Pick Up The Pace
How Clubs are Resolving
Common Pace of Play Problems
by MICHAEL J . STOTT
“
SLOW PLAY , BIG PROBLEM ,” Dick Fisher , Lake Chesdin Golf Club superintendent said .
Why ? “ In most public situations you just end up with too many people ,” former superintendent at Richmond
First Tee Jerome Dodson said .
What else ? Let ’ s count the ways : tee sheet management , course design , course set up , maintenance concerns , tee selection , player behavior , lack of ready golf , club culture , ad infinitum .
“ Pace of play problems are random and systemic to golf . The blame goes to a lot of different places — all the way to the Titleist Pro V1 , golf architecture , green committee , whomever . This story has a lot of layers to it and is not simple ,” Keswick general manager Rob McNamara said .
“ It will always be an issue with eight-minute tee times ,” Reston National general manager Shawn Strand said . “ We were setting people up for failure by shoving them out and then yelling at them for being slow . It just didn ’ t work for anybody . On our most crowded days we had a policy that if a group fell behind we made them skip holes .”
For best flow , Dodson recommends a group tee off when the players ahead are putting . “ Otherwise you end up waiting in the first fairway watching people chip and then putt . You start out waiting and keep waiting , all day ,” he said .
Reston National adjusted their player sendoffs from eight to ten minutes and in the process trimmed 18-hole playing time from 5:20 to 4:20 . “ People are happier for sure ,” Strand said .
Popular Laurel Hill in Lorton maintains 10-minute tee time intervals . “ This allows us the best on-course spacing ,” general manager Matthew
ILLUSTRATION BY PETE RYAN
18 V IRGINIA G OLFER | J ULY / A UGUST 2023 vsga . org