Golfers at every level will often complain about a round of golf being too slow! This is an ongoing issue, but it seems that LET officials have the answer to slow coaches.
By Lewine Mair
Golfers at every level will often complain about a round of golf being too slow! This is an ongoing issue, but it seems that LET officials have the answer to slow coaches.
For the most part, the Ladies European Tour tends to go under the radar, with the winners coming and going with very little in the way of acknowledgement from the media. Yet at the end of last year LET officials shone as never before at a ‘Time for Golf’ conference at St Andrews.
So much so that Stephen Gallagher of Ryder Cup fame was adamant that the men’s European Tour should take a lead from the women. The idea which particularly appealed to the Scot was the women’s ’59 second rule’ which applies over every shot. Any more than 59 seconds and you will find yourself in trouble.
“We recognise that people want to see exciting golf,” said Sally McPherson, the LET’s Sports Director. “Also, we recognise that if we, as officials, mess up and our players are unable to play at their preferred pace because of a handful of slow coaches, they’re going to be angry with us.”
Rebecca Hudson, the former English amateur star and Curtis Cup golfer who is now on the LET board, was the other representative at the conference and McPherson said of her that she had eyes at the back of her head. “If players are not keeping up with the group in front of them,” she continued, “you can guarantee that Rebecca will be on the phone on a Monday morning to ask why. LET players have responsibilities: they are role models and Rebecca is well aware of that.”
Many a player has had the ‘Laura Davies treatment’ across the years and McPherson told of a day when Laura, who was doing her usual thing of trying to play at the speed of light, had been restrained one Saturday morning by one of the tour’s tortoises. On the occasion in question, Laura signed what she had to sign in the scorer’s hut and disappeared. Meanwhile, her exhausted playing companion collapsed back in her chair and asked the recorders if she could stay where she was for a couple of minutes while she recovered from her 18-hole sprint.
It was as she drew breath that she realised that she had returned a two- under-par round which was one of her better efforts. “ Heavens,” she said, “I should maybe play at that pace all the time.”
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As you would expect, the conference was not confined to what is happening on the professional tours: the experts were looking for answers concerning slow play in the everyday game. Here Denis Pugh, who used to coach Colin Montgomerie and is now working with Francesco Molinari, put forward a particularly good idea from the pages of a book called “New Golf Thinking”. The idea in question suggests that club golfers, on a card-marking day, should be asked to record the length of their rounds in addition to their scores.
“Initially,” said Pugh, “it doesn’t make much sense but, over ten rounds, a pattern emerges and you can identify the culprits.
Only later did it occur to me that there was another side to Pugh’s well-received idea. Namely, that some at least of the tail enders to whom Pugh referred were very possibly delighted with the proposal. No less than those visitors to one of our top courses who fork out comfortably over £100 for a round of golf, the last thing they would want is to have a pack of baying hounds to their rear.
It’s entirely possible that these dawdlers are faffing around unnecessarily on the golf front but is it not possible that they simply want to do a Walter Hagen and stop to smell the flowers along the way? Or, say, catch up with their playing companions in the metaphorical sense and enjoy a bit of relaxing chatter?
Officialdom should be taking their needs into the equation, with the same applying to the needs of those higher handicap folk - and beginners - who do not have the wherewithal to make a quick and efficient fist of a game of golf. In their case, consistent reminders to hurry up can only be off-putting and have them wondering if they would do better to find a less pressurised hobby.
In other words, while we can be 100% certain that the professionals need to move at a slick pace, the situation with regard to club golfers is nowhere near as clear cut.
The above is an extract from the March/April 2016 issue of Women & Golf magazine, currently on sale. Never miss an issue click here to subscribe and enjoy W&G delivered to your door.
