don Mahaffey

Carl Rogers

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #12 on: August 01, 2020, 10:15:16 PM »
Examples might be ?[size=78%]... [/size]
[/size]

True Blue? Royal New Kent? Ballyhack?


All severely difficult for the high handicapper.  Hard walks.
I decline to accept the end of man. ... William Faulkner

Peter Flory

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #13 on: August 01, 2020, 10:54:12 PM »
Do larger greens typically speed up play or slow it down? 

Jeff Schley

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #14 on: August 02, 2020, 03:44:28 AM »
Do larger greens typically speed up play or slow it down?
TOC are obviously huge. I would say speed it up as long as guys aren't marking after every single putt! Also what happened to the friendly group, inside the leather?
"To give anything less than your best, is to sacrifice your gifts."
- Steve Prefontaine

Thomas Dai

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #15 on: August 02, 2020, 05:02:22 AM »
Amazing how a thread morphs.
Nice that some appreciate its intent though. :)
atb

Mike_Trenham

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #16 on: August 02, 2020, 03:38:53 PM »
Hand watered rough.
Proud member of a Doak 3.

Pete_Pittock

  • Karma: +0/-0
Re: How to make golf more expensive and take more time to play?
« Reply #17 on: August 03, 2020, 03:01:54 AM »
All golf balls are deemed non-conforming and must be replaced with golf balls with a solid line all the way around it's equator.
Note: Ping two-color golf balls are still conforming.

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