Pace of play: where the minutes go, and how to get them back
Ready golf, the provisional ball, the buggy on the right side of the green and tee intervals: four hours without hurrying.
A four-and-a-half-hour round ought to be the exception; it has become the norm. Slowness almost never comes from the swing but from what happens between shots. Where the minutes go, and how to get them back without hurrying.
Walk to your own ball
A fourball that moves as a group from ball to ball loses a remarkable amount of time. Everyone goes to their own ball as soon as it is safe, prepares the shot, and plays when it is their turn. The gain runs to tens of minutes over eighteen holes.
Ready golf
In social golf, whoever is ready plays, without waiting for the theoretical order. The Rules now explicitly encourage this in stroke play. Honour on the tee keeps its social value; on the course it costs.
Three minutes, timed
The search time is three minutes. A provisional announced on the tee saves more: it removes the walk back, which is the main cause of a queue behind a group. On courses with thick scrub either side, the provisional is not optional if you want to finish in four hours.
Buggy and bag on the right side
Leave the bag or park the cart between the green and the next tee, never in front of the green. That single habit gains a minute a hole for all four players, close to twenty minutes a round.
Prepare while others play
Distance, club, wind: all of it before your turn. The routine starts when you pull the club, not when you reach the ball. A quick player is not a rushed player, but a prepared one.
On the green
Read your line while your partners putt, and hole out the short ones instead of marking a ball you will replace three seconds later.
Let them through
A hole behind the group in front and a group waiting behind: wave them through. It is not a defeat, it is manners, and the round becomes pleasant again within a minute.
What clubs can do
Tee intervals that are too tight create queues no player can clear. Clubs that move to ten- or twelve-minute intervals on busy Saturday fields and print a target time per hole on the card measurably shorten rounds. If yours does not, it is worth raising with the match committee: it costs nothing.
The reasonable target
Four hours as a fourball, walking, on a full course. Three and a half hours as a two-ball. In summer, an early tee time and a brisk round is also the only way to finish before the heat arrives, which is a better argument than any of the others.
