New Policy at University of Michigan Golf Course: Slow golfers will be flagged.
One man said to be responsible for change
BY ANTOINE PITTS
Ann Arbor News Sports Reporter, Special to The HackFester.online
No, auto racing isn't coming to the University of Michigan campus. But people using the U-M Golf Course will have to get used to the possibility of green, yellow, and red flags being waved at them. All that is missing is a checkered flag at the 18th green.
In a need for speed on its golf course, Michigan is instituting a flag-based pace of-play system. Recently retired men's golf coach Jim Carras will head the effort to help keep rounds in the 4 1/2 hour range. Carras recently tested the system and photographed golfers who were too slow. He said most golfers easily finish within the prescribed time limit.
When the new system is officially activated, a staff member will clip colored flags on golfers' carts to signal how quickly they are playing. A green flag signifies a group 'in position' or on time. A yellow flag warns that pace has fallen off and must improve. A red flag denotes a group severely out of position. Golfers could be asked to pick up and move to the next hole. Failure to comply could result in ejection from the course.
Carras pulled out a folder full of photographs -- all taken with a series of hidden cameras rigged in trees, ball washers, distance-to-green markers, and benches around the historic course -- and showed me several that illustrated his point. "The whole reason we had to do this was because of this one guy. He lives here in town. He recently took up the game, and unfortunately, chose U-M as his favorite course. Since he's an alumnus, we couldn't just deny him access...though we WISH we could, believe me.
(UM file photo)
"Clearly, he was not up on golf etiquette," Carras continued, ruefully shaking his head, "and he fostered a lot of animosity within his foursome, and in the foursomes playing behind, in front, and even off on both sides. In fact, there were groups playing simultaneously at other courses around town that were, strangely enough, somehow affected by this schmuck. He committed every faux pas you can imagine...and then invented some of his own!
"For example, during one round, not only did his shadow cross the line of his partners' putt at every hole, he began making shadow puppets! I hear he makes a pretty good silhouette of Bo Schembechler, and his Chris Webber calling timeout is killer, they say," Carras said smiling admiringly despite his professional disgust.
"Additionally, he takes forever teeing up the ball. He walks around the tee box like a dog looking for just the right place to crap. Then he finally taps the tee in...but at an impossible angle, balancing the ball atop it like a little leaning tower of golf ball (see photo below). At this point, he takes about twenty waggles, then picks the frigging tee up and looks for a better spot!
"Once he even clipped his fingernails and his toenails before teeing off. Not only that, he left the entire disgusting pile of clippings right there in plain sight. Who the hell can set up and hit the damn ball with such an abomination staring him in the face?"
Carras then showed me another photo of the golfer in question hitting his playing partner squarely in the back with a drive (see photo below, taken just prior to impact). His partner, who before this incident admitted to being the assailant's brother, had stepped forward in the tee box to see if the fairway was clear, but was inexplicably not noticed by this golfing reprobate until the chilling scream of shock, pain, and agony rang up and down the 16th, 17th, and 18th fairways. "I was way over on the 7th, and it made my hair stand on end!" said Carras, who is balder than a Strata 3.
(UM file photo)
In another picture, this same frustrated partner, now with a horrible whelt on his back that may to this day still be swelling, retaliated in frustration by whacking the clueless duffer with a six-iron (see photo below) after he re-teed his ball for the fourth time on the practice range. The blow was so well struck that the clubhead snapped off upon impact, but the whole episode went completely unnoticed by the oblivious linkster who proceeded to find a fifth spot for his tee before finally beelining an errant drive fifty yards directly at the driver of the tractor that was out retrieving range balls. Somehow, skipping through a slight hole in the protective screen, the ball hit the driver on his forearm, causing a faded, forty-year-old tattoo of a naked lady to suddenly take on its original dark-blue hue.
(UM file photo)
"We have a set of guidelines that are very customer friendly," Carras said. "We're not out to harass anyone. We're just going to watch pace of play predicated on time and space. I'm sorry, but seven hours is just too long for a round of golf. Short of banning him for life or paying him NOT to play our course, I have no clue what we're going to do about this situation. All I know is, Dr. McKenzie (Editor's note: Alister McKenzie, legendary Scottish course architect and designer of, among many others, U of M's links and of Augusta National, home of the U.S. Masters) probably rotates in his grave like a chicken on a rotissery when this guy shows up on a golf course, especially, given the size of the divots he produces...a rototiller chews up less turf!"
U-M file photo
Not only were these duffers flagged for slow play, they were later ticketed for loitering on the 18th green, where their entire foursome three-putted andthen remained, hitting several reenactment putts each. One of their party (man in cart) was actually arrested for urinating in public, though the complainant, Miss Allison McKenzie, 80 -- a retired schoolteacher and the reclusive daughter of course architect, Sir Alister McKenzie -- later admitted she didn't see much. This statement baffled officials, as she had been sitting just thirty-yards away on the back porch of her home on the UM course grounds with her high-powered binoculars trained directly on the accused while he watered her rosebushes. The case was later dismissed when she failed to show up in court due to her untimely death, which an autopsy determined was caused by severe pesticide poisoning, one of the many dangers of living on a golf course.