ORANGE COUNTY GOLF NOTEBOOK / MARTIN BECK : Anaheim Public Courses Pick Up the Pace

Few things aggravate golfers more than slow play. The best round of your life can be excruciating if it takes six hours to complete.

The people who operate the city of Anaheim’s public courses recognize this problem and believe they have a solution.

The “Keep Pace Program” is designed to increase traffic flow by reminding players to stay up with the group in front of them.

Here’s how it works at Anaheim Hills: At the first tee, a starter tells each group about the program and issues a keep pace card. The card offers tips for faster play such as taking several clubs when you walk from cart to ball and moving off the green to record scores.

The starting time is written on the card and another time is recorded when the group passes the starter after the fifth, ninth and 18th holes.

Course marshals can ask to look at a card if a group appears to be falling behind. Laggers are asked to catch up. If they cannot, they are asked to pick up their balls and move ahead.

If they continue to fall behind, said Janet Donovan, golf operations coordinator for the city, “it says on the card that we can ask them to leave. We’ve never had to ask anyone to do that.”

The program speeded up play immediately. “We shaved about 40 minutes a round instantly at peak times,” Donovan said.

The improvement is most noticeable at Anaheim Hills, which was becoming at least a five-hour tour. The program was implemented there first late last winter, and this summer at Dad Miller, the city’s other course.

Donovan said the average group now plays Anaheim Hills in 4 hours 20 minutes. Dad Miller has a similar figure. Donovan says they are shooting for a target of 4 hours on the flatter, less-challenging Dad Miller layout.

The program is popular with most, Donovan said. “We do get people who don’t like to be pushed,” she said. “They have the public park idea, ‘I paid my money and I should be able to take as long as I want.’

“But overwhelmingly, it’s been positively received by golfers because people don’t want to have to take six hours to play.”

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You can bet Australian Gary Dawson didn’t have to be admonished for slow play during his world record for marathon golf this spring.

Dawson, a competitive triathlete with a six-handicap, played 1,180 holes in seven days, breaking the record--recognized by the Guinness Book of World Records--by 52 holes.

Dawson, using a luminous ball when it was dark, averaged 78 strokes per round on a hilly, 4,850-yard, par-64 course. He finished with a 911-over par total of 5,141, including one hole-in-one.

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Payne Stewart, design consultant for Coyote Hills Golf Club, which is being built in Fullerton, says greens are one of the most important things to get right on a public course.

“People can live with the condition of the fairways because they usually roll it around until they get a good lie anyway,” he said. “If you come out here and the greens are really nice, then you are going to say that was a fun golf course to play.”

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Add Stewart: “You’re going to have some beautiful views,” he said about the course that is scheduled to open in March. “There will be two or three days a year that you will actually see the mountains and stuff out here when the smog’s gone.

“That does happen, doesn’t it?”

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Tom Fazio, the architect of the two Pelican Hill courses, has been signed to design a high-end public course in Irvine, an Irvine Co. spokeswoman said. The Irvine Co. is planning to build the course as part of a 400-home development in the 1,000-acre canyon southeast of the Turtle Rock neighborhood.

No need to call for tee times any time soon. Construction won’t start for at least two years.

This is the final Orange County Golf Notebook of the summer.

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County Drives

Here’s a look at the features that make one golf hole in Orange County stand out:

* Course: Costa Mesa Country Club, Los Lagos Course.

* Hole: No. 7

* Description: The most challenging hole on the course is getting a face-lift. The lake that guards the right side of the green is empty, but is expected to be filled by early September. A prevailing right-to-left wind and the lengthy distance make the well-bunkered green tough to hit.

* Hint: Shorter hitters are advised to consider playing it safe by laying up. Long hitters should disregard the pin placement and aim for the center of the green.

* Quote: “There’s no room to ball out to the left. There’s water right. I know because I usually make five on that hole.” Ed Howard, assistant pro.