There are number of things that are stored and compiled in GREENi statistics, but what might the statistics tell about the roundtimes in year 2011?
Firstly, the thought of four hour round time is quite unrealistic. In fact, in our statistics we can find only one golf club in Finland, where the average round time on the 18 hole course falls below four hours. In addition, there are couple of English golf courses were the round time was just over four hoursl
Fortunately, quite many of the golfclubs using GREENi services have understood this and the “ideal roundtime” is defined to be around 4 h 30 min instead, which is much more closer to the true situation on the golf courses. On average, the time spent on the 18 hole golf round is 4:26:14 (h:min:sec). In England, the average round time was 4:20:26, in Finland 4:26:33 and in Sweden 4:31:42.
The obvious fact is that the pace of play or smoothness of the play varies between days and so. The golfer coming to the golf club does not normally know what to expect when it comes to roundtimes. That is why the golf club personnel then has to listen to complaints about the slowplay – since, in golfer’s opinion, the round that suddenly takes 20 minutes longer is a total catastrophe. Wouldn’t it be better to tell in advance what really is the predicted daily round time? It is validated fact, that this would improve how golfers will perceive the image and the quality of the club and will reduce the complaints from the golfers.
Farely common topic of discussion at the golf club is the “midway hut” or “break” and especially the time spent there. According to the GREENi statistics, golfers spend 16 minutes and 44 seconds on the break. On one golf course the break was only 6 min 30 sec on average, but on several golf clubs the break seems to be as much as 18 to 20 minutes. We know that many clubs advice golfers to take max. 10 minutes break after the front nine, for example at the clubhouse, but they should perhaps add another 5 minutes. Why? Well, there are many golfers who feel that they should follow the instructions and advice very carefully. So, they rush from the break to the next tee only to find out that they have to wait for the previous group to get away. Therefore, we believe that clear and precise communication of the break-times is way to improve the smoothness of the play on the golfcourse.
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