[er9027]

Golf course rounds should be determined by the difficulty of play. 4 hr for 18 holes or 4:15 are kinda standard. Anything longer is out of line in my opinion.
I love to socialize and visit..NOT on the golf course!! Now, exective course might have a different plan but from what i have seen quick play is important. Play golf,,,go in and have a drink and visit !!

my thoughts

[justjim]

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.

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!

[NJblue]

Originally Posted by schotzyb

Odds are there is probably a slower or average group in front of the scratch golfers causing them to wait. It all evens out in the end.

Good point, but it happened to us when playing at Glennview. We were the second group out and the group ahead of us were clearly very proficient golfers who "flew" through the course. Our group was not as proficient but did not take any extra time socializing or looking for lost balls and picked up when our score was high on any particular hole - we just needed more strokes on each hole. We also never made the group behind us wait. Yet, the ambassador told us that we needed to catch up with the group ahead of us.

[Trayderjoe]

Originally Posted by justjim

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!

Good points NJBlue. I have sat behind "better" golfers for reasons such as the examples you provided. A round of golf is not meant to be a "night at the races", and you can socialize yet still maintain pace of play. When we play, our socializing occurs as we move towards our next shots (if our previous shots ended up in the same area), while waiting on our approach shots to the green, on the side of the tee box between shots, etc.

One other thing that does slow the game down is insistence on "honors" on the tee box. We always cede the tee box to the "birdie maker", but if someone gets a par and isn't ready, we just tee off whenever we are ready. If we have people in the group who can't hit their tee shots as far as the group in front of us, we let them tee off first regardless of our scores on the previous hole.

I remember being stacked up on a par 3 (regulation course) as two seniors were paired up with two teens who insisted on honors. We had to wait for the green to clear so the teens could hit their drives, and then we sat patiently (maybe patiently is too nice a term) while the seniors hit their balls maybe 125 yards (the seniors also played from the whites instead of the gold-that's another issue). I don't blame the seniors (other than they should have played from the golds), and they were not playing badly, they just couldn't hit as far as the teens. You can imagine the delays for the rest of the round since the seniors had to wait patiently for the teens to hit while the rest of us, had our patience tested.

The short of it is that you can socialize and have an enjoyable round of golf-perhaps the term is that you want to play an "efficient" round of golf.

[ronat1]

EVERYONE PLEASE READ THIS!!!!!

Hopefully this will clarify the Pace Of Play guidelines and the meaning of the term Out Of Position. Folks, these ARE the golf rules in The Villages so the people playing golf will just have to deal with it, if not expect to be informed of your non-complinace by an Ambassador and then if that won't work hopefully his supervision.

You are Out of Position when you are at least One Hole Behind the group in front of you AND behind the Pace of Play guidelines (i.e. Time Par) for the specific course.This is marked on the scorecard for every championship course in The Villages and located directly under the hole number. Keep in mind that time :00 is not your tee time but the actual time you tee off, which could be ahead of or behind your designated tee time based on when the first person in the group tees off. That time is then inputted into the Starters computer and communicated from the Starter to the Ambassador so they know exactly what time you tee'd off relative to when you were supposed to tee off and he knows where you should be at any given time. The Ambassador is then supposed to track your "Pace Of Play" or "Time Par" to ensure everyone is maintaining a good pace of play.

ONE HOLE BEHIND is defined as:

Par 3 or Par 4 - the group in question has an entire hole open in front of them

Par 5 - the group in question is on the tee and the group in front of them is on the green

If you are one hole or more behind it does not mean that you are slow and the Ambassador should be pushing you to play faster and catch up. But, if you are one hole behind as defined above and behind on the Pace Of Play or Time Par, you should be asked by the Ambassador to pick up the pace so that consideration is given for everyone else behind you to get their round completed in a timely manner.

Obviously during periods when the course has numerous open tee times and not as many people are playing there is flexibility in your required pace.

Hopefully this will clarify everyones understanding and that it will put this topic to rest!!!

If everyone would just understand and make a concerted effort to comply with the above then the socializing on the golf course would not be an issue.

Once again, THANK YOU!!