I played this course this morning about 10 AM with a friend who doesn't golf much. We got a cart so that his inexperience wouldn't be an issue for speed of play. Played the first hole without a problem, then went on to the second hole and though we had to wait a bit, it was a typical round so far. Then, we got to the third hole and the wheels pretty much came off. There were not one, but two groups waiting to tee off in front of us and from then on our entire round was a grind. I pointed out a few times to the group behind us that we were trying to play quickly but we were limited by the play in front of us, despite my friend being an admittedly terrible golfer. Our next 4 holes took probably 1 1/2 hours until we got to 7, a short par three.
I admit, I'd been coaching my friend on most holes. I am experienced enough to know that this is poor golf etiquette in most situations, but when we were literally catching the group in front of us WAITING at the next tee on every hole (they hadn't even hit their drives yet) I don't see any issue with some extra discussion of swing mechanics. So my friend hit a dinker on the par 3 7th hole and I hit a shot just short of the green, I stopped the cart to let him hit and I was talking to him about playing the ball up in his stance when the guys behind us literally started yelling at us from the tee to hit the ball and berating us that we couldn't do what we were doing. Meanwhile, all of us can see that the group ahead of us is still waiting to even get on the tee at 8, there's nowhere for anyone to go really. I guess these guys were upset with the rate of play too and decided that it was okay to take it out on my friend and me. So, I yelled back that there was nowhere else for us to go and they threatened to call the ranger, to which I said, please do. This may be a good point to mention that, in the two rounds of golf I have played at West Loch, I've only seen the ranger on the course once. The staff at this, and most municipal golf courses, seems to consist of a starter and one other staff member so almost no one is mediating the rate of play.
We finished our hole 7, hit our tee shots for 8, right on the heels of the group in front of us of course, and drove to our drives. The group behind us hit in to us. The ranger finally showed up (took him maybe 15 minutes to get to us?) and offered up the fact that it was backed up all the way to 18, I said NO KIDDING?? And explained to him that the foursome behind my friend and I were harassing us. I said that I know that normally we don't teach on the golf course and normally I wouldn't, except that it was a good 10-15 minutes between nearly every shot. I asked the ranger if, because I was unbelievably frustrated and unhappy with this round of golf, if I could simply get a refund for the back nine and be on my way. He radioed the starter and said that they only give refunds in the case of the course shutting down, i.e. rainchecks. He said also that I could go and talk to the starter about the refund issue myself.
So, extremely frustrated and wholly not enjoying my round of golf, my friend and I finished eight and nine. We saw that at the tenth tee, once again, two groups were waiting to tee off. That was the last straw for me. I knew that the group behind us would catch up with us and I had zero faith in the ranger's proclamation that they wouldn't bother us anymore. We drove to the clubhouse, hoping to reason with the starter and get a refund for just the back nine. Surprise, surprise, we didn't get one.
The starter was a nobody, couldn't even look me in the face to mumble his responses about how rules were rules. The superintendent came out of his office and floated the same lines that his hands were tied by the rules that he had to uphold. Not much power in being the superintendent of a golf course I guess. I was clear to me that neither of these men gave even a shred of a fuck about customer service or maintaining a decent experience for golfers. They wouldn't have let an absurd amount of people out on their course back to back to back. They wouldn't have allowed fivesomes out and not even mentioned as a warning to the subsequent golfers that play was egregiously slow. I understand that not every round of golf is going to be quick, but our front nine took 2 and a half hours, and we played two of the holes relatively quickly. Clearly, the only thing that these people cared about was grabbing as much cash as they could and letting everything else fall where it may.
So, here's the bottom line, you probably won't have a terrible, terrible experience like I did, I've played quite a few rounds in my life and this was easily top 3 worst. The golf course is in decent shape, it's fairly challenging for a novice or intermediate with some long holes and some elevation change. But if you're expecting anyone to care about your golfing experience should anything be amiss, you are absolutely 100% out of your mind. read more