61 replies to this topic

[KaTooM]

Wasn't it a few years ago when a couple guys were fined and/or reprimanded for playing too FAST?

I think it was John Daly and another guy. They were the first ones out Sunday morning, WAY out of contention and just wanted to get out of Dodge. I think they finished their round in less than 2 hours.

Does anyone else recall this?

My point is...it's a lose/lose proposition. Play too fast; get fined, play too slow; same deal!

[ennead]

The tour is governed by money.  They will do what they have to do to make sure they maximize that, so I wouldn't worry about their pace of play problems - if its costing them more money than it takes to fix it, they will fix it, rest assured.

I would be interested in in what people think would be other good ideas for local committees regarding pace of play.  Our club requires that you finish in 4:30 or within 20 minutes of the group in front of you, or everyone in the group gets a 2 stroke penalty.  These seem a bit lax, but they are check-in times and the 18th green is a ways from the clubhouse.  There seems to be several problems with this:

• I have played in 10 tournaments with the club (14 rounds) and I don't think I've ever finished in under 4:30.
  
• I've heard of a few people getting penalized, and I know they do check everyone's start and finish times, but it seems like it doesn't happen enough for how slow it is.
  
• A group can make up for a slow player, so the slow players are not necessarily motivated to play any faster.  It's tough to get on a competitor's case during a tournament, and everyone is on the hook, so it is usually a general "we need to pick up the pace" when you fall behind.  Everyone plays faster than they were before, but the slower people are still slower than the faster people.
  
• Generally, we (different group for every round) have to wait a few minutes on each tee shot, then miraculously around the 16th hole the group in front of us is gone, and we have to go into sprint mode to keep up.  I literally have never had to wait on the 18th tee, but 1 through 15 it is almost guaranteed.

It looked like the suggestions posted from the RoG earlier in the thread would require more officiating than is available at the club.  Basically we have 2 of the board members that "host" each tourney and are in charge of passing out rules, posting scores, etc.  They usually play in the tournament themselves, so there is an early director and a late director - 1 official at any given time - and they need to be in the club house to collect and post scores.  This makes per-hole/per-shot type things impossible.  

So...Any ideas on how to set things up to make slow players faster without potentially penalizing people who are not slow?