Case study at least 600 words.

Golf Journal: The Real Causes of Slow Play --- Those Slugs Ahead of You Are Annoying, but the True Culprit Might Be Out of Their Hands Newport, John Paul . Wall Street Journal , Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]13 July 2013:

A.10.

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ABSTRACT  

[...]in both events the speed of play improved -- by five minutes on average in the final round at the men's Open,

compared with 2012, and by 10 minutes for the women.

FULL TEXT  

When golfers hear the words "slow play," their blood pressure spikes and images of dithering idiots leap to mind:

the Tour-pro wannabe who takes six full practice swings every time, the 25-handicapper who waits for the green to

clear on a par-five, 240 yards away, before dribbling his shot 50 yards.

But according to Bill Yates, a former industry efficiency expert whose main business now is consulting with golf

courses about speeding up the game, player behavior ranks only second on his list of slow play's five major

causes. No. 1: course-management practices and policies. "Players can be blamed for a lot, yes, but if courses are

sending out too many players too fast, nobody has a chance," he said.

In fact, he said, until you clear up the predictable bottlenecks that plague many courses, it is hard to identify the

real slow pokes. "Players have been bombarded for decades with information and tips about speeding up play, but

if that were the only problem, the industry wouldn't be in the predicament it is today," Yates said.

I encountered Yates at the U.S. Women's Open two weeks ago at Sebonack Golf Club in Southampton, N.Y. He was

lurking inconspicuously on the back of the 12th tee, jotting down figures on a clipboard with the help of a clock

and three stopwatches. For every threesome that passed through, he noted its time of arrival; that time's

difference from the predicted time it should have arrived; the time it had to wait to tee off, if any; and the time the

last player putted out.

Yates was doing this work as part of a major new research project by the U.S. Golf Association, whose multiyear

goal is to solve golf's serious slow-play problem. "Five-hour-plus rounds of golf are incompatible with life in modern

society," said USGA President Glen Nager in announcing the initiative last February.

Yates did similar data harvesting at the men's U.S. Open at Merion earlier in June. "Championship play is a

different animal than recreational play," Yates said. As a general rule, he said, expert players in tournaments,

deliberately challenged by difficult conditions, take twice as long on and around the greens as everyday players do.

"That's the time championship players need to play championship golf," he said, "but it's a poor example for the

rest of us. We can copy the motions they go through, but we can't come close to replicating the results."

As a result of the work by Yates and others, the USGA initiated several new policies at its major tournaments this

year. It trained the referees that walk with each group to be more proactive when players fall behind. It clarified

when players on par-three greens should step aside and signal the players in the next group to hit their tee shots

(such call-ups were numerous in both Opens this year). And it made the criteria for when spectators could cross

fairways more rigorous. As a result, in both events the speed of play improved -- by five minutes on average in the

final round at the men's Open, compared with 2012, and by 10 minutes for the women.

The main goal of the USGA's project, however, is to speed up recreational golf. Using new sources of data,

including real-time observations from courses around the country, the association's research department is

scheduled to release what it calls "the first-ever dynamic model of pace of play" in August.

Many of the ideas that Yates and others have been preaching for years will be included. No. 3 on Yates's list of

slow-play causes is player ability. As quickly as high-handicappers may try to scoot around the course, they take

more shots and require more time than better golfers do, especially when they play from tees too long for their

ability. No. 4 is the way courses are set up and maintained -- the speed of the greens and depth of the rough, for

example.

No. 5 is a course's architectural design. Backups often start on a course's first par-three, Yates said. If tee times

are spaced at eight-minute intervals, but the first par-three takes an average of 10 minutes to play, a course has a

mess on its hands by the fourth or fifth group of the day. If the next hole is a par-five whose green some players try

to reach in two, you know you're in for a long day.

"It's a myth that every course can be played in four hours," Yates said. One part of the USGA's project is to tweak

the formula, first developed in the early 1990s, by which a course's "time par" is determined. The formula uses

length, difficulty as measured by the slope rating, distances from greens to tees, cart policies and other factors.

Time pars for foursomes can range from much less than four hours to more than 4 1/2 hours.

Yates says the Old Course at St. Andrews in Scotland is the perfect design for pace of play: "That's because it was

designed by golf itself over the centuries, not by man." The first par-three is the eighth hole, preceded by four par-

fours, a par-five and two more par-fours.

Pebble Beach, on the other hand, has issues. The second hole is a reachable par-five, and the par-five sixth is

sandwiched by two par-threes. "No one would ever suggest changing the layout at Pebble Beach. It's one of the

world's great courses. But there are things you can do," he said.

Several years ago, on the recommendation of Yates's company, Pace Manager Systems, Pebble toughened up the

sixth hole to make it play a bit harder, and thus slower. "It's counterintuitive, I know, but when players take longer

to play the sixth, they don't back up as much on the seventh, and they come away feeling more satisfied with the

overall experience," Yates said.

The key to golfer happiness, Yates believes, is the uninterrupted flow of a round, more than the absolute time it

takes. And that depends above all on staggering tee times at just the right interval for each course -- in some cases

10 or 11 minutes, as opposed to a more common seven or eight minutes -- and keeping precisely to that schedule.

"It's a delicate balance," Yates acknowledges. Courses naturally want to maximize revenue by pushing as many

paying golfers as possible onto the course, but they do so at peril of alienating their clientele. "It's usually not the

time itself, but the experience of time that makes people mad," Yates said. Many courses, including some run by

the big national course-management groups, get the balance right, but many more fail.

---

Email John Paul at [email protected].

Credit: By John Paul Newport

DETAILS

Subject: Tournaments &championships; Sports rules; Golf courses; Golf; Etiquette

Location: United States--US

Company / organization: Name: US Golf Association; NAICS: 813990

Classification: 9190: United States; 8307: Arts, entertainment &recreation

Publication title: Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.

Pages: A.10

Publication year: 2013

Publication date: Jul 13, 2013

Section: Sports

Publisher: Dow Jones &Company Inc

Place of publication: New York, N.Y.

Country of publication: United States

Publication subject: Business And Economics--Banking And Finance

ISSN: 00999660

Source type: Newspapers

Language of publication: English

Document type: Commentary

ProQuest document ID: 1399663054

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Last updated: 2017-11-20

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