I like to play at a rather quick pace myself, and I think, more than anything else it is a question of being properly organized on the golf course. Knowing where you have your stuff in your bag, putting your bag down next to the green in the place that's closest to the next tee, assessing your own shot and taking the correct club while the others play their shots, things like that. I do not take practice swings on the tee, just one on the fairway, and maybe two or three, if I have a difficult recovery shot. And I also walk rather briskly.
With the people I usually play with, this equates to rounds of 3 hrs as a twosome, 3.25 as a threesome and 3.50 as a foursome. However, I do not mind being held up a bit. If there is a slow group in front of us, I'll take my time on the tee, look at the landscape, eat or drink a little, or engage in some sort of conversation. I do not get upset by that.
But this is what I realized lately: It drives me absolutely nuts, if there is somebody in my own group who is slow. When I see the group in front of us disappearing in the distance, the group behind us having to wait, I get the feeling, that I have to rush my own game to make up for the one person in my group who causes the delays. And the reasons are always the same: endless and senseless searches for balls which went into water hazards that are surrounded by high reeds, starting to size up the shot when everybody else has played theirs, 3 or 4 practice swings before every shot, walking round the green twice on every hole, because the bag is placed in the wrong place, and so on.
Usually, I'll react by saying "I think we should speed up a little" to no-one in particular, then two holes later "Shouldn't we just let the group behind us play through?" But if that doesn't do the trick, I am at a loss. Now, if the group behind are fewer than 4 people, I will somtimes offer to join them (to my own group) and ask them if they would mind. But on two occassions in the past few weeks, I just walked in after 9 and went to the practice area. I was really mad at that point.
How do you react, if you realize, that your own group is holding up play, because of one person who is really slow?

I feel your pain. To be honest, there is no delicate way to tell someone that they're slow - you just have to tell them. Since the object of avoiding slow play is a common courtesy, or etiquette, it should be no different to raking a bunker or repairing a divot or pitch mark. If someone in your group didn't rake a bunker etc, I expect you would soon inform them of their error - wouldn't you? I don't think you would drop subtle hints like "sand looks a bit uneven" or whatever. Slow play should be no different. If the offending individual cannot accept the plain truth, or fails to acknowledge their "bad form", then it would be fair to consider them discourteous. Obviously there will be players who enjoy a differnt pace of play than others, for differing reasons - group numbers, using carts and the older golfers, for example. The simple protocol would then be to invite faster groups to play through. Nobody likes slow play, but nobody should have to pretend it's not their problem.

I try to play quick and there are times when I play with certain people that ...wow, they are really slow. One guy will walk 40 yards over a hill without a ball or club just to look for his most likely OB ball. It's really annoying.

What really aggrevates me is this one guy plays slow, never carries an extra ball, never brings his club(s) when he goes searching and then he always has the nerve to tell us to hurry up when lightning lights up the sky or rain is looming. PAAALEASE.

Shoot, this one time, I hook my shot toward a water hazard... I was fairly sure I did. Well, this guy hits his shot toward this tree...and I told him it should be right around that tree on the left side. Well, he goes like 30 yards past the tree looking for his ball, I help him look a little (only because I don't have great eyesight) and then asked him if he looked back by that tree...he like made a motion like he was going to look, but still never got closer than 15 yards in front of it. So I walk back and there's his ball, right under the tree on the left side. So I go look for my ball, and that's when lightning crashed and now he's like "come guys, we gotta pick up the pace." I was sooooo pissed.

I don't think there is much you can do about these people, they just think they are so special that rules, etiquette and morals don't apply.

Good luck with your group... I would just let it go. What I do now when guys are coming up behind us is just ignore them until they ask to play through. I can't control 3 other people, and I'm tired of rushing my game to make up for the slowness. So if the group behind wants to play through, I will let them. If my group seems like we are holding up the whole course, then I may say something, but I'm not going to worry about it.

BTW, play by yourself...thats what I do now....a lot.

So I have another slow-play related question: When does one cut the line between etiqutte and playing at a good speed? Should I rake the bunker near the green while the group behind me is waiting to hit their approach shots at the green where I haven't even started putting yet? Thanks for the input!

Sounds like a post i wanted to make. I have two particular guys that are SLOOOOW...one checks the wind on every shot, sits over the ball for about 30-40 seconds before his drive, slow to putt...whenever he gets an iron out, he has to clean them before he hits and whenever we say something, he complains that we're hurrying him and messing up his game. Part of the problem is he tries to hard to beat me it screws up his game. When you're a 3-some and getting pushed by a 4 some...and cant keep up with a 4 some in front of you thats bad. To make matters worse, the stupid rangers around here never says anything..that is until we went to a course where at the proshop they remind you about pace of play, the starter reminds you about keeping up pace, and the marshalls will actually tell you if you're falling behind. Of course we got warned for slow play, my friend was pissed and complained he's feeling rushed. I told him we were playing slow.

Usually when slow ppl are in my group, my game goes to s***, cus i feel i have to rush. Its like i play faster to let the other ppl see that you dont have to take 20 practice swings, or stroll down the fairways, or looke for your ball on every hole for 10 mins, or always ask for distances...WTF, just hit the damn ball. It seems like i'm usually the only one in the group conscious about pace of play.

And yes, you should rake the bunkers. It doesnt take much time to rake the bunkers and fix your pitch marks.

End of rant.

If I am in the fairway waiting I would much rather wait maybe an additional minute than see someone leave a bunker unraked.

I had a buddy that was really slow maybe 6 or 7 years ago. I told him he needs to pick up his pace a number of times. It finally clicked in his head one day, and now he's one of the faster players I play with. It got to the point with him that i would only book a 3-some tee time so that the pressure of 4 of us keeping up with the group in front wasn't there. Like you, I would rush my game to make up for his slowness.

If they don't change, the only other option is to no play with them anymore. I've done that on a few occasions.

what is slow tho?

i hate people moaning about slowness unless its shockin lol

most of u will be american so jus be glad that you arent playin in the rain all the time lyk us we hav had 3-4 days without rain the last two months!

i take my time and can be slow but end of the day i will take less shots than most of yas in a round so i am quicker overall:P!

What sometimes works for me when I'm paired with a slow person is to run to my ball in between shots for a couple holes. Eventually, when they ask why I'm running, I just tell them that we're playing slow and falling behind so I'm trying to close the gap with the group in front of us. They usually get the clue and start playing faster.

I am a fast player, and I use headcovers on my irons!! LOL! but I do play with a guy that is a little older than me and he takes a partial back swing and looks while holding the position, then takes a longer back swing and checks club face position and on the third one he completes his follow through! Jeeeezzzzzzzzzzz, I am going nuts buy now and this evening I played 5 holes with him and he started something new! on his putts he gets behind the ball and while back there he sets his putter on line and then walks to the side to putt............. so after tonight I will be opting out of that group.

I can't stand the guy who takes forever to make his shot while im standing in the fairway waiting to walk to my ball. As he's taking his 5 practice swings and standing over the ball, I'm on the balls of my feet leaning forward thinking he's gonna swing so I can take a step to my ball, then he backs off and takes more practice swings!! I feel like the people in that movie Naked Gun where Leslie Nielson is in the bathroom peeing while he is still miked up to the speakers in the banquet hall in the next room. They are trying to introduce the Queen or whatever, and you hear him loudly peeing through the speakers. Just as they think the sound is silenced, and are about to continue the announcement in the next room he restarts his loud peeing about 6 times and they have to keep pausing as he re-starts up repeated streams. Funny in the movie, not funny on the golf course!

Or standing in front of his ball about to putt for about 15 seconds, not moving. What is he doing?! Theres no way you can maintain your calm focus while standing still for that long. Too much thinking! You don't see any athletes standing still for that long before making a sports move. And all the while people are behind us waiting to hit into the green! Plus the guy is blind, always looking for his ball about 30 yards too far all the time when he missed the fairway 80 % of the time. I know I know, we should drop him. But a fourth is hard to find and hes a nice guy so we feel bad.

I can't stand the guy who takes forever to make his shot while im standing in the fairway waiting to walk to my ball. As he's taking his 5 practice swings and standing over the ball, I'm on the balls of my feet leaning forward thinking he's gonna swing so I can take a step to my ball, then he backs off and takes more practice swings!! I feel like the people in that movie Naked Gun where Leslie Nielson is in the bathroom peeing while he is still miked up to the speakers in the banquet hall in the next room. They are trying to introduce the Queen or whatever, and you hear him loudly peeing through the speakers. Just as they think the sound is silenced, and are about to continue the announcement in the next room he restarts his loud peeing about 6 times and they have to keep pausing as he re-starts up repeated streams. Funny in the movie, not funny on the golf course!

Or standing in front of his ball about to putt for about 15 seconds, not moving. What is he doing?! Theres no way you can maintain your calm focus while standing still for that long. Too much thinking! You don't see any athletes standing still for that long before making a sports move. And all the while people are behind us waiting to hit into the green! Plus the guy is blind, always looking for his ball about 30 yards too far all the time when he missed the fairway 80 % of the time. I know I know, we should drop him. But a fourth is hard to find and hes a nice guy so we feel bad.

In my experience there's not a lot that can be done about a slow player because they've usually ingrained this slow behavior over a long time. But I will pipe up and say 'OK fellas we'd better catch up to the group ahead'. Usually where I encounter a lot of dilly-dallying is on the tee boxes when guys stand around, hesitant to step up and tee off. I find that annoying so I tend to get a little gruff and may bust balls a little. If it gets really slow, I will take the initiative, putt out my ball and head to the next tee while the rest of the group putts out.

I get to the point where if they've had lots of time to hit and should have pulled the trigger by then, I'll just start walking to my ball or the green. Sometimes they get the hint, sometimes it bugs them.. whatever.

I usually suggest before we start that we should play ready golf. usually everyone agrees. Great!



And if needed, I will explain what ready golf is. I've played w/ a few guys that just don't realize how slowly they're playing and some tips and encouragement can really help them speed things up.

So, you'd better not play with Bubba Wason then.

As I stated before, luckily, the people who make up my usual group, all play reasonably quickly. BTW, two of them are women with mid 20 hcps. But sometimes, one of the other 3 can't make it , and it has been on these occasions, when we were joined by a fourth (a stranger), who didn't keep pace. That's the situation that is a little difficult for me. If I noticed that sort of slow play by someone I know well, I think I could talk to him/her in a way they understand. Or not play with that particular person anymore.
Yesterday, I encountered slow play in front of me, that I could not take as calmly as I usually do. My playing partner and I, as a twosome, got stuck behind a foursome, who just wouldn't let us play through until the 12th hole. It took us 3 hrs to play the first 12, and then 55 minutes to play the final 6. And I think they only let us through, because on the 12th all 4 of them lost their tee shots. Up until then, it had usually been only two or three.