Beating the heat: how Australian groups get round in four hours

In an Australian summer, a slow round is not just annoying. A group that tees off at 7am and takes five hours walks off the 18th into the hottest part of the day. The Bureau of Meteorology’s long-term averages give Perth a mean January maximum of 31.4°C and Brisbane 30.4°C. Every half-hour a round drags is another half-hour in that heat, for your group and for every group behind you.

The fix is almost never swinging faster. It is what happens between shots, and on the timesheet before anyone reaches the 1st tee.

Where the time really goes

The R&A’s pace of play manual gives a simple piece of arithmetic. If each player in a four-ball takes five seconds less over each shot, across 80 shots each, the group saves 26 minutes and 40 seconds. Five seconds is a practice swing you did not need, a glove you put on while someone else was hitting, a club chosen while walking to the ball instead of standing beside it.

The same manual is blunt about the other big cause: overcrowding. When groups go out too close together, it says, adopting all the other recommendations is futile. It recommends starting intervals of at least 8 minutes for two-balls, at least 10 minutes for three-balls, and 11 or even 12 minutes for four-balls. When a course sends out four-balls every 7 or 8 minutes on a Saturday, a long round is built into the timesheet.

Worth knowing when you book: ask the pro shop what the interval is. It tells you more about how long you will be out there than any other question.

Play Stableford like Australians are meant to

Australia’s most common competition format is also one of the quickest, as long as golfers use it properly. In Stableford, once you cannot score a point on a hole, you pick up and write a line. There is no reason to hole out a triple bogey.

The R&A manual makes the same point: stroke play where everyone must hole out tends to be the slowest form of play, while Stableford, maximum score and par competitions tend to be quicker, provided players actually pick up when they are out of the hole. Picking up instead of grinding out a putt that scores no points is the easiest time saving in Australian club golf.

In social rounds, agree before the 1st tee on a pick-up rule, such as double par or net double bogey. It removes the awkwardness of deciding mid-hole.

Ready golf, agreed on the 1st tee

Ready golf means playing when you are ready rather than strictly in order of who is furthest from the hole. In stroke play it is permitted, and the R&A notes that players can agree to do it even when the course has not asked them to. It is not appropriate in match play, where the order of play matters.

In practice:

• Whoever is ready on the tee hits, if it is safe.
• A shorter hitter plays while a longer hitter waits for the green ahead to clear.
• The player with a simple shot goes before the one working out an escape from under a gum tree.
• Putt out short ones instead of marking and waiting, unless it would mean standing on someone’s line.

Searching: three minutes, and a provisional first

Since 2019, the Rules of Golf have limited the search for a ball to three minutes, down from five. On Australian courses with native scrub, long grass beside dams and trees lining fairways, that clock matters.

Two habits make it rarely an issue. First, if there is any chance the ball is lost outside a penalty area or out of bounds, hit a provisional ball, and say clearly that it is a provisional. Second, watch every tee shot in your group, not just your own. The R&A manual recommends that everyone in a group make a conscious effort to watch each other’s shots: more eyes, fewer searches.

And in spring and summer, the long grass and reeds around dams are exactly where you should not go poking about for a ball anyway.

Between shots: small habits, big savings

Choose your club before it is your turn. Get the distance from your rangefinder or the sprinkler heads as you walk up, not once you are over the ball.

One practice swing. A second automatic rehearsal on every shot costs minutes over a round and adds nothing.

Leave the bag or buggy on the way to the next tee. Walk onto the green from the side nearest the next tee, with the clubs you might need in hand. If carts are restricted to paths after rain, take two or three clubs to the ball, not one.

Write scores on the next tee. Not beside the hole you have just finished while the group behind waits to hit.

Play from the right tees. A player who needs three long shots to reach every par 4 hits more shots and spends more time over each. Moving to a set of tees that suits your distance is quicker and more fun.

Your place on the course

Your position is judged against the group in front, not the group behind. If you reach a tee and the group ahead has already left the next green, you have lost a hole, however close the group behind is.

If you are holding up a faster group, or searching with players waiting, call them through at a safe place such as a par 3. Do it early and clearly. It takes a couple of minutes and takes the pressure off everyone.

Where to find a quicker round in Australia

Early and twilight. The first groups of the day play in front of an empty course. Twilight is often both quicker and cheaper: at Moore Park Golf in Sydney, where rounds are currently sold over 10 holes, the green fee drops from A$39 to A$25 Monday to Thursday after 3pm, and from A$46 to A$30 Friday to Sunday.

Short and nine-hole courses. A nine-hole course after work is a full golf outing in two hours. Council courses such as Oakleigh in Melbourne sell nine-hole rounds for A$23.20 on weekdays in 2026/27.

Formats that allow pick-ups. If your club offers a choice, a Stableford or par comp will usually move faster than a medal round. Our guide to formats of play explains the options.

The heat. In summer, the quickest round is also the safest one. Carry water, reapply sunscreen at the turn, and remember that a group that loses 30 minutes on the front nine will finish in the worst of the afternoon. Our guide to summer golf in the heat covers the rest.

Panxis Golf has no commercial relationship with any course or organisation mentioned here.

Four hours or less, in six habits

• Ask the tee interval when you book; four-balls need 11 to 12 minutes, according to the R&A.
• In Stableford, pick up as soon as you cannot score.
• Agree ready golf on the 1st tee in stroke play.
• Provisional whenever in doubt; everyone watches every tee shot.
• One practice swing, club chosen before your turn, scores written on the next tee.
• Book early or twilight in summer, and play the tees that suit your game.