The Three Hour Nine At Tanglewood

On Wednesday, I got out to play a morning nine at Tanglewood in South Lyon. Paired with another single, I teed off at 7:35. Mark and I played the North nine at Tanglewood in just over an hour.

Then we made turn and discovered that management had inserted a half dozen groups on the South ahead of us. When we arrived at the par three eleventh, there were three groups on the tee, and two more we could see putzing around on the twelfth. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, we joined the group immediately ahead of us, who also had made the turn only to hit the management-inflicted wall.

I have long believed that there are two felony offenses in golf: being a slow player, and being a bad player. The key is to not commit both these crimes at the same time.

If there were Golf Cops issuing citations and a Golf Court handing down judgment, the old ladies in these groups would be given life sentences for multiple golf felonies. (I do not mean to be sexist or ageist here, merely descriptive. If they had been young men, my complaint would be the same). They chunked their way down fairways in fifteen yard increments. All four would stand by in their carts while one hit and then they would proceed to the next ball. On the greens, they just stood around and talked.

In the end, it took just over three hours to play holes eleven through eighteen. My first partner, Mark, quit after the thirteenth. He couldn’t take it any more. Our little group was joined by another victim of Tanglewood management’s inconsiderate scheduling on the fourteenth.

We could see two other groups behind us. I just hope that they saw the human traffic jam ahead of us and applied the blame in the correct direction.

I simply cannot fathom the thought process that led the manager and starter to put a half dozen slow groups out ahead of people making turn. First Mark, and then I called the clubhouse to implore for a ranger to come out speed things up. Eventually, they sent a high school kid, who said that there wasn’t anything he could do because we had “played the front nine too fast.”

Too fast? People sign up for early tee times so that they can play quickly and get home. Inserting groups at the turn — and especially slow groups — is unforgivable. Clubhouse management and the starter HAD to know that those ladies were going to play like molasses running uphill in January. My guess is that they are a regular group.

Actually, I CAN fathom why management jammed everyone up at the turn: greed. There were open tees waiting for players who started on the North, so why not fill them up with more paying customers?. And if the people who are making the turn get jammed, who cares? Tanglewood already had their money.

The whole scene was appalling and for that reason it is unlikely I will ever return to Tanglewood.