Carnmoney Golf Club

Tee time set for Calgary's Wes Heffernan at U.S. Open

The 111th United States Open at Congressional Country Club at Bethesda, Maryland,is less than 24 hours away and according to the PGA Tour , Calgary's Wes Heffernan now knows when he'll be teeing off in his second Major Championship. 

Unfortunately for the 34 year-old product of the University of Calgary, he could not have got a worse tee time. Golfing with Christopher Deforest of Cottekill, New York and amateur Christopher Williams of Moscow, Idaho, Heffernan will be in the last threesome to start on Thursday (12:52pm Mountain Time). That means he'll get an early start time Friday.

Heffernan may also experience an issue with the golf course on Thursday, because there is a high possibility that it will not be in the best of shape when he starts his round. The bottom line is the course will be chewed up when 150 golfers will start before him.  

The conditions are also expected to be poor late Thursday, meaning Heffernan may have to play more than 18 holes on Friday.  

Heffernan, who first competed at the 2001 United States Open in Tulsa, Oklahoma, will get his second chance to make a name for himself on the international golf landscape. A decade ago he missed the cut. 

But one thing Heffernan does have in his favour is that he's red hot, and quite possibly, playing the best golf in his career. Almost three weeks ago Heffernan won his fourth Alberta Open at the Carnmoney Golf Club. Quite the feat for Heffernan, who hails from the Silver Springs Golf and Country Club. 

Adam Hadwin of Abbotsford, British Columbia tees off with South African Christo Greyling and American Joey Lamielle at 7:01 AM Mountain Time, while Jon Mills of Oshawa, Ontario tees off with Denmark's Andreas Harto and American Scott Pinckney at 12:30 Mountain Time. 

Calgary resident Stephen Ames and Mike Weir of Sarnia, Ontario, the 2003 Masters Champion, each failed to qualify. 

TSN's coverage begins at 8am Thursday and will be shown live throughout the day. 

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Spacing Out Tee Times To Improve Pace Of Play | Golf News Now

In my previous blog, we discussed new systems put in place at the beginning of the season and one new thing we’re doing is changing our tee time intervals on Fridays, Saturdays and holidays in order to take a real run at pace of play issues.

We used to run seven to eight minute intervals with a starter (vacant) time every hour. This year, we’re using nine minute intervals with no starter.

On Friday afternoons, in particular, there are usually guests around and we were getting up to four hours, forty minutes and we’re at four hours, three minutes so far this year,

Fridays is what really used to kill us because people would bank on playing four hours to four hours, 15 minutes and make a reservation in the clubhouse for dinner. All of a sudden, they’re playing four hours, 45 minutes and they were late for their reservation, which of course we would hold for them.

This golf course shouldn’t take any more than four hours, 15 minutes to play and we’re hoping this will alleviate that pace of play issue.

Most people don’t wing it with their time as much as in the past. They’ve got other things going on and they plan their days a lot more now, so we’re finding their schedules very structured, which means you don’t want to delay them with a slow round.

I spent some time talking to people about this issue. Patrick Coli, the general manager and executive professional at Carnmoney Golf Club, has gone to this, so I just thought what’s the harm in trying it?

If you do the math, in a six-hour span from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., you would get about 42 foursomes out there with a starter every hour. If you go to nine minutes, you get about 41 foursomes with no starter, so you space it but you fill it.

The end result is that you lose one tee time to save yourself time on pace of play. What we’re also finding is that people can just hit without waiting once their tee time is here. We tell people not to panic if they get to the tee and the group ahead is already on the green because we spaced it out that way.

You can staff your halfway house and cart person accordingly because you have a better idea about what’s going to happen because you know where people are and when your rushes are going to come.

So far, so good with this idea – it looks like it may stick around at Cottonwood.

Pace of Play – an integral part of the golf experience – public or private.

10 years ago, the NGCOA Canada hosted a 2 day seminar conducted by pace of play guru, Bill Yates and followed it up with an article in Golf Business Canada magazine.

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