Golfer Experience 

Earlier this year, NGF President and CEO Joe Beditz wrote: “There’s no question the leading driver of golf’s nationwide surge is less resource competition – fewer commitments, fewer trips, fewer available activities and fewer ways to spend disposable income. There’ve been other transient factors too, like favorable weather, extended shutdowns at golf entertainment venues, and perhaps even a pandemic-induced need for mental and physical escape.” 

“But nothing about the past few months seems structurally different for golf, whether with the product itself, the service that supports it, or the overall user experience.” 

As Beditz suggests, improving the product is the key to sustaining the game’s health through retention. Think about your own behavior as a consumer of an experience-based product or service that is similar to a round of golf. Whether you are shopping at a store, eating at a restaurant or visiting a theme park, the total experience – made up of numerous touchpoints – impacts your overall satisfaction. The greater the satisfaction, the higher your likelihood of buying again or recommending the product to others. 

To gain a baseline understanding of golfers’ satisfaction with the game’s primary product, the USGA has conducted surveys with thousands of golfers. We asked a simple question: Thinking about the typical experience on the golf course you play most often, how satisfied are you with the overall experience? Based on the survey responses, 69% of survey participants place golf at the lower end of the satisfaction spectrum – at the same level as industries such as airlines and institutions such as the post office, which are often associated with poor satisfaction. 

The research also studied the factors that contribute to golfer experience. Not surprisingly, one significant aspect of a round of golf that is a great source of dissatisfaction is waiting. Golf is not alone in this area. If there is something universal about the human condition, it is that we hate waiting. We hate waiting to hit a golf shot. We hate waiting for a table, waiting to check in at a hotel, waiting for flights or waiting on lines for a ride at a theme park.

Golf’s strategy to reduce waiting during a round has been to try to change customer behavior through awareness, coercion or peer pressure, rather than viewing the issue as an opportunity for a business solution. 

The industries referenced above have made changes to their product through a combination of technology, data and communication to alleviate their customers’ frustration and meet their expectations. Restaurants have better data about turnaround times for improved reservation scheduling. Hotels have mobile check-in. Theme parks have apps that provide real-time information about the rides that have the shortest waits. In all cases, the result of these improvements has been enhanced satisfaction. 

Golf is slowly coming to the same conclusion, and the pandemic has accelerated that process for some. 

Recommendation: Space out tee-time intervals

When the USGA began studying pace seven years ago, we recognized that tee-time intervals were fundamental to improving pace of play since longer intervals spread out groups and reduce waits. This may be apparent even without algorithms, but even the most pace-conscious facility managers have been reluctant to increase intervals for fear of losing both inventory and revenue. 

When the nine courses owned and operated by Maryland’s Montgomery County Revenue Authority (MCRA) reopened in May, they did so with some adjustments, including an increase in tee-time intervals – from eight to 12 minutes – in order to limit social interaction. 

After the courses reopened, MCRA CEO Keith Miller found that increased intervals did indeed result in improved pace of play – as well as higher satisfaction that prompted revenue increases. 

“The [round times] on our courses last year averaged between 5 and 5 1/2 hours,” said Miller. “This year everything is pretty much at 4 hours any day of the week, any time of the day.” 

Largely due to improved pace of play, satisfaction has soared at six of MCRA’s courses. At one facility, Falls Road Golf Course, scores jumped by nearly 50 points for July 2020 compared with the same period in 2019. Said Miller: “We’ve never seen numbers like this.” 

As a result, MCRA’s monthly revenue has increased 25% on a year-over-year basis, despite logging fewer rounds. One of the courses was able to raise fees by nearly 50%. In fact, MCRA outperformed the expectations set by a USGA study, which showed that golfers are willing to pay green fees up to 9% higher for quicker rounds. 

Recommendation: Manage gap time

In addition to managing tee-time intervals, the USGA model has produced two additional recommendations for improving pace. The first is to set aggressive pace targets for the first groups of the day. On a busy day, round times will invariably increase as more groups enter the course. The first group is a literal pace car for the day’s play, so encouraging them to set a quick standard – through incentives – will improve overall pace at the course.  

The second recommendation is to control the gap time between groups as they play. Courses should strive to keep these gap times as consistent as possible, especially between holes. Under normal conditions, the gap time roughly is the interval between when groups finish each hole. While there are a lot of factors – including the variability of each golfer’s performance – that contribute to gap time, it is generally a function of the length and difficulty of the approach shot, as well as the difficulty of the shots around and on the green. 

If the approach shot is longer or more difficult, golfers will take more shots and take more time to finish the hole, increasing the gap time. The same would apply if the hole’s short-game challenges were more demanding – sloped, fast greens, for example. Pace suffers when a hole with a long gap is preceded by a hole with a shorter gap time, which means the group behind is sitting in the fairway, waiting for the group on the green to finish.  

When it comes to pace, satisfaction is not about the duration of time spent on the course. It’s about how often and how much golfers wait. Of course, waits result in longer rounds as well, so course managers should endeavor to minimize waiting by managing gap times. The good news is that with the right data collection, facility managers can identify chronic bottlenecks and alleviate them through course setup changes, in addition to recognizing the conditions that will either improve pace of play or make it worse.

Let’s take an example of a fairly difficult par 3, we’ll call it the fourth hole. This hole would have a longer gap time because it takes more time to play the hole. Now, let’s suppose that the third hole is a short par 4, which has a short gap time because most approach shots are hit with wedges. In this case, it is reasonable to expect a backup on the fourth hole because the gap times of the holes are mismatched. 

When golfers wait on the fourth tee, they get frustrated and their satisfaction level drops. But it is possible to reduce the wait times by either increasing the gap time of third hole – one way is to lengthen the hole by moving back the tees that most golfers play – or reducing the gap time of the fourth hole – perhaps by changing hole distance or hole location. Or you could adjust the gap time of both holes. Any of these changes would reduce the gap time imbalance and improve traffic flow on the course. 

While there are many factors that can impact gap time, hole length is one of the most important. The USGA used GPS loggers to collect golfer tracks and pace information from thousands of rounds at dozens of courses around the country. In analyzing the data, we found that the slowest holes are par 3s longer than 200 yards and par 4s that measure between 380 and 400 yards. 

The reason for the delay on long par 3s is obvious: the longer the approach shot to the green, the longer it takes to play. Meanwhile, there is a greater likelihood the next group will reach the tee and have to wait. 

The reason for the par 4 gap time phenomenon is less evident, since it would appear at first that longer holes would contribute more to a slower pace. But gap time is less about overall hole length and more about approach shot lengths, and 400-yard holes have the longest distances for shots into the green. 

The driving distance for most male players is about 200 yards, which would leave a similar distance into the green on a 400-yard hole. From 200 yards, there’s a chance that players could reach the green, so they have to wait. Once the green is clear, the hole then plays like a par 3, so the longer distance would result in longer gap times.  

If the hole were 430 yards, most players couldn’t reach the green and would lay up, essentially shortening the approach shot distance and reducing cycle times. While the group ahead putts out, the players are hitting shots and traveling to the ball instead of waiting to hit.  

To put it simply: As long as golfers are moving and hitting shots, they are satisfied because that is the product they have purchased. If they are not doing those things because they are sitting in place and waiting, they will not be satisfied. 

USGA Pace Solutions

As we learn more about how course design and setup impact pace of play, the USGA can help provide course-specific data and analysis to identify bottlenecks and offer recommendations that can reduce round times and improve golfer satisfaction. Trust us, it’ll be a lot easier than pressing golfers to play faster. 

The USGA GPS Service can measure the rounds of your golfers and display your course’s pace data in easy-to-understand ways. To learn more about this service, visit the USGA Solutions Center or contact us at greensection@usga.org. 

Hunki Yun is the Director of Business Development for USGA Regional Affairs