[Garland Bayley]

Jamie,

I think you post to much and need the JKM solution. 

[Dan King]

Jamie Van Gisbergen writes:
Mr. King how in God's creation do you intend to get a group around the course in 2 hours?

Keep 'em moving.

That is simply unreasonable.

Why?

When was the last time you and a friend played a round of golf, walking, and finished in 2 hours?

I'm old, fat and out of shape and I can do it when there is nobody in front of me, and I'm inclined to lose a few golf balls and I take a shot or two more than the average pro.

I am closing in on being 33 years old, I've played golf since I was 5. I will promise you that I can count on one hand the number of rounds I have played in 2 hours or less, even as a single, and I have played over 100 rounds per year for nearly the past 20 years.

And how long does it take you to take a shot? I'm betting heck of a lot more than 10 seconds.

And just say you do give the guys only 30 seconds to hit a shot. What if someone sneezes? Some mouth breather snaps a picture? A biting fly goes in your ear or lands on your ball? Shadows in the crowd, general movement in the crowd, what then? Penalize a guy a shot because some nice lady in the gallery accidentally sneezed in his back swing?

I got no problem penalizing golfers for playing slow. I got no problem if they decide not to swing if someone sneezes, they just need to add a stroke to their score. Play in 10 seconds or get penalized. Very cut and dry. I don't care if you are in or out of position. Everyone will play fast. Right now it is the rudest golfers who determine the speed of play. How about the Tour decided to control the pace instead?

I know 10 seconds and 2 hour rounds aren't realistic for today's slugs. But it should be a heck of a lot faster than 3 hours and 30 minutes. And I would force everyone to play at the same pace. Learn to play at a quick pace or find a different career.

Cheers,
Dan King

Something very drastic ought to have been done years and years ago. Golf courses are becoming far to long. 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's not infrequently takes over three hours.
 --Alister MacKenzie

[Jamie Van Gisbergen]

Mr. King, one final thought from me and then I shall be gone on business for a week. I just did a quick calculation, Pebble Beach, a course with which I think we are all familiar, from first tee to 18th green, counting all walks from hole to hole and so forth, the total length of the walk in one round is roughly 8,300 yards, thats 4.715 miles. Count a few detours here and there, errant shots, and so forth, I should say the length of play is about 5 miles. That would take 2 hours to simply WALK the course at a reasonably brisk, 2.5 mph walking pace. I could do this exercise for other courses as well, but it serves no further purpose than what I have just shown. Simply put, given the length of courses today, a 2 hour round is essentially an impossibility, you simply can't walk that fast. 2 hrs 30 minutes I could see, but 2 hours is flatly unreasonable.

Have a nice day, we shall speak again perhaps about this time next Monday.

[Kalen Braley]

Jamie,

I would agree with your assessment in general.  With the old style courses during AKM's day, 2 hrs may have been doable, but with the increased length of holes and transitions from green to tee, even a 2.5 hr round for today's courses is pretty swift as a single.

[Brent Hutto]

The first time I played The Ocean Course at Kiawah it was in 36-38F, steady, soaking rain and about a one-club breeze. Just me and a caddie, nobody else on the course all day. The rain quit while I was on the 14th tee.

Playing the ball down, putting it out, taking around 105 strokes or so it took 2 hours, 35 minutes. Including a 20+ minute stop for She Crab Soup and dry clothes in the clubhouse between nines. And I was certainly not hurrying other than the fact it was too cold and miserable to stand still for long. There was a certain amount dinking around with towels and rain gear and such. Absent the poor conditions it was basically just over 2 hours playing time.

Two hours as a single or compatible two-ball sounds about right with caddies and a walkable course.

[David Whitmer]

Every player has his own style of play, just like every coach has his own style of teaching. I am hesitant to tell a guy trying to keep his career that he needs to change his style because I told him so. What works for me may not work for him.

That being said, I do think play is too slow. I don't think the problem is guys taking too long when it's their turn to play, however (I know some guys take a long time to hit, but not many). The problem is these guys don't even begin to think about their shot until it's their turn to hit. When I'm out there and it's another guy's turn, I'm calculating yardage, wind, etc. so that when it's my turn I am ready to chose a club. Or, I'm lining up my putt when it's not my turn. These guys stand there and don't move, then when it's their turn they go through all the actions they could have been doing when the other guy was hitting. And Brent's correct...high school kids take FOREVER to play.

I was in Boston over the weekend visiting my brother, who is the golf writer for The Boston Globe. We talked about this very issue. He said the women are way worse then the men. He was at the Women's Open at Oakmont last year. He said he saw the lead group tee off on #17 one day, obviously with no one in front of them. He said they holed out on the eighteenth hole 45 MINUTES LATER.

By the way, I do not in any way congratulate guys for playing in 2 hours. Being a former gof pro, I was amazed when guys prided themselves on racing around the course in under 2 or under 3 hours. It seemed to me if they were so interested in getting off the course, why did they tee it up on #1 to begin with? 

[Brent Hutto]

David,

Nowadays the mental-game advisors preach that if your "routine" (which they define as everything you do starting far before actually pulling the club) does not proceed totally uninterrupted and at exactly the same pace as usual, you have to start over.

That's why they wait until they should have already hit the ball to start there 80, 90, 100 second "routine". They've been taught that everything from asking your caddie the yardage to judging the wind to looking at the lie are all part of the "routine" and therefore can not be done while it's someone else's "turn". Because god forbid there might be a moment's delay between when your caddie says "one eight six" and when you actually reach out an take the 6-iron in hand.

[Zack Molnar]

I played with Webb one time in a junior tournament and I can attest, he is one of the slowest players I have ever seen. I think that the only solution to this problem is by beginning to enforce the pace of play rules at the junior tourneys. These kids get into these lengthy routines when they are 10, and even younger. I only saw one person actually penalized on the AJGA for slow play during my 2 years of playing their tournaments, even though there were routinely 5 to 5.5 hour rounds. Most players are beyond changing by the time they get to HS, so this has to be stamped out early on or else the situation is just going to rapidly decline from here.

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