'We Talk Endlessly About Slow Play As Though It's A Disease. It Isn’t, It’s A Symptom' – Could Technology Be The Solution To This Golfing Scourge?

Recently I was doing some newspaper archive research for an article on early Opens. I was looking at reports of the 1903 Open at Prestwick.

The correspondent for the Daily Telegraph noted (in a preview of the event) the timings for the first day. It showed that the last group for the second round’s play would not tee off until 6.12pm. That, the author pointed out, meant that play wouldn’t finish until “nearly half-past eight.”

Can you imagine? In The Open Championship, players were expected to take no more than 2 hours 20 minutes to get round! I think it’s fair to say that play has become slower.

It’s one of the most raised topics in the game, from elite level to grassroots amateur golf. It takes longer than most would hope to complete a round.

We at Golf Monthly are not alone in suggesting methods for curbing slow golf. There could be pace of play guidelines, golfers are encouraged to play “ready golf,” people should leave their equipment in the right place and not dally upon completion of a hole.

We’d (almost) all agree with these common-sense strategies, but the problem doesn’t seem to be going away.

The issue is not the solutions to slow play… That’s simple – get on with it! The issue is getting people to implement those solutions without making golf some sort of draconian exercise of rules and repercussions.

We recently had an email from a reader who has what I believe to be a solid tech-based idea for nudging people in the right direction. Here below is what he had to say…

See if you agree and let us know in the comments box below…

“Golf has a peculiar blind spot. We talk endlessly about “slow play” as though it were a disease. It isn’t, it’s a symptom. The real issue is simpler, and slightly less flattering: golfers are reluctant to enforce etiquette (and even more reluctant to have it enforced on them).

We’ve all seen it; a group ahead progressing with all the urgency of a Sunday stroll, a hole open in front big enough to land a Chinook, and a traffic jam worthy of the M25 forming behind. Everyone knows what’s happening. No one says a word. The round drifts towards five hours, and afterwards we all rage that “slow play is getting worse.”

What makes this ridiculous is that the technology gap to solve the problem has already been bridged. BRS (or equivalent booking system) knows exactly who is on the course and when they teed off, and Arccos (or similar) can tell us - with forensic precision - which tree my 7 iron has landed me into. Working out whether a group is out of position is hardly beyond us.

The solution is not more rules, but a shift in focus. Not “did you play in 3 hours and 45 minutes…?” but “Are you keeping up with the group in front?” If you are, you’re fine. If there’s a hole open ahead, you’re not. No sub-committee required.

Technology could support this with a simple, mid-round nudge: “YOU ARE OUT OF POSITION” - which is far less inflammatory than a fellow member delivering the verdict in person (with additional feedback on sock choices etc etc). Repeat offenders get flagged to the sub-committee – It should be quite simple.

But here’s the uncomfortable bit: we don’t really want to know. Because the moment it’s no longer “slow play” but “that group right there is out of position”, the conversation becomes awkwardly specific.

The irony is that golfers will enforce the Rules of Golf like constitutional lawyers – measuring drops to the nearest inch and debating relief options as if preparing a Supreme Court appeal – yet they become strangely evasive when it comes to the one thing that actually affects everyone else: keeping up.”

I think Matt has come up with an obvious method of quietly prompting people to play at a reasonable pace. There’d be no need to embarrass anyone by accosting them in person or by hauling them up in front of a committee. They would simply be aware when they are not playing as quickly as they should. Human nature will, in the main, kick in and encourage them to speed it up a little.

There are clubs and courses that already use a version of this technology – certainly venues where cart golf is prevalent. They generally have a timing guideline and information on your pace of play relative to it.

And surely we could use that technology more widely. Rather than fitting a tag onto the bag, could we not ensure that a golfer in every group has an app they log into, with geo location turned on, that keeps them right about where they stand on the golf course?

Even if a group is not falling behind the expected pace of play, they could be given a reminder if they fall significantly behind the group in front. “You are two holes behind the 9.12 tee time… Do you need to let a group behind play through?”

Technology is terrifying in many regards, but it has its uses! This seems an obvious one to me. Everyone now has a mobile device, stuffed full of apps. Golfers should all have one that makes sure pace of play is as expected and thereby everyone on the course might enjoy their game a little more.