{"id":610395,"date":"2026-05-29T13:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/610395\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T13:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T13:48:23","slug":"golf-has-a-slow-play-problem-but-its-not-what-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/610395\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf has a slow play problem \u2013 but it\u2019s not what you think"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\tSlow play deserves all the criticism it gets. But there\u2019s another pace-of-play issue in club golf that rarely gets discussed\u2026<\/p>\n

Few topics in golf inspire more universal irritation than slow play.<\/p>\n

Tour rounds taking six hours. Club golfers grumbling about others in the clubhouse. Entire friendships falling apart because someone took one too many looks at that downhill four-footer before missing it on the low side anyway.<\/p>\n

And yes, slow play is a nightmare. Waiting on every shot, never getting into a rhythm, and having to rearrange the rest of your day because the round took forever can all seriously detract from the enjoyment of golf.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why everyone knows who the tortoises are at the club. The ones you avoid booking the tee time behind at all costs.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019d argue there\u2019s another type of golfer who can make a busy club round almost as miserable.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s people who are so determined to race around the course that they become blind to the reality in front of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet a f***ing move on!\u201d<\/p>\n

A few months ago, my group was in the fairway of a par 5, waiting for greenkeepers to finish some maintenance work on the green, when the shout came from behind.<\/p>\n

\u201cGet a f***king move on!\u201d<\/p>\n

We literally could not hit without putting club staff in danger. The hole ahead was backed up anyway. And this wasn\u2019t one of those \u2018waiting for a par 5 to clear when you have no chance of reaching the green\u2019 moments \u2013 we had less than 150 yards in.<\/p>\n

There was no choice but to wait a few moments while the greens staff did their job.<\/p>\n

But apparently we were the issue.<\/p>\n

A rare and extreme example, perhaps.<\/p>\n

And in fact, this article was prompted less by that incident than by a much more familiar one yesterday. I played in a fourball on a packed course with a three-ball behind us who seemed determined to arrive on top of us at every available opportunity \u2013 despite the fact we were waiting on the group ahead on every shot, who were in exactly the same situation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the real dynamic I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

And anyone who\u2019s played enough golf knows exactly the type.<\/p>\n

Not your standard quick and efficient golfer. They\u2019re a joy. The people who are ready when it\u2019s their turn, keep things moving naturally, don\u2019t dawdle, and somehow still seem completely relaxed? Lovely company.<\/p>\n

I mean the golfer who simply refuses to accept the pace the course is actually moving at.<\/p>\n

The one who races onto every par 3 tee before you\u2019ve even started putting.<\/p>\n

The golfer who adopts the hands-on-hips teapot stance in the fairway as though your group has committed some personal slight by having the temerity to putt out.<\/p>\n

The one who rushes their own game so aggressively that they\u2019re effectively breathing down your neck by the next shot, despite the fact that everyone on the course is clearly trapped in the same slow-moving queue.<\/p>\n

There is, after all, a difference between keeping pace and treating a traffic jam like a personal affront.<\/p>\n

\"SlowUnder pressure<\/p>\n

I\u2019d consider myself a relatively fast golfer. My dad, who got me into the game when I was a teenager, would readily admit that he was in no position to teach me much about technique. But he instilled two things into me. Never cheat. And never hold people up.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s stuck with me ever since. So much so that I\u2019ll avoid playing with people I know are slow, not because I\u2019m particularly worried about how long the round takes, but because I hate the feeling of holding up the group behind. I\u2019m always hyper aware of whether we\u2019ve lost any ground on the group in front and, if we have, I\u2019ll march down the fairways like an Olympic walker and rush my shots like I\u2019m in the Speed Golf World Championship. If there\u2019s any sign that the group behind us is having to wait even a moment, I\u2019m looking to call them through at the very first opportunity.<\/p>\n

But my panic only lasts until we\u2019re back in place. I\u2019ve got no desire to put undue pressure on the folks in front.<\/p>\n

While I\u2019m sometimes envious of people who are less affected by the presence of golfers behind, I think my dad was right. Be ready. Keep up. Don\u2019t be the people everyone\u2019s waiting on. That\u2019s just good golfing etiquette and, more simply, common decency.<\/p>\n

Which is probably why I\u2019m particularly susceptible to all this.<\/p>\n

Because the second someone starts arriving on top of us at every opportunity, some deeply conditioned part of my brain immediately assumes we\u2019ve become a public nuisance.<\/p>\n

Even when logic tells me we absolutely haven\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\"OneSometimes maybe fast, sometimes maybe slow<\/p>\n

Some days you can whizz round 18 holes in two and a half hours on foot.<\/p>\n

Other days, the tee sheet is rammed and you\u2019re in for a slower round.<\/p>\n

To me, that\u2019s common sense.<\/p>\n

But to these impatient golfers \u2013 the ones who treat getting round quickly as a personal challenge and wear sub-three-hour rounds as a badge of honour \u2013 it\u2019s seemingly unacceptable.<\/p>\n

You hear it all the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow was golf today?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGreat, we got round in two hours 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

As though the point of recreational golf is to complete it in the shortest possible timeframe while retaining only vague memories of the experience.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2013 nobody wants an endless slog.<\/p>\n

But some golfers seem to approach a round less as a leisure activity and more as a time trial.<\/p>\n

Golf, for most of us, is supposed to be enjoyable.<\/p>\n

I always think of it a bit like going out for dinner.<\/p>\n

Imagine booking a nice restaurant and then making it your mission to get through the experience as quickly as humanly possible.<\/p>\n

Necking your drink, inhaling your starter, practically asking for the bill before the main course arrives, and tutting impatiently because the waiter has been at another table for more than six seconds.<\/p>\n

At some point, you have to ask: what exactly was the point of going?<\/p>\n

A busy golf course is like a busy road. Sitting six feet closer to the car in front doesn\u2019t get you home any faster.<\/p>\n

\"EnglandPlaying through isn\u2019t always the solution<\/p>\n

Of course, you might be thinking: Why not just let them play through?<\/p>\n

Sometimes, sure.<\/p>\n

If my group genuinely is holding things up and there\u2019s open space ahead, crack on.<\/p>\n

But if our group is also waiting on every tee shot, and so is the group in front, what exactly are we solving by waving a group through just because they\u2019re more impatient than everyone else?<\/p>\n

When the entire course is stacked, congratulations, you\u2019ve successfully played through into exactly the same traffic jam.<\/p>\n

Do you expect everyone to let you play through, just so you can get stuck behind another group and another group and another group? And does anyone want to play a round of golf where they\u2019re being called through on every hole?<\/p>\n

What people often fail to realize is that while calling a group through can be a remedy for slow play, it can also contribute to it.<\/p>\n

The group being overtaken has to stop while the faster group plays through. On a packed course, that often means the group behind them catches up too, and suddenly you\u2019ve created even more waiting.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re effectively adding a non-moving object to a slow-moving queue and expecting it to make things faster. In reality, it often does the opposite \u2013 causing a ripple-like slowdown effect that travels backwards through the field.<\/p>\n

The \u201csolution\u201d can end up making things slower for everyone, while the group you waved through still ends up stuck.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not to say I\u2019m against calling people through \u2013 far from it. If a group is held up and will be able to make better progress by going through, I\u2019m the first to wave my arm. I\u2019d much rather that than feel their presence looming over us anyway. And if I\u2019m being held up by a slow group and can see open road ahead of them, I\u2019d hope for the same courtesy and may politely ask if there\u2019s a suitable moment.<\/p>\n

But I see no value in rushing up behind the group ahead on every shot when it\u2019s clear there\u2019s nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

\"ManorsHere for a good time, and a long time<\/p>\n

There is, after all, a difference between keeping pace and treating a traffic jam like a personal insult.<\/p>\n

Yes, painfully slow play remains dreadful.<\/p>\n

The golfer who takes four practice swings, changes club twice, and crouches over every putt like they\u2019re decoding military intelligence deserves all the criticism they get \u2014 especially those who refuse to call others through when there\u2019s obvious space ahead.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m talking about the golfer who makes a perfectly ordinary busy club round feel like everyone\u2019s running late for something.<\/p>\n

A weekend round with your mates starts to feel less like leisure and more like being subtly monitored.<\/p>\n

And for what?<\/p>\n

Your huffing is not solving congestion. You are just experiencing it more aggressively.<\/p>\n

So if today isn\u2019t going to be a super-fast round, accept it.<\/p>\n

Relax. Maintain a nice rhythm. Have a chat. Enjoy the company.<\/p>\n

Embrace the fairly radical notion that weekend golf is supposed to be enjoyable rather than rushed.<\/p>\n

Play ready golf. Keep pace.<\/p>\n

But if the entire course is backed up, perhaps stop acting as if the group in front is solely responsible for the collapse of modern civilisation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slow play deserves all the criticism it gets. But there\u2019s another pace-of-play issue in club golf that rarely…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-610395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}