If the Marshall told the group in front of you pick up and skip a hole would you follow suit to facilitate the golfers waiting many holes behind you? Why not? Oh that’s different, your an innocent bystander.

Putting is a very important part of the game, and where you score, yet most of the comments suggest you should just slap that putt around quickly as if you were wiping up spilled water on a table, that’s not golf.

The vast majority of suggestions here trample the rules and established etiquette. Lose a ball, just drop another, no penalty! Play ready golf through the green, really?

I guess there should be two types of courses, classical golf and neo-modern time management facilities.

Slow play is within the same parameters as any ‘rub of the green’ situation. There is no easy fix or rule bending compromise that’s going to shave 3.2 minutes per hole and thereby shortening your experience by 1 hour.

Baseball games and football games take more time than they used as well. So do professional tournaments, have you quit watching them?
Don’t try to project responsibility for your misery and frustration onto the group in front of you. Adapt and play your game.

Cell phones were mentioned. One team play meeting at Poppy we were told that if a cell phone went off during a round the player was to be given a warning. I asked what the consequences were if it rang again. I guess it was the wrong question because the answer was ‘None.’

Don’t rail at what you can’t fix, live with it or leave it. When it becomes a more serious issue it will either mend itself or the rules will interject new penalties to fix it. Until then complain all you want you poor innocent souls. And inform that member of your foursome that’s slow that he won’t be playing with you anymore until he learns to pick it up.

We’ve all been stuck with no Marshall’s in sight, stay calm, stay and play within yourself. There’s no easy or realistic solution.

The other problem is, of course, the random golfer who only plays once in a great while. They don’t know the etiquette, talk to one another between and during shots, stroll casually so that they can carry a conversation, even as one hits his ball, and then they drive or walk to the other ball. I sometimes have mixed feelings on the matter. Who am I to begrudge this player wanting to just have a relaxing and entertaining time on the golf course? I don’t play golf to socialize, but many do. Is the course for them or me, or both?

And yes, I do agree that some of the best golfers are the worst culprits of slow play. I found this when playing junior tournaments (I normally played match-play games in foursomes with my dad and friends). Everyone had to mark, everyone had to read putts for hours, etc. It infuriated me.
However, when just playing friendly games, I don’t notice that good players play slowly. Usually it’s the opposite. Even if the good players are slow over the ball, they are very quick from place to place and generally save much more time in fewer strokes. The problem then is the playing partners not playing ready golf while the good player takes a longer time over the shot. It doesn’t matter how long a player looks at a shot if everybody keeps up their own pace of play.

My advice, after all that. Walk or ride quickly to your ball (and not your partner’s) and play when ready. Pick up completely lost holes (go ahead and drop to practice if you have to wait on others anyway, but otherwise just pick up), play appropriate tees.

For the courses, maintain strict clocks for early players and early rounds. As the afternoon comes in, though, maybe quicker players like myself should yield to the desires of the social golfers a little and allow for a slower pace. Advertise that early rounds require a quick pace, and that later rounds require a slower pace (still require a pace though). Perhaps that will fit players with more appropriate tee times that might speed play for all.

At two courses, we now play trashed balls and our new rule: Do not search in the rough, place a ball and hit, no penalty.

The answer to faster play is a 12 or 18 inch rule. Pick it up if you aren’t playing the US Open.