quote:
I'm playing TPC and Bear's Best this weekend. I'll post my reviews when I get back next week. I've played Rio Secco twice, and it has been in excellent shape both times. Great layout and a challenging course. I will say that the last we played Rio we left after 4 hours and 14 holes. Terribly slow and nobody seemed to give a ****.
I wouldn't call 14 holes in 4 hours terribly slow in Vegas.
There is something about Rio Secco and a couple of other courses out there that cause rounds to go long anyway. My buddies and I had the 6am and at times the 6:10am tee times every saturday morning at Rio in the summer from 2009-2012. We were first off the box. If we teed off at 6am we rarely finished before 10:15 and it was more often 10:30. We averaged probably 4:20. I could take that same foursome over to, say, Legacy, and play in 3:45.
I think the cause was a combination of long distances between holes, searching for balls in the desert, and the difficult greens.
And we were locals. So when you add the tourist, who often do not play a course anything like Rio or TPC at home, it becomes more challenging and more time consuming just to get the ball in the hole. Add some alcohol and the general laid back not in a hurry attitude most people bring on vacations and it stretches out to five hours pretty easily. I fully expected to have a five hour round if I teed off past about 9:00.