Tips For Sensible Speed In Golf

Here are some basic tips to avoid slow play, which has become a curse in the modern game:

- If you are first or second to tee off, you should be ready, with club replaced in the bag, and bag over your shoulder or hand on trolley, to march off the moment your fourth player has completed his or her shot.

This may sound a little unsociable to the last player, but it is not. Remember that you have got at least three hours to talk to them on the golf course, never mind how much time you spend afterwards in the clubhouse.

- If you are first to tee off, do not delay everyone by making your score for the previous hole. Do that while someone else is teeing off. When playing your second shot, do not wait until your partner has played before sizing up the wind conditions, how far you have to go and what club to play.

These are all things that can readily be done while they are playing. Be ready to hit your shot at the appropriate moment

- On the greens, there is no need to wait for your partner to have finished their putt before reading the line of your own.

Of course, there are occasions when you are on the same line, and so you cannot without committing a gross breach of etiquette, but most times you will find you can read the green without interrupting the thought processes of your colleague.

- If all this sounds as though you are in a race, you will discover that on the course it is a different matter. Golf, by its very nature, is a slow and time consuming pursuit.

What is causing many of the problems is the people who abuse this basic fact, and it only takes a few golfers of this persuasion to clog up a course and so stretch out a round to five hours, and sometimes even beyond, for everyone.

Few people can concentrate for that length of time and the most enjoyable rounds of golf that you experience will be the ones that take an hour less than that.