NO golfer will admit to being a slow player.
Italian professional Edoardo Molinari, the formerly more famous now more injured older brother of 2018 Open champion and Ryder Cup hero Francesco, has recently tweeted a list of frequent offenders.
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It’s a list he claims Tour authorities are reluctant to publish and even more reluctant to take action on.
He’s very much in the ‘play faster’ camp.
The list shows that a lot of players have been timed, a stat skewed perhaps by the fact that if one player is slow, the whole three-ball is on the clock.
In social amateur golf you get two main types of offenders: those who are never ready when it’s their turn and those who take seemingly forever to hit the ball once set.
The first group of offenders is usually too engrossed in talk about rugby, cricket or football. Or wanting to finish a good story or joke when it’s time to tee off and the fourball ahead is disappearing out of sight.
The second type stands over the ball for ages, twitching and fidgeting in an effort to get comfortable.
It’s the type that remind one of a story between popular players of yesteryear, the late Simon Hobday and Tony Johnstone.
It went something like this:
“Hobbers, would you mind moving your shadow.”
“Tony, it wasn’t there when you addressed the ball.”
There’s actually a third type of (perceived) slow play that has become more common with the increased use of carts.
A fourball walking between two groups using carts can often feel like a law abiding motorist travelling between two taxis on the road.
You’re doing your best to keep up, but it always feels like a chase, and you can never quite get away from the group behind, who hare up the fairway and then stand there, arms folded, or club-in-hand, swishing it in agitated irritation.
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