[calgarygeologist]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Slow play is the biggest problem facing golf, IMO. And there are a lot of reasons for it, but beginners playing difficult courses, and people wanting to play from longer tees than they should, are the main culprits I think.

But the other reason is that courses/marshals won't police the problem.

I was in the midst of a 5 1/2 hour game one day and I was chatting with the marshal about it. He was telling me about a couple groups that were really slow, but that they should be finished and off the course soon, so things should get better.

I asked if they did anything to speed the people up, and he said 'it wasn't their job to piss people off'.

I replied with 'but by not pissing them off, you are instead choosing to piss off everyone else for the rest of the day'.

He stared at me like I was from outer space, like my point made no sense to him whatsoever.

As long as courses and marshals think that forcing people to play on time is offensive, golf will be a torture.

And it really isn't that hard to police. At one course where I used to be a member, you were fined if you were 1 minute over 4 hours. And if it continued to happen, the punishment got more significant. In 10 years at that course, I played one game that took more than 4 hours (and it was 4:10).

I play a lot at Banff now, and games being more than 4 1/2 hours is a regular occurrence - more often than not. And they appear to have no appetite to do anything about it.

For "tourist" courses like Banff Springs where people are paying $200 to $250 for a round I have very little expectation that the round will be any quicker than 4.5 hours. At the quickest it will be 4.75 to 5 because people will want to take in the scenario and get a bunch of pictures on the course.