Pick up the pace!

Nothing can kill an enjoyable golf round
quicker than the age old waiting game

By Jeremy Gottlieb

You’ve been there. We all have.

After a particularly satisfying up and down to net yourself a much-needed five, you hop into the cart, step on the gas, and take your newfound adrenaline rush to the next tee box. But when you get there, you see the group just ahead of you standing. And waiting.

You hop out of the cart and peer down the fairway only to see something you’d rather not see: Two carts in the middle of the fairway. One player is in a bunker, another wandering aimlessly along the outskirts of some dense trees. Slightly further ahead, you see another group just approaching the green. So you return to the cart, sit back down on the driver’s side and wait. And wait.

Ten, maybe 15 minutes pass before the group ahead of you tees off before you even begin to start thinking about whether to hit driver or 3-iron. Then more time ticks away until that group is clear and you can actually hit your tee shot.

A wave of relief rushes over you and your playing partners after you’ve all finally teed off. But then, you get out to your ball on the fairway, and the waiting begins anew.

It is the issue of pace of play in golf, and what a large, multi-layered issue it is. Where one round can be played in a crisp, methodical, three-and-a-half to four hours, another might be slogged through in an interminable five to six. And it is not just a problem on the North Shore.

“I think it’s an issue everywhere,” says John O’Connor, head pro at Far Corner in West Boxford. “People’s awareness isn’t necessarily where it should be. Some people think a five-hour round is fast. Others can play in three-and-a-half hours. It depends on a player’s personal opinion. Everyone plays at a different pace. It’s all in the perception.”

‘The No. 1 problem in golf’

When assessing the roots of the issue, the common denominator for several pros from area courses is knowing how to properly play the game. It’s all in the etiquette they say.

“It’s probably the No. 1 problem in golf,” says Peter Cronan, director of golf at the Meadow in Peabody. “People don’t learn how to play, etiquette-wise. Someone can hit the ball a mile or at least pretty decently at the driving range and then figures he or she knows how to play. Folks don’t take extra clubs with them to their ball, don’t check yardage markers, have to go back to the cart multiple times on the same hole. I could go on and on. There just isn’t a lot of understanding on how to keep the pace of play going.”

Far Corner general manager Bob Flynn corroborates this point, adding that some of the transgressions he witnesses on a routine basis range from players standing on the green after they are finished with the hole and adding up their scores instead of moving on, to spending upwards of 15-20 minutes at the restaurant before making the turn onto the back nine.

“If you spend one extra minute per hole,” he says, “that adds up to an extra 18 minutes per round. We try to think in terms of minutes per hole. Our rangers will catch up to a group and stay with it for a time if things are moving slowly, but obviously, we don’t want to be chasing golfers around the course. We just want to try to save minutes.”

At Bradford Country Club, director of golf Peter Vlahos had GPS systems installed in his carts in an effort to help speed up the pace and, like at Far Corner, will dispatch a ranger out to help if needed. In addition, many course list the suggested pace of play hole-by-hole on the course card.

“People call in from time to time in order to alert us to a problem,” says Vlahos, who mentioned that his club sees the most evidence of the problem on Saturday and Sunday mornings. “We want everyone to be accommodated. I’m always telling people to hit another ball off the tee if they think the first one is lost. If you’re losing balls, come to the shop and I’ll give you more. We don’t want folks in the woods all day. People are spending money to enjoy the day and with the economy what it is, that’s a big deal.”

Greg Ghazil, a frequent player who worked at Crestwood Country Club in Rehoboth in high school and college and learned the game from then club pro, now PGA and Champions Tour player Dana Quigley, feels that speed is a major key to addressing the problem.

“I think it’s more important to learn how to play at a faster pace than to necessarily play well,” says Ghazil, a 15-handicap. “More often than not, you have to play relatively fast for the benefit of those around you on the course. This helps you get into a rhythm and that’s when you become a better player.”

Play ‘ready golf’

The idea of playing faster, or “ready golf,” is a recurring theme in discussing how to improve the pace of play. It’s a fairly straightforward approach – walk up to your shot with more than one club so you don’t have to go back to your cart or bag, have your balls, your tees, your divot tool, etc. all in hand at all times. Like the Boy Scouts say, “be prepared.”

“So much of it is in the preparation,” says Cronan, who coaches the Peabody JV golf team along with overseeing things at The Meadow.

“I’m always telling players I coach or teach to be ready. Check in 15 or 20 minutes early, maybe take a few swings then so as to not get going totally cold. I don’t see enough of that happening as players go from one shot to the next to the next.”

Flynn strongly concurs, suggesting that players, “walk up to your shot with more than one club. Make sure you don’t have to go back to your bag. If your shot could be anywhere from a 5-iron to a 7-iron, bring all three. Understand all the nuances that go into being ready to play at all times.”

Not only a public course issue

Even at a private club, keeping the pace of play at a steady rate can be a challenge. Phillip Leiss, the head pro at Ferncroft Country Club in Danvers, thinks that even though most of those who play at his course have the luxury of knowing the layout, the yardage and the hole locations, it still all comes down to familiarity with the game and how to play the right way.

“Being here at a private facility, I have a captive audience, so to speak, to whom I can try to impart ways to keep things moving,” says Leiss. “What it all comes down to here and elsewhere, I think, is education. Players need to know and understand that they aren’t the only ones out there and that they have a responsibility to the other members. A lot of it has to do with equitable stroke control. Pick it up if you need to. I see players who play like every round is the U.S. Open. Sometimes, you just have to pick it up, take your six and move on. The more one becomes familiar with aspects of the game like that and so forth, the better chance they will have to fix the problem.”

So how would a club go about educating players? Mike Miller, the head pro at Indian Ridge Country Club in Andover, devised a sort of manifesto prior to the 2008 season after concluding through meetings with both the club’s men’s golf committee and women’s golf association that pace of play was the club’s most important issue. It includes not only the club’s expectations of its members on how to positively impact their pace of play, but suggestions and instructions regarding how to understand every aspect of a round, from position on the course to a proper pre-shot routine to the difference between being a “pace keeper” and a “pace setter.”

“We’d had a few problems with slow play so I thought it would be a good idea to focus on it as a club-wide endeavor,” says Miller, who has gotten plenty of positive feedback from his members and other local outlets.

“There isn’t a lot of time or desire to have to police the issue, but we felt it was very important for each and every golfer to understand the problem. I think you always want to educate first, and then police the issue if you have people who don’t have regard for what’s been taught. We’ve tried to put more responsibility on the golfer. This game is based on individual responsibilities. The game demands it.”

Far Corner, the Meadow and Bradford may not have informational pamphlets on pace of play at their disposal, but the powers that be at all three clubs are in concert with Miller and Leiss as far as education being the key to fixing the problem. O’Connor speaks to leagues fairly frequently, often at their request, offering suggestions or ideas on how to manage the game and the course. Cronan has made carts mandatory on Saturday and Sunday mornings at the Meadow and while his course gives players four and a half hours to play, or a half-hour more than the national average, he still offers his students routine advice on how to speed things up even more.

Vlahos counsels players at Bradford on the importance of carts, especially on particularly busy days and has slightly spaced out tee times from every eight or nine minutes to every 10 minutes in order to give players a little bit more wiggle room. Regardless of the approach taken, the goal is the same. Keeping a steady pace of play and understanding how to do it will only make the game, no matter how healthy it is, even healthier.

“It can be a little bit difficult to do a lot of educating of players when they get here, but we try to do as much as we can,” says Cronan. “We’ve cut back some areas to help people find lost balls more quickly, we’ve added an extra path here and there and we try to make sure the pin placements are accessible. But the players themselves have to know what to do. Of course we want everyone to have fun, but we want them to have fun efficiently. It’s just as important to be ready as it is to execute. I think all pros would say the same thing.”

 

Photo by Jon Gagnon Peabody’s Ken Feeney can often be found patrolling the pace of play from any one of the many elevated tees at The Meadow at Peabody.

Home on the range

Contrary to public opinion, course rangersare here to help – not hassle – golfers

By Bob Albright

Both Ken Feeney and Bob Arthur know the look.

The smile fades away, the brow becomes furrowed and the grip on the club usually tightens. A hurried and poor shot invariably follows. Unfortunately, it is almost a universal reaction. Just like spotting the blue flashers in your rear view mirror, catching the specter of a golf cart with a yellow flag in your backswing can be a bit disconcerting.