COMMUNITY

I hate the one kept coming up to our group and mutter "gentleman, you're 5 minutes behind your schedule"; while we had been kept up within 1 1/2 shot from the group ahead of us at all time.
Some golf courses are not designed to be played in 3 1/2 hours.
I had one even told us that we were the group that's holding up the whole golf course while there was no other player in sight behind our group; he had mistaken the grouds worker's vehicle parked near the tee box which we had left as the next group's golf carts ( we were about 100 yards off the tee box walking down the fairway ).
You know what? We're not planning to go back there anytime soon.

well.. we complain when a marshal is never around when we need them but if i had a marshal come up to me and tell me im 5 min behind schedual with a group on the hole in front of me i would have a hard time keeping my mouth shut! im about as laid back as a guy can get on the golf course but that sounds goofy to me. what is 5 min behind schedual anyway? if im half way down noumber 4 after an hour and 5 min ?

CLUELESS, sums most of them up!

I wanted to kick this guy right where it hurts. I was playing @ TPC Champions course, having a pretty good front 9 so far. My partner and I were paired up with a father son duo, they were terrible, and going to #8. The group ahead of us just took off after #3 and we never saw them again. Nobody behind us after #5. This "Barney Fife" SOB comes up to us and says, "You need to catch up with the group ahead of you." I told him zip it! Nobody behind us and the 2 guys that were paired with us were on there way to shooting a 120. That "Barney Fife" SOB told me to zip it! Told us to pick up the pace or he will remove us from the hole and place us behind the group ahead of us and drove off. POOF! My head literaly exploded. POOF! Double Bogey #8, Double Bogey #9, and look who is coming down the fairway on #10. That "Barney Fife" SOB. You guys need to pick up the pace or WO WO Wo just a minute. Listen here you "BARNEY FIFE" I paid $175.00 to play a round of golf, nobody behind us, nobody in front. If you want to go home with a limp, run your mouth 1 more time, 1 more time. ZIP IT!! ECHOING throughout the course is the anger and rage this guy has just caused me because he is so damn bored, and has artificial athority. I had spit coming out my mouth, I was shaking with anger, and my partner was egging me on to let him have it. I don't need rangers, don't like em, don't want them. If I have a problem, I can solve it myself. I HATE GOLF RANGERS!!!!!

Bradley,
We have a golf course here ( quite a nice track ) which will assign a "playing time" on each of the hole right on the score card. For instance, one hole might be assigned 13 minutes but the next one might be 15 minutes ( time between the green and next tee are included in this calculation and some holes are more than 100 yards away ).
The starter will log you in as you tee off on the first tee and they monitor your playing speed.
At the switch point between the front 9s and the back 9s, they also have a sign telling you at this point your group should not take more than X time from your teed off time.
Had more golf course with similar set up and most of them had done with it, because you just can't play every round the same way as reading a book.
I really don't think you could play the same golf course within a set reasonable time every time you play it. Some days it'll be much faster but a few times it'll take more time because players in your group were not playing their best golf that day.

EARXTC.....funny as hell, but true! Sorry about your round, especially there, did you say something to the clubhouse pro?

How about this one?
One time I was playing the twilight special which comes with a golf cart included with no extra charge; I normally like to walk the course but playing the twilight, we might need to go in before we could finish the 18 and it was not fun to walk the last few holes in the dark; so I was riding.
Every few holes after I had putted out and returned to the cart, there would be messages blinking on the over head GPS display panel " you are 8 minutes behind your schedule, please push OK to continue and please keep up with your schedule "
If you don't push the OK key, there would be no GPS information and it beeps at you once in awhile.
This being annoying enough and came another signal ( we're observing the cart path only rule that day ), flashing "please keep your cart on the cart path", I was on the cart path all the time and was quite mad when this message came on 7 or 8 times ( same deal you'll have push the OK key in order to get rid of the message and the beeping ).
I went to the pro-shop and ask the guy there must had been a mul-function with the GPS system, because I was not off the cart path all day but kept getting this message saying I was.
The guy laughed and told me he sent out this message to all the golf carts regardless of what happened.
Figures, electronic golf Marshall.

Last fall, I played a course in Myrtle Beach SC (Indian Wells) where the carts had a large GPS unit mounted above the head on the cart. Not only did that unit give you the yardages, it also had a timer calculation for your round i.e. +5 min (ahead of schedule) or
-5 min (behind schedule). All of this being monitored in the pro shop, in case they had to send out a marshal to move you along. First time I'd seen that.

[quote Last fall, I played a course in Myrtle Beach SC (Indian Wells) where the carts had a large GPS unit mounted above the head on the cart. Not only did that unit give you the yardages, it also had a timer calculation for your round i.e. +5 min (ahead of schedule) or
-5 min (behind schedule). All of this being monitored in the pro shop, in case they had to send out a marshal to move you along. First time I'd seen that.

Transition from #9 to #10 doesn't go right by the pro-shop. After #10 inferno I never saw that ranger again. So no, didn't waste my time talking to pro-shop. I handled it myself.

When we had that incident with the haunting ranger; our guys basically just decided to ignore him instead of getting upset and ruin our game; but we were ready should he come back and mouth off before he even know which group was the one delaying the play.
My complain is, most of them are dedicated experienced golfers, whom know the game and how it worked, but for a few of them whom was never there when you need them and breathing down your neck for no good reason, those are the ones needed to be reported to the pro shop.

Yeah, it took a lot of deep breaths to calm down. I was SO MAD. Normally a ranger or marshall never says anything, but I work too hard for my $ to play golf, and I wasn't going to lay down to this guy.

My experience was at St. Andrew's of ALL places. I went as a walkup arriving at 5AM in early April. Course was in a frost delay so if your scheduled tee time was during the delay your time was forfeited. I was the first in line for walk ups and at 7:45 AM the first group scheduled was a threesome, so I was paired with them (2 locals, an out-of-towner and myself from PA). I was the only one with a caddy. I parred the first hole as well as 2 of the other guys and one bogey. We walked briskly off the first green (it was cold, about 45 degrees) and headed to the 2nd tee saying to each other "that was a very fast hole". then the marshall pulls up behind us and tells us to pick up the pace, claimed we were 5 minutes behind, which we clearly weren't. One of the locals gave 'em hell and he never bothered us again. Oh yeah, finished the round in 3 hours 35 minutes.

www.drmulligans.com

Well, most of my interaction with marshals have been great and they all have been helpful to me - except one bad experience:

I typically walk nine holes after work a couple times a week. On this one particular evening, the foursome I was playing with was on the eighth hole walking to our second shots, when from out of no where a marshal drives up accusing us for doubling back and playing a few extra holes! We were furious! We didn't do that of course, but our slow play was because of a couple groups in front of us wouldn't allow us to play through. We finished the round and stormed into the club house to protest what we were accused of. After we got in his face about it, he finally apologized. Marshals are there to assist players. Technically that is customer service. Some may need to learn how to treat a customer before they are given the responsibilty and authority to do the job.

I've never had a problem. There was one last year who talked to the group ahead of us and then came back and apologised to us for their slow play. Most of them seem like good people.