Chatswood Golf Club You Suck

I spent way to long playing a round of golf at Chatswood so I thought I'd write a letter to complain. The bit about the fat three legged labrador and me getting in the poo are fictitous but the I think they add colour.

Attention: John Watters
General Manager
Chatswood Golf Club

Dear John,

Last Saturday I had the choice of playing golf or going shopping with my girlfriend. Had I wanted to stand around for hours being completely bored out of my mind I would have chosen shopping. I chose golf. Regrettably I also chose Chatswood Golf Club.

Things didn’t start well. It took an entire hour from my appointed 1.48pm tee time until the time I got to hit off the 2nd tee. In what must surely be some kind of record there were five groups waiting on it. I was so incredibly angry I tried to belt the hell out of my drive and almost put my back out on the extended follow through.

Your 2338 metre front nine took 3 hours and 10 minutes to complete. That’s a speed of .754km/hr. My 85 year old grandma who has just had a knee replaced moves faster than that. In fact I’d bet the overweight 3 legged Labrador from down the road could hobble its oversized posterior around that nine far quicker.

The sun had set by the time we eventually made it up the 18th which meant I was late for dinner and completely in the poo. Naturally no one believed that it could take five and half hours to play a round of golf on a pissy little par 65 course and I was falsely accused of spending hours in the bar. Thanks a lot.

I believe your club entrance would benefit from the addition of a slow play warning sign. Like the bushfire warning signs it would have different severity levels depending on the day’s conditions. Perhaps the arrow could move from snail to sloth to tortoise to fat three legged lab to 85 year old grandma with a plastic knee. At least that way people would know what they are getting themselves in for.

If you are going to have five groups waiting on a tee you should also consider installing a few more chairs and providing a few old National Geographic magazines to read. When I visit my doctor’s surgery I find reading about the lost tribes of the Congo really makes the time fly by.

There are plenty of solutions to the problem of slow play. Why not slip the old codgers some Red Bull or maybe play a little Eye of the Tiger over the loudspeaker to get people pumped and moving faster? Personally I’d be happy if you just set dogs upon any group that didn’t keep up with the one in front.

I really don’t mind care what course of action you take but need to do something. While I may be the only person who is prepared to write a stupid letter I can assure you that you had a lot of very angry customers on Saturday. Among the comments I heard on the day were “this is f**ked”, “how can it take so f**king long?” and “why the f**k aren’t there any f**king marshals?” While I objected to their swearing they did raise some pretty pertinent questions.

If you can provide any answers I’d be most interested in hearing them.