The sign that made it worse
For years there was a sign at the entrance to the Petrified Forest in Arizona. It set out the scale of the problem. “Your heritage is being vandalized every day by theft losses of petrified wood of 14 tons a year, mostly a small piece at a time.” Reasonable enough. Tell people how bad it has got and they’ll think twice.
In the early 2000s researchers put marked pieces of wood along the trails and tested it properly. Where the sign noted that many past visitors had taken wood, 7.92 per cent of the marked pieces disappeared. Where it simply asked people not to, 1.67 per cent went. With no sign at all, 2.92 per cent.
The warning nearly tripled the theft it was written to prevent. Visitors hadn’t misread it — they read it correctly. It told them that taking a piece of wood is a normal thing to do here.
- Cialdini et al. (2006), Managing social norms for persuasive impact, Social Influence 1(1)tandfonline.com
Every club writes that sign
It goes in the newsletter. Pace of play has become a serious problem at this club. Please download the app.
A member reads that and doesn’t conclude he should get a move on. He concludes that everyone here is slow. His four hours and twenty minutes stops feeling like a failure and starts feeling about average. Then he’s asked to install something so the club can measure him against a standard nobody meets. It is hard to design a less appealing offer.
It isn’t even true — most groups get round. A small number of rounds each weekend hold up everybody behind them. That is a smaller problem than the newsletter suggests, and a far more solvable one.
Four things decide whether anyone actually installs it: what you write, how much you ask for, where you put the code, and what you tell them afterwards. The rest of this is those four.
1. What to write
Describe the majority, not the problem. That is the whole rule. Montana showed it best.
Surveys there found about one in five young adults had driven after a couple of drinks. But 92 per cent believed most of their peers had. Almost everybody thought they were surrounded by drink drivers, and almost everybody was wrong. So the campaign stopped lecturing and started describing — most of us don’t drink and drive. Reported drink driving fell compared with the counties that didn’t run it.
Golf clubs have the same gap. Everybody believes the field is slow and that they personally are fine. Both halves can’t be right, and the club is the only one who can say which. Say it as a fact about the place, not an accusation. Then add the bit clubs always leave out: most people won’t need to change anything. People asked to do something are more likely to do it when they’re told they’re free not to.
Lands
Backfires
“Most groups here go round in four hours. We’d like to keep it that way.”
“Pace of play has become a serious problem at this club.”
“A few rounds each weekend hold everyone up. We’re working out which, and why.”
“Too many members are taking far too long.”
“One of you having it is plenty. Most of you won’t need to change a thing.”
“All members are expected to download the app.”
“It means we can tell when you’re held up rather than holding up.”
“It lets us see who’s playing too slowly.”
“The sixth was costing four minutes a group. We’ve moved the pin.”
“Please be considerate and keep up with the group in front.”
- Center for Health and Safety Culture: Most of Us Prevent Drinking and Drivingchsculture.org
2. How much to ask for
One phone per group. Not four.
One person in a fourball with the app running covers the whole group. There is no reason to ask the other three for anything. That changes who you talk to. Ask the group, not the individual: which one of you is the phone person? It takes four seconds and sorts itself out. Nobody has to admit anything in front of their playing partners.
The other three never touch it and still get the benefit. The reluctant member won’t assume that unless somebody tells him, so tell him.
Two rules go with it. Never put a phone in someone’s hands in front of their friends. If they struggle with it in public they won’t try again. And have staff enter the groups with nobody willing by hand at check-in. It takes seconds, and nobody gets nagged.
3. Where to put the code
Print it and put it where people already stop. Five places cover almost everyone.
One printed code
Detail
An A5 stand at the till. Staff can point at it while they check someone in.
- Pro shop counter
- First tee
- Cart consoles
- Booking confirmation
- Scorecards
One detail to settle before anything goes to the printer. The permanent code that installs the app is not the code that joins today’s round. Point the first at wayfairerlabs.com/#get-the-app and print it on everything. The second changes every round and only appears on a screen.
4. What to tell them afterwards
Tell them what changed because they scanned in. Be specific, and say it publicly.
People will give you the benefit of the doubt once. If nothing visible comes back, they quietly stop bothering. Not in protest — they just forget. A line in the members’ email does more than a year of signage.
“We widened the gap between 9.40 and 10.20 on Saturdays. Rounds are down eleven minutes.”
“The queue on the sixth was a pin position, not a slow group. We’ve moved it back.”
“Sunday is finishing fourteen minutes earlier than in March. Thanks for scanning in.”
None of this is going soft on it. The telling-off is the part that gets ignored, and occasionally the part that does the damage. Give people the real number and most of them will put themselves on the right side of it without being asked.
By Matthew. Published 11 Sept 2026. 4 min read.