I've played nine holes, walking, in as little time as 50 minutes. I've played 18 in under two hours playing two balls most of the time. With a full set of clubs, no less. I've played in foursomes and fivesomes in well under four hours. I've also played nine holes that took just north of three hours. And then there was the 30-minute wait at the turn while everyone grabbed a five-course lunch.
Slow play is disgusting, and we've chosen to discuss it this week because we're fed up. We're tired of trying to find six or seven hours to play a round of golf. Sporting events are supposed to take three hours - baseball, football, hockey, and basketball generally meet the criteria - but golf is too important for that.
It's an American Problem
I've not played much golf outside the United States (and Canada barely counts as "outside the U.S."), but from what I've heard, slow play is not the problem in Scotland that it is here. People in Japan aren't spending six hours on the golf course every Saturday, nor are people in Thailand or China or Spain.
Slow play is about consideration for others, and that's where Americans have gone wrong. We're too full of ourselves, too self-important, to consider the feelings of others. To consider that, hey, though we may be having a grand old time taking our sweet old time, someone else might just want to get back to their family, to their lawn work, or to something other than standing around. The actual act of golfing takes very little time, and one can only stand and appreciate the beauties of a golf course for so long before the ugly swings of the slow foursome in front really begin to dominate one's thoughts.
Golfers can prattle on about how golf is a gentleman's game, but nowhere in my Guide to the Genteel (third edition) does it suggest you behave without consideration for others.
Though everyone can speed up their play to some degree, not everyone is a slow player. The sad truth is it only takes one. One slow player can lock up the entire course. One guy who constantly searches for his ball, waggles sixty-seven times, and lines up putts like it's the final round of The Masters. One jerk can ruin the day for everyone else.
But wait, that's the American Way, right? The "it's all about me, I paid my $75 and I'll play however fast I damn well want" way, no?
How Did We Get Here?
I'm 29, so I really don't know how things used to be. That being said, when was the last time you heard an old codger complaining about how fast people play these days? When was the last time you heard an octogenarian say "You think it's slow now, you should have been around back in the 50s when every hole took a lifetime. Golfers back then moved slower'n molasses in January"? You haven't.
Some blame the PGA Tour. The generation ahead of me watched golf on television and they adopted several of the mannerisms of PGA Tour pros. I guarantee you won't find a 15-handicapper that knows why he plumb bobs every putt outside of six inches, but dadgummit, he saw some random PGA Tour pro do it once.
It should come as no surprise that the more casual the golf fan, the more likely they are to watch only the bigger tournaments. The majors. And it should come as no surprise that Tour players take a little more time reading a putt at Augusta National than they do at En Joie Golf Club. So, these three-times-per-year players see pros taking their time reading putts on greens that stimp faster than their course's cartpath and they adopt the mannerisms.
Don't believe me? One older gentleman told me the other day that before televised golf tournaments, most of the single-digit guys he played with "back in the day" never even marked their golf ball unless there was a big chunk of mud stuck to it. But golly gee, they see the Tour players marking their balls and reading putts from each of 360 degrees and they've got to do it too.
Unfortunately, there's a big difference between a putt for five bucks and the beer tab at the 19th Hole and the virtual immortality that comes with winning a major on the PGA Tour.
The Pussification of the Modern Ranger
I'm old enough to remember marshals - or "rangers" as they're sometimes called - speaking not-so-softly and carrying an incredibly large stick. I remember fearing seeing the ranger's cart coming your way because it meant you were about to be warned or, for a second offense, booted from the course or told to skip a hole. You didn't mess with the ranger.
Sadly, that ranger is dead, buried, and forgotten. The modern ranger is a customer service weenie who is more likely to crack a smile and a joke about how slow things are than to crack a whip and get your a** in gear. Afraid of confrontation (and often instructed not to be confrontational), the modern ranger will seemingly do everything in his power to make your time at his course more enjoyable… except speed up play.
The modern ranger is, unfortunately, a reflection of modern customer service, which came about because The American Way says the customer is always right, even when they're a boorish, self-centered idiot who couldn't care less about how their actions affect others.
Where do we Go from Here?
The average length of time it takes to play golf is getting longer and longer. Tee times which used to be spaced at 10- or 12-minute intervals are now scheduled eight or even seven minutes apart. The American Way is to make as much money as possible, after all, and to make it now, customer satisfaction be damned. The modern marshal is being told to tell people where they can find the next tee when they get lost, but not to speed up a group that's holding up 20 foursomes behind them.
Faster golfers are becoming more and more frustrated and playing less and less, leaving the slower players with fewer role models or people willing to give them the occasional kick in the rear. After all, there's only so many times you can almost hit into the group in front of you and there's only so much a few angry glares at someone plumb-bobbing his fourth putt (for quintuple bogey) will do.
Perhaps the slow play issue will simply come to a head at some point. It hasn't happened yet, and we're seeing rounds taking as long as five or six hours. Where's the ceiling? When will people say "dammit, that's just too long to play 18 holes of golf?" Seven hours? Eight? I'd like to be optimistic, but my pragmatism won't let me.
The only thing we can do, as individuals, is affect those with whom we come into contact. The circle is wider than you think. Write letters to the director of golf at courses if you experience a slow round of golf. Tell the head pro you're going to vote with your wallet and not return to a course unless the pace of play policy is enforced. Educate your playing partners and league buddies.
The game is at stake. Help save it.
Photo Credits: © AP.
Originally Published at http://thesandtrap.com/columns/thrash_talk/slow_play.