Quote:
Originally Posted by NJblue
It seems like there are two potentially contradictory "rules" to maintain pace of play. One says to keep up with the foursome ahead of you. The other says to pick up after double par. Suppose your group consists of four people who generally double bogey and the group ahead of you are scratch golfers. By definition, your group will be taking a lot more strokes (i.e., time) than the group ahead of you - even if none of your group ever reaches double par. In order to keep up with the group ahead, your group would have to pick up after reaching par, which might be even before reaching the green. What fun would that be?
On the other hand, if your group follows the "double par" rule, the group ahead will open a gap of several holes because of their proficiency. It seems unfair for the ambassadors to chastise you for slow play only because those ahead of you are way ahead of pace.
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NJBlue: Interesting scenario but IMHO unlikely. Four scratch golfers! Again, unlikely. Four good low handicap golfers in the same group, now that is likely. In addition, because they take less strokes, very good golfers are more likely to take more time choosing which club to use, play by the USGA rules, hit provisional balls for possible lost balls and out of bounds balls, measuring exact distance to the pin, checking location of pin on the green for the day, addressing wind speed, fixing their ball marks and others ball marks and lining up their putts. For these reasons, very good golfers will take approximately the same time as less proficient golfers who play ready up golf. I prefer to agree to pickup after triple bogey on championship courses because on a par 5 double par would be 10 strokes. Now, on an executive course the double par could work okay because most of the holes are par 3 which is triple bogey. Remember it only takes one group to slow the pace of play for the entire course. The whole idea of ready golf is so everybody can enjoy the game and complete the round by a reasonable time-frame. Fore!