Slow golf sucks
If there’s one thing a golfer hates it’s waiting for hackers who are playing slow golf. They look for balls, try to hit miracle shots–cause they saw it on TV once, take 10 practice swings before each shot, etc., etc. Even the Wall Street Journal wrote about it today, offering reader suggestions for improving pace of play. Here are my favorites from the article:
| Be considerate of faster players. | The common theme of all the emails we received was that common courtesy toward other players would go a long way to solving the slow play problem. |
| Let faster groups play through. | This was the No. 1 piece of advice. Any time the group behind you is waiting and a full hole or more is open in front of you, stand aside so the group behind can play through. On par threes, where many backups occur, hit your tee shots to the green and then let the group behind hit their tee shots. That way, when they are finished putting you will be ready to putt immediately. |
| Resist the pressure, or temptation, to play from the back tees unless you are qualified. | At many courses, the back tees should be used only by low-single-digit handicap players or better. |
| Accept that a lost ball is truly lost. | The rules of golf allow a maximum of five minutes to search for ball, but consider abandoning the search long before that when warranted. Encourage others in your group to hit while you are searching, and if anyone is waiting, never spend extra time collecting other balls. |
| Pick up if you are out of the hole. | There is no need to play every ball into the hole if you have already lost a hole in match play. Even for handicap purposes, there is a limit to how many strokes can be reported — at the most, three over par per hole. |
| On the green | Repair divots, mark and clean your ball and line up your putt while the other players in the group are doing the same, or putting. As simple as it sounds, many players don’t do this, and it is a major cause of delay. If you take off your glove before putting, remember to do so before it is your time to actually putt (and remember also to put it back on before it is your time to hit off the next tee). Record scores on next tee, not on the green. |
| Work on taking fewer practice swings and less time in getting ready. | Readers generally recognized that people enjoy playing at different paces, but several reported that when they pared down their pre-shot routines, they actually started scoring much better, and enjoying the game much more. |