The golf course is not free from the bad habits of many players that, most of the time due to laziness and without bad intentions, they are used to reproduce and that affect the optimal development and fluidity of the game.
Rod Bastard, director of the Marbella Club Golf Resort, a professional with extensive experience as a golf course manager, talks in this article about frequent bad habits of golfers that result especially in slowing down the pace of play, with the discomfort that this causes to all players.
I think next year’s rules, the Ready Golf, are going to help a lot to improve slow play. Playing in the order in which each player is ready is going to become the rule, but it’s common sense that if someone is ready, they should go ahead and shoot, regardless of whether they are a little closer to the hole, especially around the green or shooting for the green. It’s okay if a player who is ready shoots first.
It is also important to prepare the shot when the others are hitting, obviously without disturbing your teammates, but there are many situations in which you can take measurements, make wind calculations or choose the club while the others are playing.
Another key to not slowing down the pace of play is to be aware of where the next tee is. This way, when we get to our green we already know where we are going to tee off to the next hole and therefore we will park the buggy or have the carts in the right place. When you finish you don’t have to go back to the hole you just played, so you don’t have to go back to the hole you just played, so you don’t have to go back to the hole you just played. We will neither lose time nor harm the group behind us.
It is also important in this regard to fill in the scores on the next tee, not around the green when you finish that hole. I think we all have enough memory to remember the shots for five minutes and write them down on the next tee while your partners are teeing off.
And a big, very big problem that I see is that we don’t give way. I don’t know why, but we don’t give way to the faster groups. It doesn’t mean you have to give way to everybody, but especially if you’ve lost a hole in front it’s okay to give way to the faster groups, whether they’re the same number of players or more clearly if they’re lower numbers, because they’re going to play faster. I think some people take it as a negative thing to give way because they think it means they are bad players, but you have to show solidarity and people with a good golf education will always give way to the faster players. We all want to enjoy ourselves, but there are some who play faster than others, and giving way is just two minutes.
Another important aspect to avoid slow play as much as possible is to get used to playing a provisional ball on the tee. It is obviously much faster to play a provisional ball -it takes thirty or forty seconds- than to go back to the tee when you have not found your ball, have to hit another one, the group waiting… The provisional ball is a magnificent way of speeding up the game, especially on a course you do not know because many times we do not know that there are bushes or trees there.
And the other thing is the ball search. Next year – it’s also in the new rules – the time is reduced from five minutes to three. It usually happens when we play that if you don’t find the ball in the first minute and a half, you’re not going to find it because most likely we’re looking in the wrong place or the ball has taken a strange bounce. I believe that, for everyone’s sake, in social situations it is better not to rush the search time if it is not necessary.
Piques and rake
And finally, a couple of tips on how to fix bunkers and use the rake, always bearing in mind a basic premise for the golfer: the course should be left at least as we found it and, if possible, better.
We all complain that when we get to the green there are a lot of unrepaired shots. I think we have to see the bumps as a source of pride, of satisfaction, since we only leave bumps when we hit a good shot. So we should feel proud of making them, but also of repairing them. What we do have to pay close attention to is where the ball has hit when we hit the green because the ball may be five or six meters away from where it bounced. It is not enough to go to our ball, put the mark and that’s it, but we have to look for where it bounced, and it is always good to repair your putt and one or two others, and that way we leave the course much better.
As for the bunkers, players should follow a routine to take care of these sand obstacles and the first thing they have to do is to when they get to the bunker, regardless of where your ball is, is to take the rake directly and leave it at the entrance at the closest point to the ball and so, obviously, you will have it at hand when you finish. If we go directly to the ball, maybe you’ve already played it, you’re in the middle of the bunker, you see the rake far away and you say: well, I’m not going to get it.
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