StayGold said:
So after reading that women are very slow during a tournament, me being a woman, I would like to know how to fix this problem. I'm hoping to play in my first tournament soon and I don't want my card to be the last ones coming in. Any advice or tips for how to speed everyone along? Maybe just conciously thinking about it will help us out?
My opinion is that the slow pace women play in tournaments is a function of social patterns and not due to women throwing more shots or losing discs.
If women's groups were occasionally slow it would be one thing but it seems they are almost always THE slowest groups-and there are some God-awful slow groups of guys out there too. Some guys just play slowly (damn them)and some guys play so poorly it takes them longer (far more tolerable an excuse). But many women are not slow by themselves, only when surrounded by other women.
Guys are socialized to be overtly competitive. In a tournament the competition comes first, the friendship comes second. Women are socialized differently. If they come off as too competitive it can be viewed as being bitchy. So in tournaments the social aspect seems to take precedence over the competitive for women.
For example, consider two groups playing; one all guys, one all women. A hole is finished and the guys take scores: its business. The scores are taken efficiently. When the women takes scores there is a lot of discussion, praise and sympathy and social reinforcement. This takes up a lot of time. Now it is time for someone to tee off. In the guy group if whoever is up does not step quickly up to throw, someone will tell him he is up. In the girl group no one steps up quickly and no one pushes the pace. No one wants to be seen as being too aggressive.
The next time you are at a tournament watch and see if you recognize this pattern.
If a woman is in a group of guys she often has no problem adapting to the quicker pace. And she has no problem switching to guy-type competitiveness, with jokes and insults and razzing and with no offense taken.
Given the cause of the slowness of women's groups I'm not sure there is any easy solution except to split them up and this runs counter to the tradition of tournaments. I would guess most women would be opposed to this idea as well. So at least women should be placed where their inherent delays do the least damage to the pace of play. For example start the men Pros on holes 1 and up. Start the women on holes 18 and down. Put the lowest Am divisions behind the women ( so hole 17 and down if there is only one card of women).
If there happened to be any really slow card of guys (we know who they are, btw) I would put them right behind the women as punishment for their pace, no matter what division they happened to play in.
I understand the slow pace of tournaments even though I don't normally play that way and certainly don't like it. Slow is one thing. Stupidly slow is another.
