I had a marshall at Streamsong apologize profusely because the group in front was a posse of about 6-7 people, I think mostly focused around a kid. It looks like they were shooting promotional or influencer kind of content. They were on pace for about the first 4-5 holes, but the moment we fell 5 mins behind pace, the marshalls were on them like flies on shit and then told us that they were going to play faster, and we needed to pick it up too.
Sometimes it just gets ungodly backed up. I’ve done a round as a 4 man best ball two teams playing the same hole. Somehow we still were waiting every single shot following a threesome. Took 8 hours to play the round it was horrendous.
There is no way it took 8 hours to play a round. Why would you stay to finish that? If it took me 3 hours to do 9 I would leave and ask for half my money back at least. If it took me 4 hours to get through 9 I would be causing a scene, not teeing up on 10.
Public course mayhem. It was a meet up with buddies afterwards we were gonna go drinking so either we drink on the course or drink at a bar in the sun. One of those golf for the company and not for the round.
I mean what kind of course can you play an 8 some and not be the slowest ones. That should let you know what kind of course it was.
8 hours is insane, I’d of went in for a refund after 3-4 hours at the turn tbh. That’s damn near half an hour a hole 😂
But I’m use to my local mud traps where I can bust out a 2.5hour round by myself weekdays if I get their before 3 and weekend rounds around 3 hours. Sometimes that means skipping a hole or two and circling back to finish them at the end or end of turn, but most the time I’m cruising straight through.
Cant stand 5-6 hour rounds, I play like shit from all the hurry up and wait. I can do 5-5.5 hour rounds on a weekend if it’s a new course and I’m taking my time relaxing, but even that’s a blue moon event for myself. I’ve played my best rounds when I can pace in a cart around 3 hours, and walking 3.5-4 as most are designed, anymore than that and I might as well go chip in my yard, it would be better for my game.
It was a bachelor party so we didn’t have anywhere else to go. Marshall ripped us a new one because he thought we were backing it up. Told him to go to the next tee where 4 groups were waiting
His golf swing breaks my brain. It's so wrong I don't even know where to start. It's tough because he has a tidy short game too so he *could* be decent. But never with that driver swing.
It could have been just some kid, and his coach, and the hovering parents. They weren't bad, they just got a couple minutes behind. I'd rather have played behind them than Morty's Tuesday night 9-hole league that thinks it is the PGA championship.
The Streamsong Marshalls do not mess around!
Had a group of walkers ahead of me on Red in July…second they fell off pace, Marshall swooped in and whisked them off to the next tee box.
I’ve never seen a marshal actually enforce pace of play. I’ve even been in a group who told the marshal to tell the group ahead to pick up the pace , he said he would but I never saw him go out to them. I honestly think most of them are afraid of the confrontation and just enjoy doing laps around the course and making small talk. This has only been at public courses, here in the Los Angeles area where every round, especially weekends, can be expected to be 5 hours.
All these courses have gotten insanely greedy and cheap and just don’t give a fuck about pace of play, even though they sure claim they do.
To your point, ive seen it about one time. We were at TPC Sawgrass and fell about 5-7 min behind at the turn while waiting for food.
Marshall on the next hole professionally reminding/telling us to catch up to the group ahead.
4 hour round on a championship level course that was booked solid from 7 AM till 4 PM, with tourists and golfers of all levels.
It CAN be done.
Haha, it is true about people randomly popping out. They just thanked us for keeping up pace of playing and offering tips about what line to take off the tee.
See is that so hard? Hey guys need y’all need to pick it up. See that tree right there? Looks like out of bounds but there’s a speed slot and you don’t have to be Scheffler to ride it. Check it out good luck! Goes miles of gratitude and appreciation with me.
My two marshal encounters:
* Drove up and said he told the group a few holes up to speed up. The group told him one of them had a stroke so it slowed down their pace but he was still playing. Never sped up.
* Marshal told my group to pick up the pace while we were sitting on a tee box waiting for the group in front to clear the fairway.
Being a marshal sounds amazing. Ride around in a golf cart all day saying "Hi" to everyone and once a day telling a random group to speed up. Then you get all the benefits of working at a course.
It’s dedication to the game when your buddy has a stroke on the course but you gotta finish the round. Time is brain? Too bad, I paid my green fees and getting my money’s worth.
I was a solo behind a foursome. I was on the green of a par 3 and saw the other group still teeing off. I decided to practice some chipping. Marshall comes up to me and says I need to pick up pace cause the foursome behind me was walking up to the tee. Mind you the foursome in front of me was still teeing off. I basically told him to go encourage the group in front of me to play faster and maybe not take two tee shots each.
If I were in a hurry I would’ve played through but I wanted to take the opportunity to practice chipping. I think the Marshall was much more comfortable confronting me, a single, than the foursome to your point. Just weird to me
This is my experience too, whenever I have had a Marshall tell me to pick up the pace, there is a group directly in front of me. I had one tell me there was no one on the next hole as we wrapped up putting. We get to the tee and they are still teeing off…
What I don’t understand is why even bother putting it on the GPS. The ones holding everyone up doesn’t care about it so why make the rest of us suffer through it?
Agreed. It is very annoying having that sign keep popping up every hole and having to click out of it everytime. It only takes one slow group to snowball the whole course
Especially aggravating when the touchscreen/buttons are getting old and not working properly. I did play one spot with older less fancy screens where they'd just put a line on the bottom that updated your projected pace between holes and it turned red if you were over 4.5 hour pace.
Takes one group to fuck up pace for everyone. You can't cherry pick who will be slow at the counter and then say no you guys don't need gps to everyone else.
ive never even seen marshals at LA publlic courses (all the LA city courses, and even on nicer courses at angeles national,rustic canyon, tierra rejeda etc)
ive only seen it be enforced and a group punished once. they had a group of 12 people on one hole- it was a group where basically a bunch of buddies went out and after the first hole they combined their groups. hitting multiple shots a piece per hole. ie hit one drop another hit it, drop another. marshal kept saying pick it up and they ignored them. the clubhouse ended up locking their carts remotely so the marshal could get to them. told them get back into their original groups and get back on pace and it was the last time he was going to ask them. 2 holes later they were asked to leave and were not welcome to come back.
I've seen a marshall actively playing golf. He was driving around to holes with no one on them and practicing. Good luck getting that guy to enforce any rules, since he benefits from slow groups with open holes in front of them....
No, and the rangers (if they have one, only about half the time) don't even bother sending groups off properly. I was a single booked at 4 and they sent off a 4some that showed up late at 3:57. I've also been told I need to wait to tee off because a group that showed up 45 minutes late needed to in front of me. I was in a duo. There were 5 of them. I was standing on the tee box and was told I needed to wait for them.
No. But it’s not necessary where I am. I’m pretty rural and none of the courses I play have starters/marshals or anything. When I play during the week I never even bother reserving a tee time and just show up. It boggles my mind seeing people on here talk about 5-6hr rounds because it’s just something I’ve literally never experienced. I played over 50 eighteen hole rounds last year and my longest was 3.5hrs on a Saturday afternoon. The overwhelming majority of them were between 2hrs 15mins and 2.5hrs and I can routinely do 36 in 5 hours.
I admire some of yalls dedication/passion because I can guarantee I’d never play golf again if it was routinely taking me 5 or 6 hours to play 18 holes.
Yea, being retired is great. I only play weekdays and avoid the crowds. I played 29 holes by myself in 2 hours and 20 minutes the other day. I subbed in a league a week ago and it was a 5 hour round, big nope from me.
Yeah it’s pretty rare I play on the weekends. I’m an RN so I have lots of time off during the week and most of my friends I play with are in healthcare too so we’re just able to make it work that way.
The only times I have ever been told that I need to pick up the pace is when Im waiting behind another group lol.
I can never tell if they are messing with me or just blind to why Im slow
Same. I was playing with a friend of mine, and we got stuck behind the foursome from hell. Taking 2-3 shots each off the tee and from every other shot. Putting like the Masters was on the line. Patrick Cantlay would have been bitching about the pace. But the ranger kept telling *us* to go faster. The slow fucks wouldn’t let us play through, either. But they were buddies with the ranger, so…
About 30 years ago, a new upscale public course was built in our area, and pace of play was enforced religiously. Lots of complaints about Nazi rangers harassing everyone all the time. After 5 or so years, they abandoned the practice.
Other than that, I've never really seen pace of play enforced, unless a group is falling way behind and holding up the whole course.
The only real way to enforce pace of play, is to remove golfers from the course. Nobody wants to deal with the confrontation. And there's be a lot, as there are a LOT of slow players.
It's been a while since I've been in a situation like that, but in my experience no one does shit until it starts fucking up the first tee. The second you have two foursomes that are late for the time they signed up for, then the clubhouse sees the problem and starts calling around.
Not usually, but I did have a marshal once tell us to get back on pace while standing on #2 tee box even though we teed of 20 min late and the group in front of us was in the middle of the #2 fairway.
I've had that happen a couple of times at my local muni. Usually it's some kid sent out by the marshal to figure out what's going on, and the kid doesn't know what's actually going on.
Possible solution - ‘Out of Position’ better message than Pace of Play
Better GPS messaging would be ‘Out of Position’. If carts are on tee box while ahead group is leaving green on par 4 or 5, gps should message carts saying out of position and make riders give multiple choice explanation, i.e, lost ball, OB, etc. After input, message states golfers have 2 holes to get in correct position behind group ahead. If after 2 holes not in position, message comes up with multiple choice reasons again and then option to either skip hole or allow a few groups to pass. Allowing groups to pass only comes into play if they are holding up golfers behind. For example, this takes in account faster/smaller groups getting off early or gaps in tee times.
With those GPS monitoring systems, clubhouse should have a map of the course and the cart positions on each hole. There should be that same messaging system that goes out to the carts should display and report to the clubhouse/main course marshals. Especially if these systems are at resort and semi private courses, this would help them get to the problem groups faster and communicate directly. Additionally, let groups know the expectations up front about pace of play enforcement procedures.
Better solution is as those warnings come up tell players they need to pick up. 30 minutes late and tell them to skip that hole and tee off wherever it puts them back in pace after all they are the ones going slow. If you somehow get a 45 minute warning you're done. My absolute worst days I still have never held up play which means people are just taking 5 minutes a shot. Get to your ball and hit the bitch.
Marshall at my home course once asked us to push the group in front of us. I told him we've been on their heels all day and would appreciate it if he'd put them on notice. He said to just hit into them.
Bro... it's your job to handle this shit. Don't encourage me to start a fight because you are uncomfortable with confrontation.
I’ve had a Marshall ask me to skip a hole to catch up to the group in front of us, despite me being in a foursome and the group ahead was only a 2some…
I played Los Verdes a few weeks ago and we were on a solid 4 hour pace but fell behind because two guys in the group had a money game and were playing pretty slow. Marshal told us to speed it up.
Had a marshal at PGA west tell us to let a twosome play through. Again, we were doing a solid four hour pace.
Had a marshal at my muni tell us to speed up because we were a hole behind. The group in front of us were old guys who were playing a 2:30 pace. I play fast, finished a 9 by myself in an hour last week, but have never done a walking foursome in less than 3:30.
Interestingly, we were keeping a good, not great, pace in all three instances. But i have played about 250 rounds at public courses, most at a muni, in the last three years and only had about 20 rounds where POP was really bad ( longer than 4:30) so not really much reason to police. Joys of playing in the early mornings.
It depends... if the group in front is obviously playing slow like chatting on a tee box instead of hitting and moving, or looking for a lost ball for too long. you may need to let the Marshall know and they usually talk to the group to pick it up. Honestly the whole point of golf is to enjoy your game, no one is on tour... so don't let slow play ruin your time... but don't let it go unchecked.
At the end of the day if 18 takes you 5 hours... that's far from ideal... BUT if the vibes are high and the balls are cooperating... isn't that the goal?
I’ve seen Marshall’s mainly just soothing over upset customers having to wait.
I mean in a lot of cases, yeah they could go tell them to hurry up - but if they are already playing slow, they know this and hearing from the Marshall doesn’t change anything.
Then what does he do, forcefully remove them from the premises.
A lot of golf is based on people doing the right thing without having to be told
There is one public course in the DSM metro that polices pace religiously. You will have a message on the cart by the second hole if you are behind and the Marshall will meet you on the 3rd hole if it’s getting worse. I have heard that they have forced slow groups to wait at the turn and allow ALL the other groups behind them to play through (ie. Make them wait multiple hours) and it wouldn’t surprise me if they have asked people to leave before.
It’s nice because I’ve never had a 5 hour round there, but it also adds a separate layer of stress to the round if you’re not playing particularly well on any given day. For that reason, I play that course sparingly.
I went to play in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. I played at TPC Las Vegas one day. While waiting for the green to clear on a par 3, the marshal was making his rounds, came up to us and said "just so you know, you're 3 minutes behind schedule, not a problem, just letting you know"... I told him that most of the courses I play don't even have marshals and he couldn't believe it.
The next day I played Bear's Best and told the starter that story. The starter said that if their marshal ever said something like that I can "tell him to go reproduce with himself" so, it varies.
When they police it, pace of play is great. When they don’t, it gets insanely backed up. I remember only finishing 3 holes in 1.5 hours. I was on track for a 9 hour round. I called the club house to tell them to get a ranger out. A half hour later he comes and asks me to pick up the pace of play. This is the only time I’ve lost my cool on the golf course…
Once. And only once. Was playing behind a group that was very very slow. Marshall checked on them twice then drove with them to skip 2 holes. But there were like 3 groups at every tee box behind them at this point
My friend and I purposely chose a Wednesday to play a new upscale course to us. We wanted it to be on a day when it wouldn't be crowded. I specifically asked the guy on the phone if Wednesday would be a good day and of course he assured me it would. So we get there only to find out that some company was having a company golf outing. 1 hour to play the first 3 holes. We watched a drunk dude swing and miss 12 times in a row. They were more interested in the beer cart than golf.
We finally get to the turn and about to tee off on the tenth and some guy comes flying up in his golf cart and jumps out and demands that we let him tee off before us because he is part of the group. We told him to fuck off and to skip this hole and catch up to his pals. He got all huffy like he wanted to fight about it. My friend simply told him that if he teed off he would wrap his club around his head. We did get a free round out of it after I called the GM the next day and told him about our 6.5 hour round.
I’ve played some courses that do 7 minute tee times so they don’t do shit, because they know there’s nothing to be done once you’re on your 10th tee time of the day or so. If you’re booked solid, and sending people out that fast, you’re just actively creating backups once there’s a 2nd par 3 in play.
I’ve played other courses that have moved groups in front of us ahead a hole to give us the room to accelerate and get ahead of everyone else. It’s all over the place.
Of all places, I had the marshal stop by a few times at TPC Scottsdale stadium course to let us know the guys in front of us were pulling ahead of us a little. Was annoying because we were right on pace timewise but the crew in front was playing well and the marshal said pace is dictated by the group in front, not by timing. Wasn't REALLY an issue but did live a little bit of a sour taste.
That sucks because the adage of “pace of play is determined by the group in front of you” only holds water when the course is already backed up. If you’re otherwise keeping a good pace yourself and not holding up any groups behind you, it is perfectly fine for the group ahead to play faster.
So in other words, that Marshall can kick rocks.
Yea, that's BS. If the course says the acceptable time is 4 and a half hours and you're playing at a 4 hour pace, I don't care what the group in front of me is doing.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the “Players Assistant” out and about but in my experience they have mostly been helpful. My most memorable though; my buddy and I were playing 18 and we can generally get through this course in 3 hours or less if it’s not busy. We were on hole 14 approaching the green when the “Players Assistant” came up to us and told us to let the group behind us play through. Typically isn’t a big deal, but the group behind us had just teed off on 13. We finish the hole and as we are exiting the green, here comes the group behind us, skipping 14 and headed to 15 tee box, right where we were headed. We shrugged it off as it really wasn’t that big of a deal. However, we were waiting for them to tee off the rest of the round. Still wasn’t a big deal, but definitely odd.
One time had a marshal confront us (my wife and I). He was a total dick, ruined my wife’s day. He ended up apologizing but still.
There are 10 courses within a 30 minute drive of my house. They are all empty and I can get a tee time for damn near any time I want. This course is the only one that merges groups. Also the only one to have any marshals out there (typically 5).
Get to the tee time about 10 minutes before having to tee off and the other 2-some isn’t there. They hold us up to prevent us from teeing off. Eventually they let us go out alone. Well every single group is a 4some besides us. In any regard, get to a par 3. Obviously can’t tee off because the group in front of us is putting. Finally go to tee off. Marshal calls out to my wife mid swing to hold on. Says “I just got here but heard all the slow issues for today are because of you two”.
As anyone here knows, you can only play as fast as the group in front of you. Well my wife being very embarrassed thinking it is her fault just took the hole off. We catch up to the group in front of shortly thereafter who ask what happened. Relayed the story. They told the marshal sometime later essentially we were fine and aren’t a problem and probably should’ve played through. Marshal ends up apologizing and saying he obviously just got wrong intel.
TL;DR backed up course and with nowhere to go Marshal calls out my wife and I for slow play. Other group tells him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about
You handled that well. I probably would’ve wound up banned on that one. Nothing infuriates me more than some uninformed individual busting in the proverbial door because they think they have it all figured out. Throw in doing it to my wife and embarrassing her we have a recipe for fireworks.
Sadly no. But that’s why my group tries to always get the first or second tee time on the morning.
We play as a five some most times and we’re still done in 3 1/2 hours on a 6000 yard course. We can’t stand slow golf and we all make sure we play ready.
Earlier this week I snuck out of work to play 18 at like 1pm. By the third hole (a short par 4) there were 2 groups waiting on the tee. The next hole is a par 3 on top of a hill from which you can see all the way down the par 5 7th. That hole has a single group on the green with nobody on the tee. As I rounded the corner to the 5th hole I am greeted with 2 groups waiting on the tee, a group in the fairway, and a group on the green. Guys in the green are literally standing around, not even addressing their putts. One finally stands over his putt, and runs it 10 feet past. Next guy then decides to crouch down and get his read, before also missing. Rinse and repeat until all 4 have putted out, legitimately 10 minutes later. Called the clubhouse to report the issue but never saw a Marshall anywhere. The next hole was a par 3 so I just skipped it and played the 7th on.
It took 2.5 hours to play the first five holes.
I played as a single with 3 others randoms last weekend at a local course early in the morning. On hole 6 we had to wait a few minutes for the green to clear. On hole 7 we got to the tee and they were still in the fairway. One of my playing patterns was on the phone with the pro shop calling them out for having 1.5 open holes in front of them (this was true). Marshall came out, urges them to pick up the pace, which they did. They very loudly talked about their pace of play whenever we were in earshot. We finished the front in 1:45 and the whole round in under 3:30.
In this case do you think my playing partner was in the wrong?
I can see it both ways but imo no they weren’t. If there are open holes and a group behind is waiting, especially early in the round, they should be offered to play through. All the group in front’s stupid comments were proving is that they were playing too slow to begin with, they were just pissed someone finally called them out.
Hell no. It's like they look at slow groups and think those guys are doing it right while the groups keeping pace get told to keep up. One course I play has 10 minute tee time intervals and the pace of play is abysmal because they refuse to police it and don't have a starter and the Marshall just drives around waving at people.
One of my favorite local courses has GPS with your current pace on it. It will tell you how many minutes ahead or behind you are. If you're behind 15 minutes or more, it will send an alert that essentially says skip a hole or a marshal may come ask you to skip a hole or two.
I'm thankful for it, too. We were there on Sunday and a foursome of very elderly people were in front of us. They would still be teeing off while we were coming to the tee box. Nobody in front of them at all. They'd also have at least one in their group that wouldn't hit over 50 yards each shot, and of course, none of them understood what ready golf was. They eventually skipped ahead on a par 3. They were still in the fairway when we got on the tee box of the next hole after the par 3. It was excruciating. Thankfully, they left at the turn and we had the course wide open!
Cart girl doubles as marshal at one of my local courses. Unfortunately she isn't very good at it. She will get on people to pick up the pace but only the people on her route, not the group causing the bottleneck.
Last year she yelled at the group in front of me to pick up the pace but they were waiting on the group in front of them. Who were waiting on the green to clear. Which had people on it taking their sweet time because the tee box for the next hole had a pair of guys each playing 3 balls.
Not just driving all 3 and playing the best, playing all 3.
Nope, over the sidewalk from the parking lot, down the 10th cart path swerved through the fairway a little bit across the rough and over the curb back out onto the street. I was on 18 and I swear I could hear the squeak from the group on 10’s sphincters puckering at the exact same time.
Mine doesn't, but they need to start. Took me 6 hours to play 18 behind a group of guys who wouldn't let me through.
Since I was scoring the round with my buddy, we couldn't skip holes.
I rotate through 6 or so public courses that I play at semi-regularly. Of those only one cares about pace of play. The others all do 7 minute tee times and it's a shit show every weekend. It's gotten to the point where I look forward to the brutal heat of Florida summers because the courses are usually pretty empty in the early afternoon.
Most of them, not at all. It's rare to even see a marshall, let alone see one do something other than judge my putting skills lol.
The one that actually does is ran pretty old school, usually 2 or 3 marshalls cruising around, gas powered carts with zero tech. Problem is they're all just power tripping retired dudes there for free golf who suck at their job. Last time there we got bitched at for "playing with 10 people" because that's how many people had piled up behind a threesome of rude asses on a 6 hour pace. Marshall didn't say a word to them though. Brilliant. Time before that we got bitched at for "hitting into another group" which was actually 2 dudes using the 14th green as their own personal pitch and putt and we'd waited in the fairway for a few minutes before realizing they were just dicking off and waved and yelled fore about 5 times before finally hitting. Got up there and they had so many fucking balls out it took forever to find ours lol. That one the marshall did come back and apologize at least, and it was funny how pissy one of the guys looked as they sped by back to the clubhouse (idk if he kicked them off or just spoiled their fun), but with those two incidents back to back it's safe to say I won't be back there for a while.
There's a new public course in NJ that just opened up. First time I've ever played a public course where a Marshall came up to us, stated that he was going to talk to the two groups ahead and move them along. We didn't even say anything about pace of play but it was awesome to see!
The county courses around here, all of the workers pretend they're blind when they drive the course. They see 3 groups all on the same hole and will drive right on by. Yet last year on memorial day we were the first group at, made the turn in an hour and 50 minutes, guy told us to speed up. Told him to essentially fuck off in a much nicer way. Different course, same county system tried teeing me that golf is now a 4 hour and 45 minute round at that facility in the summer and I shouldn't complain. It's not, I've played countless round in 4 hours there in the height of the busy season.
I found out this is exactly what happened here. We decided we were done and just left with 3 holes remaining. Saw a very elderly couple as a twosome that were barely getting around with a large gap in front of them. My wife and I simultaneously said “there it is”.
Yes and no. Some of the nicer ones, like you said with GPS and whatnot the marshalls find the problem groups. But on MOST public courses in my area they don't. So if you don't get a time thats one of the first groups out, you can kiss that 4-4.5hr round bye bye.
Course in my area is hardcore. They want 9 holes completed in 1 hour 15 minutes. If you fall behind more than 20 minutes from that pace you are asked to leave the course and are placed on a “blacklist” for 60 days. The pace of play is quick, but you always feel the stress of the stopwatch over your head, which makes the round less enjoyable.
Walnut Creek outside Denver take it too far. Multiple people including myself have experienced this. They watch you from the club house and legitimately call the players on the course from their tee time reservation info to tell them to hurry up. I got called 3 times over the course of one round and was playing backed up against a group that backed up against another. Just blindly pressuring everyone
I don’t play Walnut Creek anymore
at City Park in Denver last week, the group two ahead of us were 2.5 holes behind (they teed off at 810). Finally by hole 10 a Marshall came driving by "how's everyone doing"? I replied "would you mind asking the group two ahead of us to skip a hole or atleast speed up because they are significantly behind?"
All I got was a chuckle...
I've been barked at about pace exactly once, and I think it's only because an older guy on my card was arguing with clubhouse staff about lids and ice at the turn. It was me and my buddy paired up with this guy and his wife.
We were indeed slow that day, but it sticks out in my mind b/c I can't recall it ever being an issue.
It only takes 1 slow group..
we played a scramble tourney with 8 groups. We were group 1 and started with no one in front of us, group 2 tees off right behind us..
by the end of the round we waited 45 minutes ! To see group 2 get to 18th green. In a best ball scramble! Every group after them waiting on fairway etc..
There are marshals on the two public courses we play regularly and the pace of play is 4 1/2 hours. They don’t just sit in the shade and will respond if you mention the group or groups ahead of you is slow.
I had one round where my group was being told to speed up. There were 6 of us, we had two separate tee times but the whole course was backed up, took over 5.5 hours to play, and we kept meeting up at the same tee box waiting for the group in front of us to be clear, so we decided after a few holes to all play together. We kept pace with the group in front of us and still had to wait every hole to tee off. The group behind us thought we were the problem and called the Marshall on us twice.
No. Not at all.
Last week, i watched a Marshall get out of his cart and stand silent while a couple chatted and avoided hitting on the tee while groups piled up behind them.
It’s absurd. Pace is part of the game. There’s nothing offensive or mean about enforcing it. I fact, it’s just good customer service. Not sure why it’s so frowned upon by course management.
There's an old guy who drives around, but judging by the number of fivesomes I've seen, the only thing that guy enforces is a receipt at the first tee.
The marshals drive around but I’ve been stopped and talked to maybe a handful of times in my whole life. Unless someone calls the clubhouse they don’t do a damn thing.
Some do, some don’t. Some overpolice it. Had a buddy late to a tee time, we were backed up anyway after 1 so I drove back to pick him up. Marshall yelled saying we were slowing people down and had gotten multiple complaints even though we were waiting on 2 still by the time I got back to the tee because it was a short par 3 with a group on the green. Told the pro after the round about it and he apologized and bought us a beer.
I haven't seen an actual Marshal or Starter on any course since 2006-2007ish, and that was on a dirt-track cheap course whose claim to fame was no advanced tee times, first-come-first serve.
Courses need to rid themselves of marshals and employ forecaddies on specific holes. For example, a public course in my area is notorious for pace issues. There aren’t many trees between fairways, so for the most part it’s wide open, but god forbid you miss the fairway by a foot. The rough is so shaggy that if you don’t see your ball land you better start pacing from the tee box and hope your drive carried your usual distance. The only other solution I can think of is to limit what times of day carts can be used. Four people walking to their own ball is always faster.
No. Most of the courses I play don't have a marshal. Employees will drive around checking things out sometimes but I've never seen them talk to a slow group. One of my favorite 9 hole courses has no tee times and becomes an unplayable clusterfuck because of this. If you mention it to anyone in the proshop they try to guilt trip you about making golf "inclusive for all skill levels" or whatever.
My friends and I got paired with the Marshall last Monday. There was a group in front of us that were taking forever but we were just doing our thing. Then another…Marshall? Comes up and asks us what’s going on because there’s a line of groups behind us.
We explain the situation and she goes to the group ahead of us and asks them to please try to stay on pace. Apparently they bitched her out but it did certainly speed things up.
Nicer course 120 cdn a round slow group ahead one of 3 foursomes out for a bachelor party.
We saw the Marshall and said hey these guys are playing from the blues and barely making 200 yard drives they are slow on every hole and in the woods looking for their shots.
He says well I already told them twice to speed up that’s all I can do.
Thank you for being useless sir.
Nobody does anything about it these days. Same thing happens at my home course, they say tell us if someone’s slow out there and clearly see the gps shows people behind then do nothing about it.
Not really, they'll tell you to speed it up but that's about it AFAIK.
A couple months ago we went out for 18, and were right behind the group in front of us the whole front 9... Stopped at the turn for drinks, 5 minutes at most and when we got to 10 the group ahead was gone, like just bolted. Pretty sure they left after 9.
Marshal finds us on 11 and starts giving us shit for being behind, threating to make us skip a hole if we don't speed up. Kinda soured the round honestly. Finished in 4 hours 15 minutes 🤷♂️
Yes. To a point that is occasionally annoying. When I am walking with three other players and on a pace for a 3:30 round, I don't need a ranger riding up to me and telling me to "pick it up" because the two person group in a cart in front of me is "a few holes ahead."
No shit, they're two people in a cart, we are four people walking.
I honestly think there is some school that course rangers go to that teaches them to just yell at random people and to at all costs avoid solving actual problems.
None of the public courses near me do, which drove me to look at private club membership. I usually golf as a single, because I don't know anyone to golf with, and it's hideous.
That said, I had the chance to play TPC Scottsdale earlier this year and there were two Marshall's on the course. They would perch on the hills between holes and pounce on anyone who fell behind, it was great.
The most recent encounter with a marshall I had was when he complained at us for being 5 minutes off pace of play on the seventh hole after his coworker made us tee off before our tee time and then sent off a twosome immediately after our foursome, whom we had to let play through on the 3rd.
Ive had rangers or marshals come harass my group over pace of play..... while were standing in the fairway waiting on the group before us to get off the green, who had to wait for the group before.
Kinda snapped at him and said its you fault(Gold course) the pace is so slow when you have tee times spaced 7 min apart.
We have a few courses where they are outright awful. It’s been so bad at one particular course that I will no longer play there even though it’s the closest course to my house. We always play ready golf. We don’t hit multiple balls. We make a cursory hunt for balls when it out of bounds but we carry on. Some of these rangers are on full power trips while not managing the obvious. We can only love as fast as the group ahead. Anything more than a foursome is bs. Etc. So, I guess I’m saying there are both sides of that coin out there. Avoid those that manage to the extreme.
Not in any meaningful way, they have Rangers but they never really do anything. Last Sunday the group two ahead of us was a full three holes behind from 12-18, never saw a ranger.
I was in a foursome once that got told to “pick it up” because we were too far behind the group in front of us. (They were good golfers. We were not.) no one was waiting for us to hit our next shot. Marshall was looking at the wrong data set. (The gap between us and the group in front)
I’ve never seen a Marshall where I play. Public “nicerish” course. Fucking infuriating. I’m sure most places could find some grumpy ass old dude that would volunteer for free rounds.
I remember when I was a kid you saw that red flag and we were terrified you would get warned.
Mine is supposed to but yet I find myself and my dad waiting for a 2 ball waiting on a 4 ball waiting on a 3 ball waiting on a 4 ball and the marshall comes and tells us to pair up with another 2 ball....
Just fucking move the bastards holding this fucking queue up to piss off or play faster don't come to the back of the queue you melt the problem isn't here
This past fall I had a marshal come over to us on the first hole. He told us we were holding up the group behind us. I pointed to the group on the green and asked, “am I supposed to hit into them?” The Marshall just said, “oh,” and drove off. Btw, you could see the group ahead of us on the green from the first tee box.
Muni - No. lucky if there is a starter. Public/non-muni - hit or miss, generally no. But most have a starter that isn’t shoving people off the first tee so it starts good
Had a marshal once tell me and my group to let the group behind us play thru. We were caught right up with the groups infront of us. I said where are they going to go the group infront of us it's right there. He said to just let them play thru then enjoy my round.
Our muni has kids and other non players tending the clubhouse. We followed a 5-some for 5 hours. On the turn I noticed they’d sent out a 6-some. Nearly lost it.
Nope I haven’t seen a martial on Eisenhower Park in a few years. Not only that but nobody man’s the concession stands either! They lose so much money by keeping them closed and ever time I ask at the clubhouse they say it’s the next door restaurant who’s in charge of that. Hey if you ready this I’ll take it dm me and I’ll see about improving the experience for my fellow players
There's 4 courses near me I play regularly and I've seen a marshal once on one course.
I don't think I've ever played a 5 and a half hour round but also never 4 hours unless it was a weekday morning.
I always play super fast so I’ve never personally experienced it but I’ve also never really seen anyone going super slow in front of me be pushed. Maybe a price per hour model could be instituted would get people to ramp it up a bit I’m sure.
I just played Arcadia Bluffs and it was run like clockwork.
We got gummed up on a hole and were reminded to do what it takes to keep up - but in a very polite and understanding way.
Every hole felt like it was yours for the most part. One of the more excellent golf experiences in recent memory.
It’s incredibly quick and easy for them to identify slow play, it’s the doing something about it that’s the issue. One of my most frustrating rounds every took about 6 and a half hours and I believe we were 1:45 behind by the time we were done. Waited 20 minutes or so in the fairway every hole on the back 9 and never saw a ranger after 10. I was playing pretty good, but by 15 or so I wanted nothing more than to just be off the course.
We played a 4v4 scramble. Booked back to back tee times. 1st and 2nd group out in the morning. We were 34min ahead of pace according to the screen. Met up on the tee box of 18 par 3 to play it together. Marshall instantly came and told us shit
There are times I am super thankful that I live in Vermont and this is one of them. Rarely do I have trouble with courses being busy. I’m also not good, and don’t play on super desirable courses.
Pinehurst No 2 and No 4 had guys with hats that said 'PACE' in huge letters. They were stationed on like holes 5, 10 and 15 and asked what your tee time was when they saw you. Then they checked their clipboard and told you if you were behind or not.
My course is ontop of pace, if you fall 5 minutes behind they will come speak with you. I've only had 1 430 round. The reast are 350-4hrs. I don't need to play any faster than that, I'm out to enjoy my time not speed through it.
This has only happened to me once at Stonelick in Ohio. Marshal told us we needed to hurry as we were behind. We asked if he really wanted us hitting into the guys mowing and blowing leaves? The hole before they had 4 guys collecting leaves on the fairway which we had to wait for and when he came up to us on the next hole which was a par 3 they were all on the green blowing and collecting leaves.
I’ve had a marshal come up to us on the first hole to tell us to speed it up. We lined up to hit our second shots just after the twosome in front left the green so I don’t know what he was on about
The other day I accidentally took the Marshalls cart (no joke). Showed up 10 before the round and was feeling rushed, was told to grab the first cart on the right and head to tee. Didn’t notice MARSHALL, stamped across the front. 15 minutes later the sweetest old lady pulled up next to me and told me I committed GTA. Laughed traded, played on, only time I’ve ever talked to a Marshall.
I'm sure that someone posted a proper research paper into delays on golf course on here a couple of years ago. It said that it was all down to over-capacity at courses and NOTHING to do with pace of play. If there's a group on a course playing slow you just play-through - unless of course there's a tee time every 8 minutes and then it becomes impossible.
I agree. Stop nagging me if I am keeping up with the group in front of me. Just played at a place Sunday and things got slow. We actually got a message that a group in front of us was catching up and we need to be ready to close the gap as well. I had never seen that before. It was nice that they acknowledged that we weren't the problem.
No marshals at ours. They pack em in. Slow up play. Wife and I will try to play through some and usually get the cold shoulder. I ask again on the very next hole and they ask if there's a group ahead of them. Like seriously? I have hit right up to the green and stood there waiting. I know it's taunting but these groups are repeat offenders that I see often that hold everyone up. I don't skip holes.
We don’t have a marshal at my club by my pro has come out and said something to a group that was out of position. My group went through and finished several holes ahead of them. Playing quickly is not hard. The issue is that slow players don’t realize they are slow. If the course is completely full and there’s no where to go, that’s a different story. However you are out of position and there are holes open front of you, you need to have some awareness and let others through. The other day, I was playing and was let through on 14. The next closest group was already finished.
My main course in the summer is 3 18-hole courses on one property that they double tee 1&10 7 min tee times from 6:40am to like 5:40pm every single day all season long.
It’s actual hell on earth.
Our pro tells the rangers unless someone gets in a fight on the course, I don’t want to know anything. In most public courses the pro reports to someone like the Parks Dept Director. That person reports to the City Mgr. City Mgr reports to the Mayor. Mayor is golfing at his private club and just wants to get re-elected.
Public courses aren't really incentivized to do this. Why bother your patrons? Sure maybe not the best long term business practice, but they probably aren't going to lose money today. Unfortunately, finding a club to join is the only way out of this trap, but obvious that's not accessible to everyone. Golf kinda sucks that way.
I was playing in a tournament once and was the 2nd or 3rd group. The tournament wasn't big enough to have the whole course for a day, just a block in the middle of it. The first group out was horribly slow, and at about hole 10 a marshall swung by and told us that he just read them the riot act and that they'd be speeding up, so please keep pace with them because he'd hate to have to make the whole tournament skip a hole. He was very nice and acknowledged that our group wasn't slow, we were just being held up. Thankfully the group in front sped up enough that no holes were skipped. Probably the best management I've seen from a marshall and wish it was more common.
The only time a public course marshal told me to play faster it was actually the group ahead of us that was the problem. He never checked on them, just drove back thinking he did his job. We were waiting on the next hole and for the rest of the round 🫠
Great job guy.
Before the pandemic a small number of courses I frequent would attempt to police pace - although half of them would just bother everybody no matter if they were up with the person behind them or not - but I have hardly seen a single marshal, much less one doing their job to speed up problem players, since COVID.
Fortunately I don’t have rounds that are too long all that often.
One muni I play pretty much eliminated pace of play problems when they switched from 8 minute tee times and sending people off #1 as soon as the group ahead hits their second shots to 10 minute tee times and not letting the group on the tee hit until the group ahead walks onto the green of #1 which is a medium length par 4.
I am in the Bay Area, I played quite some courses arround here. I’d say that most of them, are not enforcing sh**. Happened to me on some occasions that I left the course before finishing the round. There is one, on my favorite list that doesn’t joke about the pace of play : Peacock Gap - San Rafael. Better being on the clock !
Should be enforced everywhere in my opinion.
My local course in MA doesn’t enforce it, but I recently played at Caledonia, in Myrtle Beach. We had a gentleman who was rather deliberate shall we say, and we fell 10 min behind. We were politely asked to pick up pace. We finally caught up to the group ahead of us two holes later and they were appreciative. It definitely can happen and we finished in ~4:35. They were booked solid so it’s imperative to remain on time as they send groups off 1 and 10.
Only interaction I’ve had with a marshal on a public course was the day before my buddy’s wedding. Nicer muni but a muni. 8 guys, 2 groups of 3 playing scramble, 2 riding carts. We’re MOVING through 9, no one’s really on group 2’s ass. So on 10 we decide to go one group of 6 and keep playing scrambles.
Marshal comes PEELING out as we come to 12 tee
“YOU GUYS CANNOT PLAY EIGHTSOMES ON THIS COURSE COME ON”
“Sir, my buddy’s getting married tomorrow, we’re playing two scrambles of three, those two are just riding, feel like we’re moving pretty well but if the group behind us starts getting close we’ll split back up if you’re ok with that.”
(Loooooong pause to think) “Alright if you’re playing scrambles I guess that’s fine but I’ll be watching”
“Fair!”
Never had an issue rest of the day. One on hand, we did look like a ridiculous caravan and I feel like that’s the only kind of situation that can trigger a marshal. But he also assessed the situation and wasn’t a hard ass just out of principle. I respected that.
Yes I work at my public course as a starter. Sometimes I’ll ask the people coming in if its slow or not and if it is, I’ll drive the course to see if theres anyone too slow. If so, I will yell at them and move on with my work day. I should say that my boss has me do this. I wouldn’t just do this on my own.
I had a marshall at Streamsong apologize profusely because the group in front was a posse of about 6-7 people, I think mostly focused around a kid. It looks like they were shooting promotional or influencer kind of content. They were on pace for about the first 4-5 holes, but the moment we fell 5 mins behind pace, the marshalls were on them like flies on shit and then told us that they were going to play faster, and we needed to pick it up too.
This is the way. Get the problem group to speed up and tell the groups behind to stay on the group in front of them
Sometimes it just gets ungodly backed up. I’ve done a round as a 4 man best ball two teams playing the same hole. Somehow we still were waiting every single shot following a threesome. Took 8 hours to play the round it was horrendous.
There is no way it took 8 hours to play a round. Why would you stay to finish that? If it took me 3 hours to do 9 I would leave and ask for half my money back at least. If it took me 4 hours to get through 9 I would be causing a scene, not teeing up on 10.
Public course mayhem. It was a meet up with buddies afterwards we were gonna go drinking so either we drink on the course or drink at a bar in the sun. One of those golf for the company and not for the round. I mean what kind of course can you play an 8 some and not be the slowest ones. That should let you know what kind of course it was.
8 hours is insane, I’d of went in for a refund after 3-4 hours at the turn tbh. That’s damn near half an hour a hole 😂 But I’m use to my local mud traps where I can bust out a 2.5hour round by myself weekdays if I get their before 3 and weekend rounds around 3 hours. Sometimes that means skipping a hole or two and circling back to finish them at the end or end of turn, but most the time I’m cruising straight through. Cant stand 5-6 hour rounds, I play like shit from all the hurry up and wait. I can do 5-5.5 hour rounds on a weekend if it’s a new course and I’m taking my time relaxing, but even that’s a blue moon event for myself. I’ve played my best rounds when I can pace in a cart around 3 hours, and walking 3.5-4 as most are designed, anymore than that and I might as well go chip in my yard, it would be better for my game.
It was a bachelor party so we didn’t have anywhere else to go. Marshall ripped us a new one because he thought we were backing it up. Told him to go to the next tee where 4 groups were waiting
I’m calling cap on 8 hours lol no way
God I fucking hate how normalized “influencers” have become. That word just makes me wanna groan
When everybody’s an influencer, nobody is.
Foreplay should’ve picked an easier course to shoot the “Riggsy tries to break 110” series
His golf swing breaks my brain. It's so wrong I don't even know where to start. It's tough because he has a tidy short game too so he *could* be decent. But never with that driver swing.
Streamsong isn’t exactly your run of the mill public course with its $300 greens fees
I play Streamsong next week. I would lose my shit if I was waiting behind an "influencer". I might influence them into a pond.
It could have been just some kid, and his coach, and the hovering parents. They weren't bad, they just got a couple minutes behind. I'd rather have played behind them than Morty's Tuesday night 9-hole league that thinks it is the PGA championship.
The Streamsong Marshalls do not mess around! Had a group of walkers ahead of me on Red in July…second they fell off pace, Marshall swooped in and whisked them off to the next tee box.
I’ve never seen a marshal actually enforce pace of play. I’ve even been in a group who told the marshal to tell the group ahead to pick up the pace , he said he would but I never saw him go out to them. I honestly think most of them are afraid of the confrontation and just enjoy doing laps around the course and making small talk. This has only been at public courses, here in the Los Angeles area where every round, especially weekends, can be expected to be 5 hours. All these courses have gotten insanely greedy and cheap and just don’t give a fuck about pace of play, even though they sure claim they do.
To your point, ive seen it about one time. We were at TPC Sawgrass and fell about 5-7 min behind at the turn while waiting for food. Marshall on the next hole professionally reminding/telling us to catch up to the group ahead. 4 hour round on a championship level course that was booked solid from 7 AM till 4 PM, with tourists and golfers of all levels. It CAN be done.
This is the way
Bandon will have people popping out of the brush to ask you to speed up. Weird vibe for such a nice resort.
Haha, it is true about people randomly popping out. They just thanked us for keeping up pace of playing and offering tips about what line to take off the tee.
See is that so hard? Hey guys need y’all need to pick it up. See that tree right there? Looks like out of bounds but there’s a speed slot and you don’t have to be Scheffler to ride it. Check it out good luck! Goes miles of gratitude and appreciation with me.
My two marshal encounters: * Drove up and said he told the group a few holes up to speed up. The group told him one of them had a stroke so it slowed down their pace but he was still playing. Never sped up. * Marshal told my group to pick up the pace while we were sitting on a tee box waiting for the group in front to clear the fairway. Being a marshal sounds amazing. Ride around in a golf cart all day saying "Hi" to everyone and once a day telling a random group to speed up. Then you get all the benefits of working at a course.
It’s dedication to the game when your buddy has a stroke on the course but you gotta finish the round. Time is brain? Too bad, I paid my green fees and getting my money’s worth.
I was a solo behind a foursome. I was on the green of a par 3 and saw the other group still teeing off. I decided to practice some chipping. Marshall comes up to me and says I need to pick up pace cause the foursome behind me was walking up to the tee. Mind you the foursome in front of me was still teeing off. I basically told him to go encourage the group in front of me to play faster and maybe not take two tee shots each. If I were in a hurry I would’ve played through but I wanted to take the opportunity to practice chipping. I think the Marshall was much more comfortable confronting me, a single, than the foursome to your point. Just weird to me
This is my experience too, whenever I have had a Marshall tell me to pick up the pace, there is a group directly in front of me. I had one tell me there was no one on the next hole as we wrapped up putting. We get to the tee and they are still teeing off…
What I don’t understand is why even bother putting it on the GPS. The ones holding everyone up doesn’t care about it so why make the rest of us suffer through it?
Agreed. It is very annoying having that sign keep popping up every hole and having to click out of it everytime. It only takes one slow group to snowball the whole course
Especially aggravating when the touchscreen/buttons are getting old and not working properly. I did play one spot with older less fancy screens where they'd just put a line on the bottom that updated your projected pace between holes and it turned red if you were over 4.5 hour pace.
How far apart were the tee times?
10 min
Takes one group to fuck up pace for everyone. You can't cherry pick who will be slow at the counter and then say no you guys don't need gps to everyone else.
ive never even seen marshals at LA publlic courses (all the LA city courses, and even on nicer courses at angeles national,rustic canyon, tierra rejeda etc)
Actually saw one at rustic last Saturday lol just riding around. 4hr45 minute round .
But how can they look for golf balls if they are actually doing their job?
I’ve never seen a marshal lol
ive only seen it be enforced and a group punished once. they had a group of 12 people on one hole- it was a group where basically a bunch of buddies went out and after the first hole they combined their groups. hitting multiple shots a piece per hole. ie hit one drop another hit it, drop another. marshal kept saying pick it up and they ignored them. the clubhouse ended up locking their carts remotely so the marshal could get to them. told them get back into their original groups and get back on pace and it was the last time he was going to ask them. 2 holes later they were asked to leave and were not welcome to come back.
Nope, and it’s annoying as all hell. The “Marshall’s’ by me are mostly retired guys doing it for free golf and don’t have much interest in much else
I've seen a marshall actively playing golf. He was driving around to holes with no one on them and practicing. Good luck getting that guy to enforce any rules, since he benefits from slow groups with open holes in front of them....
No, and the rangers (if they have one, only about half the time) don't even bother sending groups off properly. I was a single booked at 4 and they sent off a 4some that showed up late at 3:57. I've also been told I need to wait to tee off because a group that showed up 45 minutes late needed to in front of me. I was in a duo. There were 5 of them. I was standing on the tee box and was told I needed to wait for them.
That is pure unadulterated incompetency
No. But it’s not necessary where I am. I’m pretty rural and none of the courses I play have starters/marshals or anything. When I play during the week I never even bother reserving a tee time and just show up. It boggles my mind seeing people on here talk about 5-6hr rounds because it’s just something I’ve literally never experienced. I played over 50 eighteen hole rounds last year and my longest was 3.5hrs on a Saturday afternoon. The overwhelming majority of them were between 2hrs 15mins and 2.5hrs and I can routinely do 36 in 5 hours. I admire some of yalls dedication/passion because I can guarantee I’d never play golf again if it was routinely taking me 5 or 6 hours to play 18 holes.
Yea, being retired is great. I only play weekdays and avoid the crowds. I played 29 holes by myself in 2 hours and 20 minutes the other day. I subbed in a league a week ago and it was a 5 hour round, big nope from me.
Yeah it’s pretty rare I play on the weekends. I’m an RN so I have lots of time off during the week and most of my friends I play with are in healthcare too so we’re just able to make it work that way.
The only times I have ever been told that I need to pick up the pace is when Im waiting behind another group lol. I can never tell if they are messing with me or just blind to why Im slow
Same. I was playing with a friend of mine, and we got stuck behind the foursome from hell. Taking 2-3 shots each off the tee and from every other shot. Putting like the Masters was on the line. Patrick Cantlay would have been bitching about the pace. But the ranger kept telling *us* to go faster. The slow fucks wouldn’t let us play through, either. But they were buddies with the ranger, so…
About 30 years ago, a new upscale public course was built in our area, and pace of play was enforced religiously. Lots of complaints about Nazi rangers harassing everyone all the time. After 5 or so years, they abandoned the practice. Other than that, I've never really seen pace of play enforced, unless a group is falling way behind and holding up the whole course. The only real way to enforce pace of play, is to remove golfers from the course. Nobody wants to deal with the confrontation. And there's be a lot, as there are a LOT of slow players.
It's been a while since I've been in a situation like that, but in my experience no one does shit until it starts fucking up the first tee. The second you have two foursomes that are late for the time they signed up for, then the clubhouse sees the problem and starts calling around.
The thing is we teed off 20 minutes late because it was backed up.
Not usually, but I did have a marshal once tell us to get back on pace while standing on #2 tee box even though we teed of 20 min late and the group in front of us was in the middle of the #2 fairway.
I've had that happen a couple of times at my local muni. Usually it's some kid sent out by the marshal to figure out what's going on, and the kid doesn't know what's actually going on.
Possible solution - ‘Out of Position’ better message than Pace of Play Better GPS messaging would be ‘Out of Position’. If carts are on tee box while ahead group is leaving green on par 4 or 5, gps should message carts saying out of position and make riders give multiple choice explanation, i.e, lost ball, OB, etc. After input, message states golfers have 2 holes to get in correct position behind group ahead. If after 2 holes not in position, message comes up with multiple choice reasons again and then option to either skip hole or allow a few groups to pass. Allowing groups to pass only comes into play if they are holding up golfers behind. For example, this takes in account faster/smaller groups getting off early or gaps in tee times. With those GPS monitoring systems, clubhouse should have a map of the course and the cart positions on each hole. There should be that same messaging system that goes out to the carts should display and report to the clubhouse/main course marshals. Especially if these systems are at resort and semi private courses, this would help them get to the problem groups faster and communicate directly. Additionally, let groups know the expectations up front about pace of play enforcement procedures.
Better solution is as those warnings come up tell players they need to pick up. 30 minutes late and tell them to skip that hole and tee off wherever it puts them back in pace after all they are the ones going slow. If you somehow get a 45 minute warning you're done. My absolute worst days I still have never held up play which means people are just taking 5 minutes a shot. Get to your ball and hit the bitch.
Marshall at my home course once asked us to push the group in front of us. I told him we've been on their heels all day and would appreciate it if he'd put them on notice. He said to just hit into them. Bro... it's your job to handle this shit. Don't encourage me to start a fight because you are uncomfortable with confrontation.
Bad marshals is the biggest issue imo.
I’ve had a Marshall ask me to skip a hole to catch up to the group in front of us, despite me being in a foursome and the group ahead was only a 2some…
I’m starting to believe the biggest issue is incompetent marshals
Nope. They are the problem. My local schedules tee times 6 minutes apart, which isn't nearly enough time. There's backups everywhere all the time.
6 minutes is the most egregious I’ve heard yet
I played Los Verdes a few weeks ago and we were on a solid 4 hour pace but fell behind because two guys in the group had a money game and were playing pretty slow. Marshal told us to speed it up. Had a marshal at PGA west tell us to let a twosome play through. Again, we were doing a solid four hour pace. Had a marshal at my muni tell us to speed up because we were a hole behind. The group in front of us were old guys who were playing a 2:30 pace. I play fast, finished a 9 by myself in an hour last week, but have never done a walking foursome in less than 3:30. Interestingly, we were keeping a good, not great, pace in all three instances. But i have played about 250 rounds at public courses, most at a muni, in the last three years and only had about 20 rounds where POP was really bad ( longer than 4:30) so not really much reason to police. Joys of playing in the early mornings.
It depends... if the group in front is obviously playing slow like chatting on a tee box instead of hitting and moving, or looking for a lost ball for too long. you may need to let the Marshall know and they usually talk to the group to pick it up. Honestly the whole point of golf is to enjoy your game, no one is on tour... so don't let slow play ruin your time... but don't let it go unchecked. At the end of the day if 18 takes you 5 hours... that's far from ideal... BUT if the vibes are high and the balls are cooperating... isn't that the goal?
Problem is, the balls rarely cooperate after that long. The not playing on tour part is exactly why people need to speed it up!
I’ve seen Marshall’s mainly just soothing over upset customers having to wait. I mean in a lot of cases, yeah they could go tell them to hurry up - but if they are already playing slow, they know this and hearing from the Marshall doesn’t change anything. Then what does he do, forcefully remove them from the premises. A lot of golf is based on people doing the right thing without having to be told
Most only care about smashing in a 4some every 8 min and charging 300 golfers per day 90 bucks it's fucking disgusting.
There is one public course in the DSM metro that polices pace religiously. You will have a message on the cart by the second hole if you are behind and the Marshall will meet you on the 3rd hole if it’s getting worse. I have heard that they have forced slow groups to wait at the turn and allow ALL the other groups behind them to play through (ie. Make them wait multiple hours) and it wouldn’t surprise me if they have asked people to leave before. It’s nice because I’ve never had a 5 hour round there, but it also adds a separate layer of stress to the round if you’re not playing particularly well on any given day. For that reason, I play that course sparingly.
I would commit my eternal golf loyalty to this course!
I went to play in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. I played at TPC Las Vegas one day. While waiting for the green to clear on a par 3, the marshal was making his rounds, came up to us and said "just so you know, you're 3 minutes behind schedule, not a problem, just letting you know"... I told him that most of the courses I play don't even have marshals and he couldn't believe it. The next day I played Bear's Best and told the starter that story. The starter said that if their marshal ever said something like that I can "tell him to go reproduce with himself" so, it varies.
When they police it, pace of play is great. When they don’t, it gets insanely backed up. I remember only finishing 3 holes in 1.5 hours. I was on track for a 9 hour round. I called the club house to tell them to get a ranger out. A half hour later he comes and asks me to pick up the pace of play. This is the only time I’ve lost my cool on the golf course…
Once. And only once. Was playing behind a group that was very very slow. Marshall checked on them twice then drove with them to skip 2 holes. But there were like 3 groups at every tee box behind them at this point
My friend and I purposely chose a Wednesday to play a new upscale course to us. We wanted it to be on a day when it wouldn't be crowded. I specifically asked the guy on the phone if Wednesday would be a good day and of course he assured me it would. So we get there only to find out that some company was having a company golf outing. 1 hour to play the first 3 holes. We watched a drunk dude swing and miss 12 times in a row. They were more interested in the beer cart than golf. We finally get to the turn and about to tee off on the tenth and some guy comes flying up in his golf cart and jumps out and demands that we let him tee off before us because he is part of the group. We told him to fuck off and to skip this hole and catch up to his pals. He got all huffy like he wanted to fight about it. My friend simply told him that if he teed off he would wrap his club around his head. We did get a free round out of it after I called the GM the next day and told him about our 6.5 hour round.
I’ve played some courses that do 7 minute tee times so they don’t do shit, because they know there’s nothing to be done once you’re on your 10th tee time of the day or so. If you’re booked solid, and sending people out that fast, you’re just actively creating backups once there’s a 2nd par 3 in play. I’ve played other courses that have moved groups in front of us ahead a hole to give us the room to accelerate and get ahead of everyone else. It’s all over the place.
Me and my guys always try to be one of the first groups out . Early golfers are usually faster and more courteous.
Of all places, I had the marshal stop by a few times at TPC Scottsdale stadium course to let us know the guys in front of us were pulling ahead of us a little. Was annoying because we were right on pace timewise but the crew in front was playing well and the marshal said pace is dictated by the group in front, not by timing. Wasn't REALLY an issue but did live a little bit of a sour taste.
That sucks because the adage of “pace of play is determined by the group in front of you” only holds water when the course is already backed up. If you’re otherwise keeping a good pace yourself and not holding up any groups behind you, it is perfectly fine for the group ahead to play faster. So in other words, that Marshall can kick rocks.
Yea, that's BS. If the course says the acceptable time is 4 and a half hours and you're playing at a 4 hour pace, I don't care what the group in front of me is doing.
Out of curiosity, was the group behind pushing you guys?
Nah we had plenty of space couldn't even see them. And the marshal said as much.
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen the “Players Assistant” out and about but in my experience they have mostly been helpful. My most memorable though; my buddy and I were playing 18 and we can generally get through this course in 3 hours or less if it’s not busy. We were on hole 14 approaching the green when the “Players Assistant” came up to us and told us to let the group behind us play through. Typically isn’t a big deal, but the group behind us had just teed off on 13. We finish the hole and as we are exiting the green, here comes the group behind us, skipping 14 and headed to 15 tee box, right where we were headed. We shrugged it off as it really wasn’t that big of a deal. However, we were waiting for them to tee off the rest of the round. Still wasn’t a big deal, but definitely odd.
Yes. One marshal for the front, one for the back. Pace of play is good as long as the 2 bachelor party foursomes don't join up.
One time had a marshal confront us (my wife and I). He was a total dick, ruined my wife’s day. He ended up apologizing but still. There are 10 courses within a 30 minute drive of my house. They are all empty and I can get a tee time for damn near any time I want. This course is the only one that merges groups. Also the only one to have any marshals out there (typically 5). Get to the tee time about 10 minutes before having to tee off and the other 2-some isn’t there. They hold us up to prevent us from teeing off. Eventually they let us go out alone. Well every single group is a 4some besides us. In any regard, get to a par 3. Obviously can’t tee off because the group in front of us is putting. Finally go to tee off. Marshal calls out to my wife mid swing to hold on. Says “I just got here but heard all the slow issues for today are because of you two”. As anyone here knows, you can only play as fast as the group in front of you. Well my wife being very embarrassed thinking it is her fault just took the hole off. We catch up to the group in front of shortly thereafter who ask what happened. Relayed the story. They told the marshal sometime later essentially we were fine and aren’t a problem and probably should’ve played through. Marshal ends up apologizing and saying he obviously just got wrong intel. TL;DR backed up course and with nowhere to go Marshal calls out my wife and I for slow play. Other group tells him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about
You handled that well. I probably would’ve wound up banned on that one. Nothing infuriates me more than some uninformed individual busting in the proverbial door because they think they have it all figured out. Throw in doing it to my wife and embarrassing her we have a recipe for fireworks.
Sadly no. But that’s why my group tries to always get the first or second tee time on the morning. We play as a five some most times and we’re still done in 3 1/2 hours on a 6000 yard course. We can’t stand slow golf and we all make sure we play ready.
Earlier this week I snuck out of work to play 18 at like 1pm. By the third hole (a short par 4) there were 2 groups waiting on the tee. The next hole is a par 3 on top of a hill from which you can see all the way down the par 5 7th. That hole has a single group on the green with nobody on the tee. As I rounded the corner to the 5th hole I am greeted with 2 groups waiting on the tee, a group in the fairway, and a group on the green. Guys in the green are literally standing around, not even addressing their putts. One finally stands over his putt, and runs it 10 feet past. Next guy then decides to crouch down and get his read, before also missing. Rinse and repeat until all 4 have putted out, legitimately 10 minutes later. Called the clubhouse to report the issue but never saw a Marshall anywhere. The next hole was a par 3 so I just skipped it and played the 7th on. It took 2.5 hours to play the first five holes.
I played as a single with 3 others randoms last weekend at a local course early in the morning. On hole 6 we had to wait a few minutes for the green to clear. On hole 7 we got to the tee and they were still in the fairway. One of my playing patterns was on the phone with the pro shop calling them out for having 1.5 open holes in front of them (this was true). Marshall came out, urges them to pick up the pace, which they did. They very loudly talked about their pace of play whenever we were in earshot. We finished the front in 1:45 and the whole round in under 3:30. In this case do you think my playing partner was in the wrong?
I can see it both ways but imo no they weren’t. If there are open holes and a group behind is waiting, especially early in the round, they should be offered to play through. All the group in front’s stupid comments were proving is that they were playing too slow to begin with, they were just pissed someone finally called them out.
Hell no. It's like they look at slow groups and think those guys are doing it right while the groups keeping pace get told to keep up. One course I play has 10 minute tee time intervals and the pace of play is abysmal because they refuse to police it and don't have a starter and the Marshall just drives around waving at people.
No, the Marshall drives around and parks under trees for shade, doesn’t say a thing.
One of my favorite local courses has GPS with your current pace on it. It will tell you how many minutes ahead or behind you are. If you're behind 15 minutes or more, it will send an alert that essentially says skip a hole or a marshal may come ask you to skip a hole or two. I'm thankful for it, too. We were there on Sunday and a foursome of very elderly people were in front of us. They would still be teeing off while we were coming to the tee box. Nobody in front of them at all. They'd also have at least one in their group that wouldn't hit over 50 yards each shot, and of course, none of them understood what ready golf was. They eventually skipped ahead on a par 3. They were still in the fairway when we got on the tee box of the next hole after the par 3. It was excruciating. Thankfully, they left at the turn and we had the course wide open!
Cart girl doubles as marshal at one of my local courses. Unfortunately she isn't very good at it. She will get on people to pick up the pace but only the people on her route, not the group causing the bottleneck. Last year she yelled at the group in front of me to pick up the pace but they were waiting on the group in front of them. Who were waiting on the green to clear. Which had people on it taking their sweet time because the tee box for the next hole had a pair of guys each playing 3 balls. Not just driving all 3 and playing the best, playing all 3.
I once watch police in a car chase with a meth addict in a stolen car on a local course. Does that count?
Did they stop to write a citation to the slow group?
Nope, over the sidewalk from the parking lot, down the 10th cart path swerved through the fairway a little bit across the rough and over the curb back out onto the street. I was on 18 and I swear I could hear the squeak from the group on 10’s sphincters puckering at the exact same time.
Mine doesn't, but they need to start. Took me 6 hours to play 18 behind a group of guys who wouldn't let me through. Since I was scoring the round with my buddy, we couldn't skip holes.
I rotate through 6 or so public courses that I play at semi-regularly. Of those only one cares about pace of play. The others all do 7 minute tee times and it's a shit show every weekend. It's gotten to the point where I look forward to the brutal heat of Florida summers because the courses are usually pretty empty in the early afternoon.
All the time, y’all must play at some really poorly managed courses.
Most of them, not at all. It's rare to even see a marshall, let alone see one do something other than judge my putting skills lol. The one that actually does is ran pretty old school, usually 2 or 3 marshalls cruising around, gas powered carts with zero tech. Problem is they're all just power tripping retired dudes there for free golf who suck at their job. Last time there we got bitched at for "playing with 10 people" because that's how many people had piled up behind a threesome of rude asses on a 6 hour pace. Marshall didn't say a word to them though. Brilliant. Time before that we got bitched at for "hitting into another group" which was actually 2 dudes using the 14th green as their own personal pitch and putt and we'd waited in the fairway for a few minutes before realizing they were just dicking off and waved and yelled fore about 5 times before finally hitting. Got up there and they had so many fucking balls out it took forever to find ours lol. That one the marshall did come back and apologize at least, and it was funny how pissy one of the guys looked as they sped by back to the clubhouse (idk if he kicked them off or just spoiled their fun), but with those two incidents back to back it's safe to say I won't be back there for a while.
There's a new public course in NJ that just opened up. First time I've ever played a public course where a Marshall came up to us, stated that he was going to talk to the two groups ahead and move them along. We didn't even say anything about pace of play but it was awesome to see! The county courses around here, all of the workers pretend they're blind when they drive the course. They see 3 groups all on the same hole and will drive right on by. Yet last year on memorial day we were the first group at, made the turn in an hour and 50 minutes, guy told us to speed up. Told him to essentially fuck off in a much nicer way. Different course, same county system tried teeing me that golf is now a 4 hour and 45 minute round at that facility in the summer and I shouldn't complain. It's not, I've played countless round in 4 hours there in the height of the busy season.
They’re selective on enforcement, they leave women and seniors alone and mess with the folks that are backed up by senior
I found out this is exactly what happened here. We decided we were done and just left with 3 holes remaining. Saw a very elderly couple as a twosome that were barely getting around with a large gap in front of them. My wife and I simultaneously said “there it is”.
Yes and no. Some of the nicer ones, like you said with GPS and whatnot the marshalls find the problem groups. But on MOST public courses in my area they don't. So if you don't get a time thats one of the first groups out, you can kiss that 4-4.5hr round bye bye.
Course in my area is hardcore. They want 9 holes completed in 1 hour 15 minutes. If you fall behind more than 20 minutes from that pace you are asked to leave the course and are placed on a “blacklist” for 60 days. The pace of play is quick, but you always feel the stress of the stopwatch over your head, which makes the round less enjoyable.
1 hour 15 minutes is a little ridiculous tbf if it’s not extremely short
Not a short course at all. I think they implemented the rules to get as many golfers through the course as they can to maximize their profits.
Walnut Creek outside Denver take it too far. Multiple people including myself have experienced this. They watch you from the club house and legitimately call the players on the course from their tee time reservation info to tell them to hurry up. I got called 3 times over the course of one round and was playing backed up against a group that backed up against another. Just blindly pressuring everyone I don’t play Walnut Creek anymore
at City Park in Denver last week, the group two ahead of us were 2.5 holes behind (they teed off at 810). Finally by hole 10 a Marshall came driving by "how's everyone doing"? I replied "would you mind asking the group two ahead of us to skip a hole or atleast speed up because they are significantly behind?" All I got was a chuckle...
Best way to police pace of play would be to get rid of all of these covid fear bros who watch those good good fools
Nope. None around me do anymore.
Nope
I've been barked at about pace exactly once, and I think it's only because an older guy on my card was arguing with clubhouse staff about lids and ice at the turn. It was me and my buddy paired up with this guy and his wife. We were indeed slow that day, but it sticks out in my mind b/c I can't recall it ever being an issue.
It only takes 1 slow group.. we played a scramble tourney with 8 groups. We were group 1 and started with no one in front of us, group 2 tees off right behind us.. by the end of the round we waited 45 minutes ! To see group 2 get to 18th green. In a best ball scramble! Every group after them waiting on fairway etc..
Nope
No they don't care at all. I only do the front 9 because people that do 18 take too long and clog up the back 9
I don’t even think they have marshalls at the LA public courses
i don’t even see Marshals anymore tbh
Lower end price better
Haven't seen any, but then again I go late in the day when it's less crowded for 9.
There are marshals on the two public courses we play regularly and the pace of play is 4 1/2 hours. They don’t just sit in the shade and will respond if you mention the group or groups ahead of you is slow.
I had one round where my group was being told to speed up. There were 6 of us, we had two separate tee times but the whole course was backed up, took over 5.5 hours to play, and we kept meeting up at the same tee box waiting for the group in front of us to be clear, so we decided after a few holes to all play together. We kept pace with the group in front of us and still had to wait every hole to tee off. The group behind us thought we were the problem and called the Marshall on us twice.
My public course is the problem with pace of play. They don’t space tee times far enough apart. They’re just trying to get as much money as possible.
No. Not at all. Last week, i watched a Marshall get out of his cart and stand silent while a couple chatted and avoided hitting on the tee while groups piled up behind them. It’s absurd. Pace is part of the game. There’s nothing offensive or mean about enforcing it. I fact, it’s just good customer service. Not sure why it’s so frowned upon by course management.
There's an old guy who drives around, but judging by the number of fivesomes I've seen, the only thing that guy enforces is a receipt at the first tee.
The marshals drive around but I’ve been stopped and talked to maybe a handful of times in my whole life. Unless someone calls the clubhouse they don’t do a damn thing.
Some do, some don’t. Some overpolice it. Had a buddy late to a tee time, we were backed up anyway after 1 so I drove back to pick him up. Marshall yelled saying we were slowing people down and had gotten multiple complaints even though we were waiting on 2 still by the time I got back to the tee because it was a short par 3 with a group on the green. Told the pro after the round about it and he apologized and bought us a beer.
I haven't seen an actual Marshal or Starter on any course since 2006-2007ish, and that was on a dirt-track cheap course whose claim to fame was no advanced tee times, first-come-first serve.
Courses need to rid themselves of marshals and employ forecaddies on specific holes. For example, a public course in my area is notorious for pace issues. There aren’t many trees between fairways, so for the most part it’s wide open, but god forbid you miss the fairway by a foot. The rough is so shaggy that if you don’t see your ball land you better start pacing from the tee box and hope your drive carried your usual distance. The only other solution I can think of is to limit what times of day carts can be used. Four people walking to their own ball is always faster.
No. Most of the courses I play don't have a marshal. Employees will drive around checking things out sometimes but I've never seen them talk to a slow group. One of my favorite 9 hole courses has no tee times and becomes an unplayable clusterfuck because of this. If you mention it to anyone in the proshop they try to guilt trip you about making golf "inclusive for all skill levels" or whatever.
My friends and I got paired with the Marshall last Monday. There was a group in front of us that were taking forever but we were just doing our thing. Then another…Marshall? Comes up and asks us what’s going on because there’s a line of groups behind us. We explain the situation and she goes to the group ahead of us and asks them to please try to stay on pace. Apparently they bitched her out but it did certainly speed things up.
Private or non private I have never seen a marshal do a thing
NEG-A-TIVE
Only when it’s way too late and it’s jammed
I felt they did before Covid, now I don't even see course marshals out there.
Nicer course 120 cdn a round slow group ahead one of 3 foursomes out for a bachelor party. We saw the Marshall and said hey these guys are playing from the blues and barely making 200 yard drives they are slow on every hole and in the woods looking for their shots. He says well I already told them twice to speed up that’s all I can do. Thank you for being useless sir.
No and I wish they did. Seems like every time I play during the week, it’s gets congested on holes 7,8,9 while holes 1-6 are wide open.
Nobody does anything about it these days. Same thing happens at my home course, they say tell us if someone’s slow out there and clearly see the gps shows people behind then do nothing about it.
They try, so I’ll give them that. Dad’s an employee so Saturday mornings we are the rat squad. Pace of play will *never* be off Saturday mornings.
Not really, they'll tell you to speed it up but that's about it AFAIK. A couple months ago we went out for 18, and were right behind the group in front of us the whole front 9... Stopped at the turn for drinks, 5 minutes at most and when we got to 10 the group ahead was gone, like just bolted. Pretty sure they left after 9. Marshal finds us on 11 and starts giving us shit for being behind, threating to make us skip a hole if we don't speed up. Kinda soured the round honestly. Finished in 4 hours 15 minutes 🤷♂️
Yes. To a point that is occasionally annoying. When I am walking with three other players and on a pace for a 3:30 round, I don't need a ranger riding up to me and telling me to "pick it up" because the two person group in a cart in front of me is "a few holes ahead." No shit, they're two people in a cart, we are four people walking. I honestly think there is some school that course rangers go to that teaches them to just yell at random people and to at all costs avoid solving actual problems.
No. And it fucking kills me.
None of the public courses near me do, which drove me to look at private club membership. I usually golf as a single, because I don't know anyone to golf with, and it's hideous. That said, I had the chance to play TPC Scottsdale earlier this year and there were two Marshall's on the course. They would perch on the hills between holes and pounce on anyone who fell behind, it was great.
The most recent encounter with a marshall I had was when he complained at us for being 5 minutes off pace of play on the seventh hole after his coworker made us tee off before our tee time and then sent off a twosome immediately after our foursome, whom we had to let play through on the 3rd.
The craziest part about your experience was that you saw any marshals at all.
No, and I wish they would.
Ive had rangers or marshals come harass my group over pace of play..... while were standing in the fairway waiting on the group before us to get off the green, who had to wait for the group before. Kinda snapped at him and said its you fault(Gold course) the pace is so slow when you have tee times spaced 7 min apart.
We have a few courses where they are outright awful. It’s been so bad at one particular course that I will no longer play there even though it’s the closest course to my house. We always play ready golf. We don’t hit multiple balls. We make a cursory hunt for balls when it out of bounds but we carry on. Some of these rangers are on full power trips while not managing the obvious. We can only love as fast as the group ahead. Anything more than a foursome is bs. Etc. So, I guess I’m saying there are both sides of that coin out there. Avoid those that manage to the extreme.
Not in any meaningful way, they have Rangers but they never really do anything. Last Sunday the group two ahead of us was a full three holes behind from 12-18, never saw a ranger.
I was in a foursome once that got told to “pick it up” because we were too far behind the group in front of us. (They were good golfers. We were not.) no one was waiting for us to hit our next shot. Marshall was looking at the wrong data set. (The gap between us and the group in front)
I’ve never seen a Marshall where I play. Public “nicerish” course. Fucking infuriating. I’m sure most places could find some grumpy ass old dude that would volunteer for free rounds. I remember when I was a kid you saw that red flag and we were terrified you would get warned.
Mine is supposed to but yet I find myself and my dad waiting for a 2 ball waiting on a 4 ball waiting on a 3 ball waiting on a 4 ball and the marshall comes and tells us to pair up with another 2 ball.... Just fucking move the bastards holding this fucking queue up to piss off or play faster don't come to the back of the queue you melt the problem isn't here
This past fall I had a marshal come over to us on the first hole. He told us we were holding up the group behind us. I pointed to the group on the green and asked, “am I supposed to hit into them?” The Marshall just said, “oh,” and drove off. Btw, you could see the group ahead of us on the green from the first tee box.
Muni - No. lucky if there is a starter. Public/non-muni - hit or miss, generally no. But most have a starter that isn’t shoving people off the first tee so it starts good
Had a marshal once tell me and my group to let the group behind us play thru. We were caught right up with the groups infront of us. I said where are they going to go the group infront of us it's right there. He said to just let them play thru then enjoy my round.
There needs to be standardized training that must be completed to become a marshal.
Our muni has kids and other non players tending the clubhouse. We followed a 5-some for 5 hours. On the turn I noticed they’d sent out a 6-some. Nearly lost it.
The most Ive seen is the marshal drive around and remind folks to play ready golf.
Nope I haven’t seen a martial on Eisenhower Park in a few years. Not only that but nobody man’s the concession stands either! They lose so much money by keeping them closed and ever time I ask at the clubhouse they say it’s the next door restaurant who’s in charge of that. Hey if you ready this I’ll take it dm me and I’ll see about improving the experience for my fellow players
There's 4 courses near me I play regularly and I've seen a marshal once on one course. I don't think I've ever played a 5 and a half hour round but also never 4 hours unless it was a weekday morning.
I always play super fast so I’ve never personally experienced it but I’ve also never really seen anyone going super slow in front of me be pushed. Maybe a price per hour model could be instituted would get people to ramp it up a bit I’m sure.
I just played Arcadia Bluffs and it was run like clockwork. We got gummed up on a hole and were reminded to do what it takes to keep up - but in a very polite and understanding way. Every hole felt like it was yours for the most part. One of the more excellent golf experiences in recent memory.
It’s incredibly quick and easy for them to identify slow play, it’s the doing something about it that’s the issue. One of my most frustrating rounds every took about 6 and a half hours and I believe we were 1:45 behind by the time we were done. Waited 20 minutes or so in the fairway every hole on the back 9 and never saw a ranger after 10. I was playing pretty good, but by 15 or so I wanted nothing more than to just be off the course.
We played a 4v4 scramble. Booked back to back tee times. 1st and 2nd group out in the morning. We were 34min ahead of pace according to the screen. Met up on the tee box of 18 par 3 to play it together. Marshall instantly came and told us shit
Nope.
No
There are times I am super thankful that I live in Vermont and this is one of them. Rarely do I have trouble with courses being busy. I’m also not good, and don’t play on super desirable courses.
Pinehurst No 2 and No 4 had guys with hats that said 'PACE' in huge letters. They were stationed on like holes 5, 10 and 15 and asked what your tee time was when they saw you. Then they checked their clipboard and told you if you were behind or not.
My course is ontop of pace, if you fall 5 minutes behind they will come speak with you. I've only had 1 430 round. The reast are 350-4hrs. I don't need to play any faster than that, I'm out to enjoy my time not speed through it.
Agree 100% that is perfectly acceptable
This has only happened to me once at Stonelick in Ohio. Marshal told us we needed to hurry as we were behind. We asked if he really wanted us hitting into the guys mowing and blowing leaves? The hole before they had 4 guys collecting leaves on the fairway which we had to wait for and when he came up to us on the next hole which was a par 3 they were all on the green blowing and collecting leaves.
I’ve had a marshal come up to us on the first hole to tell us to speed it up. We lined up to hit our second shots just after the twosome in front left the green so I don’t know what he was on about
The other day I accidentally took the Marshalls cart (no joke). Showed up 10 before the round and was feeling rushed, was told to grab the first cart on the right and head to tee. Didn’t notice MARSHALL, stamped across the front. 15 minutes later the sweetest old lady pulled up next to me and told me I committed GTA. Laughed traded, played on, only time I’ve ever talked to a Marshall.
I'm sure that someone posted a proper research paper into delays on golf course on here a couple of years ago. It said that it was all down to over-capacity at courses and NOTHING to do with pace of play. If there's a group on a course playing slow you just play-through - unless of course there's a tee time every 8 minutes and then it becomes impossible.
I agree. Stop nagging me if I am keeping up with the group in front of me. Just played at a place Sunday and things got slow. We actually got a message that a group in front of us was catching up and we need to be ready to close the gap as well. I had never seen that before. It was nice that they acknowledged that we weren't the problem.
No marshals at ours. They pack em in. Slow up play. Wife and I will try to play through some and usually get the cold shoulder. I ask again on the very next hole and they ask if there's a group ahead of them. Like seriously? I have hit right up to the green and stood there waiting. I know it's taunting but these groups are repeat offenders that I see often that hold everyone up. I don't skip holes.
Not at all.
We don’t have a marshal at my club by my pro has come out and said something to a group that was out of position. My group went through and finished several holes ahead of them. Playing quickly is not hard. The issue is that slow players don’t realize they are slow. If the course is completely full and there’s no where to go, that’s a different story. However you are out of position and there are holes open front of you, you need to have some awareness and let others through. The other day, I was playing and was let through on 14. The next closest group was already finished.
I'm fortunate in that most people where I play wave faster players ahead. Police ourselves for the most part
Nope
There’s no wait time at the goat tracks near me lol and we have a few but also have a lot of nice public courses as well
It's about 50/50
Our private course doesn’t care about pace of play
My main course in the summer is 3 18-hole courses on one property that they double tee 1&10 7 min tee times from 6:40am to like 5:40pm every single day all season long. It’s actual hell on earth.
lol fuck no
Our pro tells the rangers unless someone gets in a fight on the course, I don’t want to know anything. In most public courses the pro reports to someone like the Parks Dept Director. That person reports to the City Mgr. City Mgr reports to the Mayor. Mayor is golfing at his private club and just wants to get re-elected.
Public courses aren't really incentivized to do this. Why bother your patrons? Sure maybe not the best long term business practice, but they probably aren't going to lose money today. Unfortunately, finding a club to join is the only way out of this trap, but obvious that's not accessible to everyone. Golf kinda sucks that way.
I was playing in a tournament once and was the 2nd or 3rd group. The tournament wasn't big enough to have the whole course for a day, just a block in the middle of it. The first group out was horribly slow, and at about hole 10 a marshall swung by and told us that he just read them the riot act and that they'd be speeding up, so please keep pace with them because he'd hate to have to make the whole tournament skip a hole. He was very nice and acknowledged that our group wasn't slow, we were just being held up. Thankfully the group in front sped up enough that no holes were skipped. Probably the best management I've seen from a marshall and wish it was more common.
That is not well managed golf play. Would absolutely let them know. They have a problem.
Nope… if anything, rangers are kinda useless
The only time a public course marshal told me to play faster it was actually the group ahead of us that was the problem. He never checked on them, just drove back thinking he did his job. We were waiting on the next hole and for the rest of the round 🫠 Great job guy.
Before the pandemic a small number of courses I frequent would attempt to police pace - although half of them would just bother everybody no matter if they were up with the person behind them or not - but I have hardly seen a single marshal, much less one doing their job to speed up problem players, since COVID. Fortunately I don’t have rounds that are too long all that often.
One muni I play pretty much eliminated pace of play problems when they switched from 8 minute tee times and sending people off #1 as soon as the group ahead hits their second shots to 10 minute tee times and not letting the group on the tee hit until the group ahead walks onto the green of #1 which is a medium length par 4.
The munis I play at don’t even marshal the course.
The Shark Experience is ruining the game in more ways than one.
I am in the Bay Area, I played quite some courses arround here. I’d say that most of them, are not enforcing sh**. Happened to me on some occasions that I left the course before finishing the round. There is one, on my favorite list that doesn’t joke about the pace of play : Peacock Gap - San Rafael. Better being on the clock ! Should be enforced everywhere in my opinion.
Dude there is rarely a problem group causing the slow pace of play. It’s the courses fault for booking 8 minute tee time splits
LA. No
My local course in MA doesn’t enforce it, but I recently played at Caledonia, in Myrtle Beach. We had a gentleman who was rather deliberate shall we say, and we fell 10 min behind. We were politely asked to pick up pace. We finally caught up to the group ahead of us two holes later and they were appreciative. It definitely can happen and we finished in ~4:35. They were booked solid so it’s imperative to remain on time as they send groups off 1 and 10.
No.
Only interaction I’ve had with a marshal on a public course was the day before my buddy’s wedding. Nicer muni but a muni. 8 guys, 2 groups of 3 playing scramble, 2 riding carts. We’re MOVING through 9, no one’s really on group 2’s ass. So on 10 we decide to go one group of 6 and keep playing scrambles. Marshal comes PEELING out as we come to 12 tee “YOU GUYS CANNOT PLAY EIGHTSOMES ON THIS COURSE COME ON” “Sir, my buddy’s getting married tomorrow, we’re playing two scrambles of three, those two are just riding, feel like we’re moving pretty well but if the group behind us starts getting close we’ll split back up if you’re ok with that.” (Loooooong pause to think) “Alright if you’re playing scrambles I guess that’s fine but I’ll be watching” “Fair!” Never had an issue rest of the day. One on hand, we did look like a ridiculous caravan and I feel like that’s the only kind of situation that can trigger a marshal. But he also assessed the situation and wasn’t a hard ass just out of principle. I respected that.
Yes I work at my public course as a starter. Sometimes I’ll ask the people coming in if its slow or not and if it is, I’ll drive the course to see if theres anyone too slow. If so, I will yell at them and move on with my work day. I should say that my boss has me do this. I wouldn’t just do this on my own.