How to improve pace of play on the golf course

Every few years it happens, and it’s happening again: A lot of noise about pace of play. Golfers are too slow, starting with those turtles on the pro tours. But your main concern should be the 99.99 percent of the world’s golfers — most of whom are spending too much time between the first tee and last green.

You can help them improve the pace of pace of play in golf, regardless of their skill level.

To keep things moving and get everyone off the course by dark, communicate with your set-up staff and fellow pros, and use data about your players and conditions to optimize the overall experience.

Well-placed, clear signage and realistic tee-time intervals are fundamental to moving golfers along. Shop staff and starters must direct players to the tee boxes best suited to their games and to point out potential on-course bottlenecks and trouble spots. Tell your pro staff about course wear and tear, daily course conditions and other factors that can slow play. Sending groups out just eight or nine minutes apart will not facilitate a good pace of play. If management is trying to squeeze as many dollars out of the day as possible, the customer experience will suffer, and they won’t be back.

What else can you do to improve pace of play?

Greens

• Don’t make them too firm or too fast. This is particularly harmful to high handicaps, especially seniors, who don’t have the swing speed to produce spin.
• Use tools to monitor green-surface firmness and prepare for the kind of player your customer really is.
• Base green speed on surface contours, player ability and daylight. The average golfer can’t handle speeds higher than 12, and depending on your course and climate, even that might be too high.
• Green speeds should strike a balance between challenge and ease of play. Ignore those few squeaky wheels (low handicaps and those who think they are) who want hard, fast greens and diabolical pin placements.
• Where you cut the holes has no bearing on the golfer’s ability to get to them. Most players should be aiming to the center of the green, so cheat toward safe, flat areas.
• Try to assign the job of placing and cutting holes to someone who understands golf. A right-front hole next to a bunker doesn’t make sense on most any day.
• Stay away from the back edge of an elevated green. Once a ball is over the back and down on a closely mown area or in a bunker, you’re looking at a game of table tennis.
• Smart hole locations help golfers play faster.
• It’s important to direct cart traffic away from the greens. But sticking cart direction signs 75 to 100 yards back in the approaches doesn’t help the pace problem.

Bunkers

• In today’s labor climate it’s not practical to hand rake every bunker every morning. However, if you use a sand machine with the rake spikes down, you’re stirring up the sand and making it softer so balls will plug, making it harder for golfers to get out.
• Be consistent in preparing hazards.

Fairways

• How you prepare fairways and rough is likely based on equipment and labor. I like fairways a touch under half-inch height for most players.
• You can buy all kinds of equipment to cut lower, topdress and regulate growth. But these require time and money, and make it challenging for new golfers to achieve good contact.
• When edging and trimming around irrigation heads, blow or clean off dirt and clippings. Golfers must be able to see the yardages to have any idea what to do next.

Rough

• A golf ball’s diameter is 1.68 inches, so the max rough height should be 2.5 inches, allowing people to find their ball and keep moving.
• Should you have intermediate rough right off the fairways? It may take some time to establish, but it provides a 10-foot-wide strip before the taller grass. Which takes longer: Two passes with the mower or every group tromping through the rough looking for a ball?
• The farther native areas are from play, the better for pace.

Tees

• Aim tee markers toward the intended landing area, not toward trouble.
• If you build new tees, extend the cart path to them. Account for the time it takes to walk back to the tee and return to the cart.

You and your crew have power over improving pace of play. Use it wisely.