The Pellucid Perspective - June 2019 - 5

tion and have someone check in and see what the problem is and
suggest ways to speed up play or the alternative actions (i.e. pick
up and go to next hole, if habitual, given them their money back
and ask them to leave so the others behind them might have a
more enjoyable round.
The other completely reasonable alternative for Gen-Next
and anyone else who wants to play a more time-certain, compressed round is to do what I do. I play a lot of twilight, solo
golf. I've generally found that I can play 9-holes, two balls in
90-100 minutes and I plan my tee-off that amount of time
short of sunset so I'm generally among or the last person
strolling in on #9 any given weekend night. It seems to me
that where pace-of-play is a critical skill is primetime when
the course is full and you have all levels of skill sharing the
golf course. Even so, having as many golfers familiar with and
practicing ready golf should be the goal regardless. The other
thing is it should be part of the core curriculum of any player
development program so we start them on the right foot and
don't have to educate them mid-career after they've started bad
(negligent) habits.
So the Holy Grail is to make the perception of golf as a time
drain become the reality of: 1) You can play golf in a reasonable amount of time (i.e. ~4-4.5 hours) when you prefer to play
(i.e. primetime) because more courses are being more consistent, fair and transparent in managing pace-of-play for every-

DISCOV ER

one's benefit and/or 2) You can shape your time investment in
golf based on choices you make for that day's commitment (i.e.
9 or 18 holes), the difficulty and/or busy-ness of the courses
you choose your time of play. The ultimate achievement would
be changing the perception of the time commitment associated
with a round of golf from the current negative optic (takes too
long) to a positive investment/reward balance. Those of us who
enjoy a round of golf appreciate the social interaction, the outdoor setting, the physical exercise (walking or riding), whatever
level of competition you choose to introduce among your foursome and the enjoyment of those shots-well-played (whether
they be many or few) and, within the context of a 4-4.5 hour
round, that's a reasonable time investment and part and parcel
in why we play. For the other folks who want to have a frantic,
high intensity/adrenaline rush in 90 minutes or less, there are
other options they should pursue. The trick is leveraging golf 's
appealing characteristics and limiting the downside of one of
the barriers/inhibitors to either new golfers or existing golfers from playing more. Unlike some other barriers (skill level,
cost etc.), pace-of-play is one that we can easily and inexpensively mitigate. Success in improving ready golf awareness and
making it the norm for our sport could beget more 4-4.5 hour
rounds consistently, even during primetime, which would be
a huge contributor to potentially (dare I say it?) "Make Golf
Great Again."
n

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The Pellucid Perspective - June 2019

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