Time to wipe out slow-play epidemic

It’s a side of the game that grinds on the nerves of most golfers and from time to time brings out the kind of rage that’s normally only associated with the crazy lanes of Shaikh Zayed Road.

Slow Play – and yes I’ve used capital letters as it is officially a globally recognised affliction on the game and now as common a term as Birdie is on the tour. It is unfortunately a phenomenon that’s gripped the game over the past two to three years for all the wrong reasons.

Perhaps one of the most frustrating things is it is totally treatable. Golfers needn’t be blighted with slow play forever and a day. Well like most afflictions that we humans suffer from, it takes one to know one and yes, that means you have to firstly admit to yourself that you have a problem, before you can be cured!

Joking aside, slow play is something that we are all guilty of from time to time and let’s face it, the vast majority of the time it’s because we may be looking for an errant tee shot or having a particularly bad hole.

The key to overcoming the tag of Slow Player which you can very easily get branded with, is in the way you manage the process and the good news is it can be quite simple. First there are the two words that are exceptionally under-used in the British language today, and they are “common courtesy”.

It’s a trait that we all should possess the ability to enact and without doubt it was drilled home to me not only from my parents but also as a young golfer at my club. It seems that in today’s game there is a lack of education with regards to golf etiquette within the clubs and I’m not just aiming this at junior golfers – far from it.

It is very often the adult golfers among us that forget that there are in actual fact other players on the course besides themselves.

We can all do our bit to improve the enjoyment of the game by being: Ready to play when it’s our turn; Aware of the speed of your group and the golfers within it; Aware of the gap in front of you and the players behind It is about conditioning and expressing the trait of common courtesy to ensure the enjoyment of others around you.

I don’t know anybody that likes being on a golf course for over four hours, it’s tough enough focusing on a couple of holes at a time never mind over five hours – how can you possibly expect to shoot a good score if you’re out there that long?

The new season is fast approaching so let’s do our best to spread the ways of “ready golf” and help speed up this game to the days of four-hour rounds. It’s amazing isn’t it – do you remember when a three-and- a-half-hour round was considered slow – how times have changed.