High handicap, normal pace: how to shoot 105 without holding up the group behind you

Ask a starter who slows the course down and the answer is rarely “the golfer who shoots 105”. It is the golfer who takes a full minute over every shot, searches five minutes for a ball that cost less than five dollars (a dozen Pro V1 was $57.99 at PGA TOUR Superstore this month), and plays out a nine on a par 4 in a casual Saturday round. A high handicap and a slow round are two different things. The first is a skill level. The second is a set of habits, and habits can be changed this weekend without touching your swing.

This piece is written for golfers with a Handicap Index in the twenties, thirties or higher, and for those who have not yet posted a score. It covers the part of pace of play that is specific to you: what to do with the extra strokes, the extra trouble and the extra decisions that come with a bigger number. For the habits that concern every golfer, such as ready golf, one practice swing and parking on the exit side of the green, read our guide to the four-hour round.

The arithmetic of 105 strokes

A golfer who shoots 105 hits about 25 more shots than a golfer who shoots 80. That sounds like a lot of extra time. It is less than you think. The Rules of Golf recommend making a stroke in no more than 40 seconds once it is your turn, and usually faster. Twenty-five extra strokes played at a brisk pace add something like ten to fifteen minutes to a round, spread over four players who are also walking, waiting and putting.

Where the high handicapper really loses time is between the strokes: the second search, the walk back to the tee, the conversation about which club, the hack out of the trees that stays in the trees. Those are the minutes this article goes after. The strokes themselves are yours to keep.

Pick up, and still post a score

The single biggest saving for a high handicapper is knowing when a hole is over. The World Handicap System already tells you. Once you have a Handicap Index, the most you can count on any hole for handicap purposes is net double bogey: par, plus two, plus any handicap strokes you receive on that hole. If you have not yet established an index, the cap is par plus five.

Take a 28-handicapper on a par 4 with stroke index 7. They receive two strokes there, so net double bogey is 4 + 2 + 2 = 8. Whatever happens after the eighth stroke has no effect on the score they post. Playing out a 10 or an 11 in a casual round costs the group two or three minutes and changes nothing on the handicap record. When you reach your cap and the ball is still not in the hole, pick it up, write down the capped number and walk to the next tee.

In stroke play competitions you must hole out on every hole, so this does not apply there. But plenty of club events are played as Stableford, where a hole is finished the moment you can no longer score a point, or under the maximum score format of Rule 21.2, where the committee sets a cap, such as double par or net double bogey, and you may pick up once you reach it. Read the event sheet: it often tells you that picking up is expected, not merely allowed.

One search, one provisional

You get three minutes to find a ball, counted from when you or your caddie starts looking. After that it is lost. That limit was cut from five minutes in 2019, and it exists precisely because the search is where rounds die.

The high handicapper’s version of this rule is simple. Whenever your ball may be lost outside a penalty area, or may be out of bounds, hit a provisional before you walk forward. Say the word “provisional” out loud. If you find the first ball in bounds, you pick up the provisional and lose nothing. If you do not, you are already in play and nobody has to watch you walk back 250 yards to the tee.

Some courses go further and adopt Model Local Rule E-5, an alternative to stroke and distance for a lost ball or a ball out of bounds. Instead of going back, you drop in a defined area near where the ball was lost or went out, including the edge of the nearest fairway, for two penalty strokes. It is aimed at general play, not elite competition, and it exists only where the committee has adopted it. Check the scorecard or ask the starter before you rely on it.

Get out of trouble in one shot, not three

The shot that wrecks both the score and the pace is the heroic escape: the 5-iron through a gap between two oaks, the long carry over a creek from a bad lie. When it fails, you are still in trouble, one stroke worse off, and the group is standing on the fairway watching.

Take the shortest route back to short grass, even if it goes sideways or backwards. A chip out to the fairway followed by a full shot is two strokes. The gap that works one time in five usually costs three or four, and it takes longer.

Know your unplayable ball options too. Anywhere outside a penalty area, you may declare your ball unplayable for one penalty stroke and choose stroke and distance, a back-on-the-line drop, or a drop within two club-lengths. In a bunker, the back-on-the-line and two club-length drops must stay in the sand, but there is a fourth option: for two penalty strokes in total, you may drop back on the line outside the bunker. It sounds expensive until you compare it with a third and fourth swing from the same sand.

Carry the next club, not the whole bag

High handicappers hit more short shots: pitches, chips, recoveries, punch-outs. Each one is a chance to walk back to the cart or the bag for a different club. When you leave the cart or the bag, take three clubs: the one you think you need, one more club, and a wedge. Near the green, take a wedge and the putter together so that a chip that stays short does not send you back across the fairway.

If you share a cart, drop your partner at their ball with their clubs and drive to yours. The cart that goes to one ball, waits, then goes to the other is the slowest way to play the game.

A routine that fits in 40 seconds

Many golfers who are new to the game or struggling with it try to solve the problem with more thinking: three practice swings, a long look at the target, a mental checklist of swing thoughts. None of that improves contact at your level, and all of it costs time.

Try this instead. Decide the club and the target while you walk to the ball or while someone else is playing. At the ball, stand behind it for one look, make one practice swing beside it, step in and hit. Pick a single thought, such as “finish facing the target”, and leave the rest at the range. Tour players use routines of about this length. It will not make you worse, and on many days it makes you better, because you give yourself less time to tense up.

On and around the green

More chips and more putts mean more time on and around the green, so this is where small habits add up. Read your putt while others are putting, from the side, without standing on anyone’s line. Since 2019 you may putt with the flagstick in the hole, so nobody has to tend it or pull it out while you chip on from the fringe. Finish short putts instead of marking them, unless you would be standing on someone’s line.

When the hole is over, leave. Walk off the green toward the next tee and write the scores there while someone else is hitting. If your group is going to count strokes aloud on the green, the green is the last place you should do it.

Tell your group, and choose your tee time

A short sentence on the first tee takes the pressure off everyone: “I’m working on my game. Once I hit my net double bogey, I’ll pick up.” Playing partners relax when they know you have a plan, and so will you. Ask them to watch your ball all the way down, because four sets of eyes find far more balls than one.

If you are playing as a twosome and a faster group is waiting behind, let them through at a par 3. It costs you a couple of minutes and removes the feeling of being chased, which is the thing that makes high handicappers rush and then play worse.

Where American high handicappers find room

The easiest change is the one on the tee sheet. The Tee It Forward program, launched by the USGA and the PGA of America in 2011, publishes a chart that matches driver distance to course length. A golfer who hits the driver around 200 yards is pointed at an 18-hole yardage of about 5,200 to 5,400 yards. Many public and municipal courses now offer forward or combination tees in that range, and they do more for pace than any tip in this article.

Scoring is also easier than it used to be. When you post hole by hole in the GHIN app, the net double bogey adjustment is applied for you, so you do not have to work out the cap in the parking lot. Picking up at your cap costs you nothing on your Handicap Index. If the whole topic still feels opaque, our explainer on the Handicap Index and GHIN walks through the numbers.

Pace is a shared problem in the U.S., and the USGA has said so publicly: its “While We’re Young” campaign of 2013 borrowed Rodney Dangerfield’s line from Caddyshack and asked everyone, not only beginners, to play ready golf. Many American courses have carts with GPS screens that show how your group is doing against the expected pace, and a ranger who passes by every few holes. Use them as information rather than a threat: if the screen says you are behind, pick up at your cap on the next hole and the gap closes without anyone hurrying a shot.

Finally, choose your times. The first tee times of the morning and the twilight slots are quieter on most public courses, and nine-hole and executive courses let you play a full set of shots in two hours. They are where a high handicapper can play a whole round at their own speed without a single group waiting.

Your fast-round card

• Know your cap. Net double bogey, or par plus five before you have an index. Reach it, pick up, post it.
• Provisional every time there is doubt, announced as a provisional. Three minutes of searching, not five.
• Out of trouble in one. Shortest way back to short grass, and remember the unplayable ball options.
• Three clubs from the cart, wedge and putter together near the green.
• One look, one practice swing, hit. Decide the club while you walk.
• Right tees. Match the course length to your driver.

None of this changes your swing, and none of it asks you to rush. It simply stops the extra strokes from turning into extra minutes. When you are ready to bring the number down too, start with how to break 90 and five shots you can save without changing your swing.