My Unpopular Golf Opinion: Marking Your Ball Should Be Restricted To Once Per Green

Like almost every golfer, I dislike slow play, even if I do find aggressively fast play slightly more annoying – another unpopular opinion!

I wouldn’t describe myself as the swiftest player, but I’m aware of others around me and I don't leave my bag on the wrong side of the green, mark my card after the last member of my four-ball has holed out and so on.

While drawn out pre-shot routines and amateurs taking forever to pull the trigger can be irritating, I think the putting green is the place where most time can be shaved off shots.

Off the tee, it’s common to see golfers hit wild slices out of bounds or hook a ball into the trouble – that’s just par for the course, if you’ll excuse the pun.

People lose balls with the driver and hit their irons into penalty areas, which leads to provisionals, drops, rules queries and so on. Nothing we do will ever stop that happening. But we can tangibly improve pace of play on the greens.

My colleague Barry Plummer did some analysis of the pace of play on the PGA Tour last year and identified the green as the place where most players flagrantly breach the circuit’s rules around speed of play.

“Over the course of my research, I recorded a total of 16 players and found that there were 26 occasions where the 'bad time' was exceeded on the putting green.

“Four of the 16 players overstepped this mark on at least one occasion when putting, and the worst offender accrued eight individual instances in a nine-hole period.

“Some of the times recorded weren't even close to being deemed acceptable, either, with two players registering times of more than 85 seconds to prepare for a putt, and 14 out of the 26 recorded infringements coming in at one minute or more.”

In short, there’s a lot that needs fixing in both the professional and amateur games on the putting surfaces. In my view, the three biggest culprits are AimPoint, excessive marking and lines being drawn on balls.

One Per Person

Now, some will argue that AimPoint speeds up play because people know what they’re doing and approach their green reading with purpose. From what I’ve seen on tour and at the golf club, I wouldn’t share the same view. That said, trying to eradicate AimPoint feels like shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

However, I do think something should, and can, be done about my other two gripes. I did think about suggesting the furthest player away from the hole should putt out, then the next furthest and so on, but I quickly realised it would lead to players learning too much from partners’ lines and have a massive impact on tension and drama.

But, we can do something about marking and I think it should be limited to once per person on the green. Now, some players would prefer to mark the ball after their approach shots find the short grass and others would get more benefit from lining up a shorter putt. That’s fine – let people choose. But each player should only be able to mark once.

Nothing makes me more annoyed than average golfers taking 30 seconds or more to painstakingly move their ball nano centimetres, then pull their putter back massively on the inside and shove it out to the right.

As a related note, lines on golf balls should be banned. You should be able to match speed and pace without the help of a straight line around the circumference of the ball. And this process only adds to the time taken on the greens.

While I’m at it, I’m also banning anyone marking a ball that’s within two feet of the cup (although the one-mark rule would effectively eradicate this scenario).

Now, some of you will ask what happens when a ball that’s already been marked comes to rest in front of another one that’s further away from the hole. Well, in that scenario, a second mark would be permitted.

I’m sure there would be further complications that I haven’t thought about, but it’s clear to me that something needs to happen on the greens to speed up play. We can’t allow things to drift. People got used to the knee-high drop relatively quickly and I’m sure it would be the same here.

Do you have an unpopular golf opinion? Let us know in the comments below!

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