Pace of Play

I've always been a proponent of "ready" golf, and I have always felt that outside of tournaments, "honors" really has no place, if you are ready to hit, hit. 

I played a couple of league nights this year that turned into marathons strictly because of the back and forth "who is away" banter and not being ready to hit when safe to do so.  That being said, lately I have been slow for no other reason than having my head up my ass, and not paying attention to others around me. 

We could of sped things up a little if I had gone with my first instinct of wrapping your cousins 3-wood around the next available tree on the 1st hole.

Nothing slows play more than spending 3 minutes over the ball on every tee, chanting to yourself "I'm am not getting outdrove by a 3-wood, I will not get outdrove by a 3-wood...god damn it, I am going to get outdrove by a 3-wood" then duffing one to the ladies tees.

lol. I'm used to getting my ass handed to me by a guy wielding a 3 wood. Nothing new there. Yeah, it was a slow round, and the guys following us made sure to bitch about it loudly enough for us to hear as they walked into the clubhouse, but seriously we never fell more than a hole behind the twosome in front of us, and always managed to fill the gap by the next hole, so what was there to be done about it? I hate slow play as much as the next guy, but on a Sunday morning anything sub-5 hours is pretty much going to have to be acceptable.

One of my best friends, who's incidentally one of the best golfers I know, can be infuriating to play with. He's got one of the longest pre-shot routines I've ever seen, spends what seems like hours reading every putt, etc. His dad is just as bad, so I have to guess that's where he learned it. They're a tough group to play with because I want to yell "hurry the *fudge* up!" at them, but I still want him to be my friend. What to do, what to do?

No, you're quite right. I guess I was looking at it from the perspective they would have had playing behind us, where they wouldn't have always seen the guys in front of us, but had plenty of opportunity to see that we definitely weren't holding up play. I'm like you, though, if I'm going to be waiting anyway, there's no reason to rush. Makes for a very frustrating round.

I figure if you can't stand a 5 hour round, don't play on Sunday or else join a private club. That being said, play is generally way too slow, regardless of day of the week. Nothing worse than watching a guy line up a putt for 5 minutes and still miss it, and badly, only to go through the same thing. And it happens all the time. I blame the PGA.

One minute around the greens - yeah, right. 


Mark me down in the ready golf category, too.