“Twenty years ago we played three rounds of golf a day and considered we had taken an interminably long time if we took more than two hours to play a round. Today it not infrequently takes over three hours.“
“Have you ever noticed that anyone who drives slower than you is an asshole, and anyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?”
George Carlin
I’m not sure George Carlin played golf but his quote about driving sums up pace of play perfectly.
Your pace on the golf course is perfect….everybody else is either going too slow or too fast.
I know the good Doctor MacKenzie would go crazy today on modern golf courses. If he had a hard time wrapping his mind around three hour rounds in his day he’d go crazy with today’s 5+ hour rounds on public courses.
Why are groups “Slow” on a golf course?
The first thing people almost always cite is ability and Dr. MacKenzie’s quote might have been a direct answer to a question of whether or not golf courses had gotten too hard for the average golfer.
The answer to that question might be yes and ability certainly is a factor in moving around a golf course but I think it is silly to say all bad golfers are slow and all good golfers are fast.
Because that has never been true.
You can play good slow and you can suck fast.
Staying on task is hard for modern people and staying on task for the better part of 4 hours is almost impossible for most of us. Being ready to go on the tee boxes and greens will save groups 90 seconds a hole which over 18 holes is almost a 1/2 hour!!!
Unless one of your buddies made a birdie or better on the last hole there is no honor on the next tee box. Go when you are ready and be ready!!
Reading your putt from both sides of the hole when you are 30 feet from the hole isn’t going to help you and you aren’t trying to make that putt anyway!!
Adjust your expectations!!!
Put the phones away!!!
Walk and talk at the same time!!!
Stay out of the golf carts!!!
I know we don’t play golf to rush and I know to a lot of people the golf isn’t the main reason they are out there…and that is fine.
But you do have an obligation to the people behind you when you are on a busy golf course to keep it moving…nobody has fun standing around on a golf course!!
As a caddie at the busiest golf resort in our country and maybe the world my pace of play issues are mostly with my coworkers though.
Slow caddies are usually the first to complain about it being slow, the first to blame their players’ ability and the last to do anything proactive to speed the group up!!
Caddies that are the last to leave tee boxes and greens are the reason a slow group is slow 100% of the time.
I see so much over caddying on a daily basis it makes my stomach churn.
HALF AS MUCH INFORMATION TWICE AS FAST!!
pacduneslooper 
Leave a comment