When the Royal & Ancient staged it’s Time for Golf conference last November, Martin Slumbers, the chief executive of the governing body, suggested that slow play culprits should be “named and shamed.”
Yesterday, as the R&A released a cobbling together of the findings from that forum in a 76-page manual of hints and tips on how to get the game moving, it seems less whip-cracking, more gentle encouragement and education is the order of the day.
The powers-that-be are not into a finger pointing blame game but the R&A places most of the responsibility on the people who run the golf courses, not the players themselves.
“We’ve not moved emphasis away from the player entirely but there is a recognition that if you don’t get the management side of it and the course side of it right then you are almost doomed to have issues with pace of play,” said Grant Moir, the R&A’s director of rules, as he unveiled a catalogue of dos and don’ts that will be circulated to every club in GB&I as well as all the R&A’s affiliated unions worldwide.
“Golf was never meant to be a race and we’re not looking to blame here. We’re not saying one size fits all. What we’re doing is saying if you as a golf club, an administrator or a resort feel you have players waiting and round times are longer than they should be then here are an array of potential solutions for you tap into.”
Longer intervals between tee-times, slower green speeds, courses not set up to mirror some of the brutal championship layouts that are seen on the tours? They are all fairly simple factors that can aid the pace of play. “The difficulty of courses for elite level would not be appropriate to replicate for your day to day golf in this country, or any other, where the average handicap in the UK is around 16 for men and 20 for women” added Moir. “When players at club level play slower than they should it tends to be down to the basics, not so much imitating elite golf. It’s the core things - walking at a decent pace, putting your bag in the right place when you’re exiting the green, being ready to play when it’s your turn. Some may focus on imitating elite golf but I think out in the world of golf as a whole, the impact of that is over emphasised.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here