GolfTag

The first club to purchase a GolfTag system is Redcliffe GC in Queensland. After 6 weeks of use in their competitions, here is what the Club Captain Glen Smith had to say:

REDCLIFFE GC GOLFTAG TESTIMONIAL

The Match Committee of Redcliffe Golf Club purchased GolfTag as the primary Pace of Play monitoring device for the club. This was to address the problem of rounds regularly in excess of 5hrs. Everything we had tried previously had not worked. Course Marshalling was very expensive and proved ineffective. This GolfTag system costs less than 1yrs Marshaling.

We implemented GolfTag and our Ready Golf play policy on July 14th, 2018 and we have seen a marked improvement in Pace of Play. In only one month of using this system we have seen our competition rounds come back to a more respectable last group time of 4:25hrs on Stableford days and 4:40hrs for Medal days. Previously this was 4:45 and 5hrs.

We believe that there is more room for improvement with early groups being expected to play in less than 4hrs. This is with large sized fields of between 210 to 230. We operate with 6 minute start time intervals and a one tee start.

We are now looking to open more tee times at the end of the field as this will generate extra revenue for the Club and guarantee players that they will finish with plenty of daylight.

The feedback from Members has been very supportive and positive. We are also hoping that we may pick up extra new Members as it is much more enjoyable to play a nice quick game around the 4hr mark.

It has been a pleasure to walk into the Clubhouse this last month after a round and not get bombarded with the “What are you going to do about Slow Play” question that I think every Captain of every Golf Club gets asked on a regular basis. Every group has a Tag and is monitored by the Pro-Shop staff. We have now put that “What are you going to do about Slow Play” question back onto Members as they are responsible for Pace of Play for their group.

I would highly recommend any Golf Club having problems with slow play to give it a go and stick to it as it does work. If anyone wants to see it in action or doesn’t believe this can change Members attitudes, come to the Redcliffe Golf Club to see for yourself.

Glen Smith
Captain of the Redcliffe Golf Club

A Pace of Play survey conducted by Golf Digest asked the following questions:

Q1– How would you rate your own pace of play?

57.8% said they were fast
37.4% said they were average, and
4.8% agreed they were slow!

Q2 – How would you rate most golfers’ pace of play?

56.2% of golfers said that other golfers were slow, whilst 41.8% were average and only
2% were rated Fast!

This shows that 95% of players believe they are average to fast golfers and 98% believe that other golfers are average to slow.

What do you think?

SLOW PLAY would have to be one of the most talked about topics in any Golf Club not just in Australia but Worldwide. Unfortunately, as most things in our hectic lives have sped up - Competition rounds of Golf have gone backwards to the point where 5+ hour rounds are more common than not.

At the Vines we have addressed this problem with GolfTag and completely eliminated 5 hr rounds. GolfTag identifies the slow playing groups that cause slow play.

Here is a great example of how GolfTag identifies a slow playing group;

Groups Joe through to Giovanni all tee off the 1st teebox and complete their rounds in between 4:13 and 4:28.

Groups Paul through to Victor tee off the 10th teebox and groups Paul to Wynton complete their rounds in between 4:14 and 4:28.

But then Colin's group takes 4:45 mins, and causes the 5 groups following behind them to be delayed.

Now up to the Match Committee to deal with Colin and his group.

If Colin's group had played earlier in the field then even more groups would have been affected by their slow play!