Slow Play in Golf

This is my manifesto page so bear with me as I mount my hobby horse.

When three guys tee off at 7 in the morning, they can comfortably play a round of golf in 3 hours. When a foursome tees off at 8:20, it takes them 4 and one half hours. Why is this so?

I won't go into my tiresome rant about how slow play is killing the game. We all know that. The really huge problem is the fact that this ponderous pace is such a deterrent for younger people to enter the game. Hell, we live in a world of high speed internet, fast food and short attention spans and the game is getting slower and slower. It is not even holding its own.

Try golfing during "high holy tourist season" and you can be out there for well over 5 hours. Resort course operators have been gradually hiking the rates to offset the fact that they are getting fewer players every day. This is both stunned economics and counterproductive.

Stun your golf buddies, get really good, really fast, go here.

It will drive more middle income earners from the game. Forget about the recession, the average guy cannot afford $200 days. It is also surprising that golf cars have enough juice to last the 6 hours they need to navigate the gridlock otherwise known as the cart paths. Playing on a summer afternoon is a recipe for getting heat stroke. The cart girl looks like a mirage to the parched and dazed crazies wildly flailing about in the sand dunes.

I want you to join me in a campaign to stop this madness. I want you to petition your home club to have a "fast play day" at your course. Just one lousy day when you have to play in less than 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Everyone who gets in at or under that time receives a bag tag or button that says "Hare today, tortoise tomorrow".

 Is that too much to ask: one lousy day a week for a brisk walk, not spoiled? I am tired of playing at the speed of the slowest ship in the convoy. Time to put those guys in drydock.

If you can talk and complain, you can master this golf swing, click here.

If we can do this, my grandaughter will play with me again. Now wouldn't that be a treat? Heck, if a whole nation of Scots can play the game in under three and a half hours, surely a nation of fast cars like America can keep pace?