Slow-golf syndrome.

 Sat 1.2.2025

In my almost 40 years of golf, I saw plenty of it and am sick of it.

Golf's still 18 holes, 14 clubs, and holing the round ball in as few strokes as possible. Other than that, the 2 world-ruling authorities of the Royal & Ancient St. Andrews and USGA have, since 1400, been trying to, at different times,   work together / fight each other; speed / obstruct changes;  cause confusion, exasperation and condemnation  to the players who are living off the game / turned off by it; who  swear by / swear at it.  

A few years back Greg Norman had been trying to change world golf focus from USA  to non-USA, aided by  the deep-pocketed Arab sponsors. Money changes things. That's been applied to sports before. It worked. Now better things are coming to golf ?

In the last 600-plus years the game itself went through many changes:  the size and make of the ball - even in my own experience I went from 1.62" to 1.68", with different number of dimples and all the colours of the rainbow ; the clubs - from steel-shafted woods that were real wood to all kinds of alloy shafts with all kinds of club heads made from everything except wood; from steel spikes to palstic studs on the shoe-soles; the dress-code for different sexes - long sleeve with tie for men, and knee-length dress and socks for women, to now whatever you like, man or woman - only tuck in that  damn shirt !; the number of holes; the size of the field (the number of players). 

Today the last one change that has been the longest overdue and yet easiest to impose is finally on the authority's plate. Slow play.

Surely, this is the one curse that needs no magic spell to remove. 

The problem is, unlike other sports, there is no rigid time frame each time a golf match is run. Football (I mean soccer), rugger, hockey et el  have it;  the racquet-sports have it, in terms of the intervals between sets; all water-sports have it. Not golf.

Of late, on some golf tours, the officials threatened to penalise players  for "slow play" decided by the watching marshal. I'm yet to see one. 

You have to experience it, like I have, to know the pain of it. And the worse part would be to play behind a maddening slow flight, but in front of an equally maddening fast flight !

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