What does "Ready Golf" mean to you?

kchacker · 2017-08-10T21:44:04+00:00

Define "ready golf", however you see fit. A sentence, a paragraph, 10 pages, a bullet point list, whatever. Go.

sdandrea1

We apply honors on the tee for birdie or better, otherwise, whomever is ready should go.

Fun tip when you birdie a par 3: on the next tee, look at the guys and say "anyone have a 1 back there?" 😈

DC300

sdandrea1 By the time I get to use that tip, Golfbuzz will probably be the way of FGI and the dinosaurs, but I'll try to remember it if I get lucky in the next 47 years.

Tinker

I can't play well with slow players or four and a half to five hour rounds. I loose concentration. I like to be in a rhythm . My buddy and I play 18 in a little over three hours. He's worse than me, if it gets too slow he starts jumping around holes.

fnufan

‘Ready Golf’ philosophy
If you are ready to play and its safe then play !
No ‘Honour’ (except Match Play) - the first player ready plays
Players should play their own ball before helping to look for a lost ball
When not playing your shot you should be preparing to play your shot
Ready Golf Examples
• Hitting a shot when safe to do so if a player farther away faces a challenging shot and is taking
time to assess their options
• Shorter hitters playing first from the tee or fairway if longer hitters have to wait
• Hitting a tee shot if the person with the honour is delayed in being ready to play
• Hitting a shot before helping someone to look for a lost ball
• Hitting a shot if a person who has just played from a greenside bunker is still farthest from the
hole but is delayed due to raking the bunker
• On approaching the Green place bag nearer to next Tee Box
• When a player’s ball has gone over the back of a green, any player closer to the hole but
chipping from the front of the green, should play while the other player is having to walk to their
ball and assess their shot
• Marking scores upon immediate arrival at the next tee, except that the first player to tee off
marks their card immediately after teeing off

GLFTPS

There is a guy in our group who always runs up on the tee to hit first and says "ready golf!" This happens when there is no-one behind us or there is no reason top speed up. He is one of the slowest players in the group because he is a talk-o-matic and never stops. 😠 End of rant

MidwayJ

GLFTPS
I would smile to the others and ask why he always restricts it to the tee box.

raggmann54

Ready golf is how my group of 4 geezers play 18. Unless we are held up by the group in front of us our goal is to be done in under 4 hours. More than that cuts into the food and beer time...

garyt1957

raggmann54 Get rid of the GPS, phone, distance gizmo. Use your brain and eyes to gauge distance. You are not that good to need to know the distance down to the last inch. Today I almost took my buddy's phone with course gps app and shoved it up his ass - he was taking forever - reading from cart, reading over the ball, two practice swings, re-check the phone, then be 10 feet short and 5 feet right....Ready golf means hit the damn ball...

If he does all that it's not the gps. He'd do the same thing but walk up to a sprinkler head 3 times if no gps was involved. He's just anal. There is absolutely no reason a gps should slow play.

Weirfan

KC.....not everybody plays ready golf ( perhaps they should )

What is your issue with them not playing the way you would like? Are The rounds too slow? Are you falling behind the group in front or is it simply that they play in a way that is different than you?

In addition to the desert storm crew, I have 4 regular groups that i play with ....we scatter to our ball if walking and play when ready but still generally let the player away hit first. When in a cart one guy gets dropped off at his ball the othe goes to his ( unless its ahead and in line of sight)

In mens league some guys play strict honours some ready golf, some a hybrid. When paierd up with new guys, I just ask or observe and follow along. We have a jammed tee sheet for mens night from 2-6 in 10 minute intervals on a long and hard course and it is usually 4 hrs. In my mind, thats perfectly acceptable.

Whatever method is employed , i never find pace of play slow from it and its rare to have a round take more than 4:30 wirh most rounds I play running 3:45-4:15. I played 9 in 1:30 last night.

I find that there are just so many different routines that golfers have that it isnt worth Getting upset or concerned with what others do. I dont take a practice swing, some buds take 2/3. I like to read putts from both sides of the hole, others walk up and hit. I spend time measuring yardage but little tile over the ball, others spend a great deal of time over the ball before they pull the trigger.

So my advice to you is.....if the way your buds play is not causing your group to fall behind and not taking 4:45 to play.....just accept their routine and go with the flow. Friendship is more important . If their routine IS causing slow play, then suggest that you need to pick it up and suggest and educate them on ready golf or a hybrid.

ode

Weirfan I find that there are just so many different routines that golfers have that it isnt worth Getting upset or concerned with what others do. I dont take a practice swing, some buds take 2/3. I like to read putts from both sides of the hole, others walk up and hit. I spend time measuring yardage but little tile over the ball, others spend a great deal of time over the ball before they pull the trigger.

I think this is good perspective. One of my regular playing partners does two things that initially drove me nuts. Pacing off every putt, and shooting the pin on shots greenside, yes, even from the fringe! What does this have to do with pace of play? Very little, as he is not a slow player. It's more of his quirks irritating me....I mean who the hell shoots the pin with a laser from the fringe? lol. Now shooting it and pacing it off, then I'm shaking my head and chuckling.

Reality is I'm Uber fast and even when I think pace is slow it's often not and we are in under 4.5 hours. But man is it nice when no one is in front of you and it's 3.5.....more time for grilling out and enjoying some good beer!

kchacker

Weirfan What is your issue with them not playing the way you would like? Are The rounds too slow? Are you falling behind the group in front or is it simply that they play in a way that is different than you?

An old thread resurrected, but little has changed. We are falling behind. We are consistently having groups catch up and often letting people play through because we're not keeping the pace, even though the course is usually only half full. Some of it is stuff I can let go like the constant asking of "who's away?" or someone waiting for a guy who made bogey to tee off because he made double. What bothers me is the pointless waiting. A ball can be 10 yards away, and the player will be sitting in the cart, waiting to be sent to the ball. When the cart drops him off or he delivers himself to the ball after the player has hit, the routine of getting yardage, choosing a club, practice swing, etc. begins. Go to your ball and get started instead of waiting for the chariot to take you 30 feet.

That being said, I've decided to just live with it. I never bothered to address it. When the course is completely empty I wonder why it takes us 4.5 hours to get done, but whatever. I'll survive.

garyt1957

ode

I played in a tournament last weekend where a guy was lasering the pin from the fringe. I couldn't believe it.

Natpharm

I played with a guy in our league several years back that plumb-bobbed... from the tee box. WTF!!!

kelco9

Pace of play is a bit of difficult topic because it is hard to define what a reasonable pace is. As I said my earlier post, my wife and I play really quickly, but I can't really point to why that is. We talk, walk at what I think is a comfortable pace, I laser all of my shots (not from the fringe, but anything over about 30 yards -- it's surprising how many times those short shots are misjudged), and we read all of our putts. But I actually think we are too fast. I feel badly when we come up behind people because I know we are pressing them when they are playing a perfectly good pace. In fact, in those cases I see if there is some way of backing our pace off a bit. (I have a friend who is annoyingly quick: he's always pressing and you constantly feel like you have to rush your shots.)

I think if you are getting to your ball at a good pace, you should be able to take your time with your shot (something my dad drilled into me: walk fast, get to your ball, and then slow down to take your shot). But if your routine is reasonable and part of your routine is to, say, plumb-bob on the tee, then I say go for it. (BTW, plumb-bobbing on the tee is quite common. MANY good golfers, including pros, do it on every shot. They just don't invert the club. They hold the club vertically and site along it to determine an aiming spot.) The problem arises when you play with people who have a routine that takes an inordinate amount of time.

The difficulty is trying to define what is reasonable. As Justice Potter Stewart's said in a famous 1964 ruling on what constitutes hard-core pornography: "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it." (paraphrased)

Natpharm

kelco9 But if your routine is reasonable and part of your routine is to, say, plumb-bob on the tee, then I say go for it. (BTW, plumb-bobbing on the tee is quite common. MANY good golfers, including pros, do it on every shot. They just don't invert the club. They hold the club vertically and site along it to determine an aiming spot.) The problem arises when you play with people who have a routine that takes an inordinate amount of time.

Agreed - but the trouble is this guy did invert the club, just like some would do with the putter on the green reading a putt. He also took an inordinate amount of time on every shot, which led to many confrontations. I also think that outcome plays a part with this. In other words if a player is a bit slower or more deliberate than others and plays well (hits good shots/scores low), the slow play is more easily overlooked than if done by someone who goes through the extended routine only to hit crappy shots anyway. The guy in my league fit the later description.

kelco9

Natpharm I agree for the most part. I still give leeway to people who play a lesser game. After all, they're playing the game to the best of their ability, have paid the same money as me, and probably take the game as seriously and love the game as much as I do. In fact, I might even make more allowances for them. I have been playing the game for a long time and play a reasonably good game. As a result, what I do by second nature, the less-skilled or newer player has to think their way through.

(BTW, when you refer to taking an inordinate amount of time to hit a mediocre shot, I immediately think of Bryson Dechambeau at the Masters. He drove me crazy with his notebook. At least 4-5 times he paced a pitch, studied, and restudied his notebook, only to hit the pitch 12 feet short.)

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