A group falls behind and the explanation arrives quickly: somebody in it must be slow.
Sometimes that is true. A player may begin preparing only when it is their turn, repeat an elaborate routine or spend too long over every putt. Clubs should teach good pace habits and intervene when a group is genuinely out of position.
But suppose ten different groups lose time on the same hole. They cannot all have developed the same bad habit at the same point in the round.
Perhaps ordinary drives disappear in rough beside the landing area. Perhaps many players cannot carry the hazard from the tee they are encouraged to use. Perhaps the green is visible but not safely reachable, so the group waits and then lays up. Perhaps the next tee is badly signed. The group has not brought the delay with it; the course has presented the same delay to everyone.
The R&A’s Pace of Play Manual takes this wider view. Management practices, course setup and player behaviour work together. A club that focuses only on the golfer is looking at one-third of the problem.
Look for the delay that repeats
Round time is an outcome, not a diagnosis.
“Four hours 30 minutes” tells the club that the experience was longer than intended. It does not say whether the field lost 12 minutes on one early par three, searched repeatedly on several holes or simply walked a long route between greens and tees.
Per-hole observation is more useful. The R&A’s time-par guidance says a realistic time par should reflect group size, hole length, difficulty and transfer distance. It also warns that there is no universal formula.
A simple course walk can reveal a great deal. At the holes where gaps repeatedly close, ask:
- Are groups waiting to play, or still dealing with the previous shot?
- Where do common misses finish, and how visible are the balls?
- Are golfers choosing an unsuitable tee, or has the club made the suitable tee unattractive?
- Can first-time visitors see the next tee and the sensible line of play?
- Does the hole invite players to wait for a low-percentage shot?
- Do the day’s hole location, green speed and firmness work together?
If several groups meet the same problem, the club has found a piece of pace infrastructure.
A tee can be too long without the course being long
Golfers should choose tees suited to their hitting distance and ability. The course also has to offer that choice in a useful form.
The R&A recommends a reasonable variety of tees and asks clubs to consider whether players can make forced carries with a well-played shot for their ability. Where that is not possible, a bail-out route can preserve the challenge without making failure almost automatic.
Total length is only part of it. A 4,900-metre (5,359-yard) course can still contain a carry that is unrealistic for many players, creating extra shots, provisional balls and searches. Colour-coded “men’s” and “women’s” traditions can also make a sensible forward choice feel like a judgement; ability- or distance-based recommendations make the choice more neutral.
The Swedish Golf Federation’s current player-experience guidance considers swing speed, carry, roll and actual landing patterns. A setup designed around the longest players will not serve the whole field.
A shorter tee is not automatically the answer. Moving a drivable par four forward on a following wind may increase waiting because more groups believe they can reach the green. Daily setup needs to consider how the hole will flow, not merely how many metres have been removed.
Rough does not have to lose its purpose
Rough frames holes, rewards accuracy and can protect valuable habitat from unnecessary maintenance. The pace problem is dense rough in a high-frequency landing zone turning ordinary misses into repeated searches.
Under the Rules of Golf, a ball is lost if it is not found within three minutes after the search begins. That limit prevents an endless search; it does not make repeated searches efficient. A provisional ball or the walk back under stroke and distance can add more delay.
The R&A’s course guidance suggests considering fairway width, a wider first cut and playable rough where ball-finding is a regular issue. Not every wooded area needs intensive maintenance, but common miss zones should be assessed.
Targeted changes can preserve strategy:
- widen the fairway where the majority of drives finish, not only at tour-player distance;
- provide a visible intermediate cut between fairway and deep rough;
- reduce rough height in a narrow search hotspot rather than across the whole course;
- maintain a realistic recovery route beneath selected trees; and
- give a reasonable dropping area where a heavily used penalty area otherwise sends players into another difficult search or recovery.
The Swedish guidance similarly supports wider mowing at the bogey golfer’s landing distance and a graduated edge. The aim is not to erase consequences, but to make an ordinary miss a golf shot rather than a search operation.
Greens can create a queue quietly
Putting is rarely blamed with the same force as a long pre-shot routine, but green setup can add time to every group.
The difficulty comes from a combination: slope, speed, firmness and hole position. A quick green with a hole on or close to a severe slope makes it harder to leave the ball near the hole. More players putt defensively, more balls finish farther away than expected and more short putts require care.
The R&A says smoothness and trueness are more important than raw speed for everyday play. Its guidance also notes that fast greens can remove otherwise useful hole locations from the course manager’s options.
This does not mean that clubs should produce slow greens. Slow and inconsistent is not a pace strategy. It means the speed must fit the contours, wind and ability of the day’s field.
The same principle applies to hole locations. A demanding location can be entirely appropriate in a championship. A full set of severe locations for a busy club competition may create delay without adding much meaningful challenge. The Netherlands Golf Federation’s Ready Golf guidance for clubs explicitly includes green speed and pin positions among the course factors that influence pace.
Walking distance is playing time
An extra transfer can look trivial on a plan.
Imagine that six green-to-tee routes each add 80 metres (87 yards) compared with the direct practical route. That is 480 metres (525 yards) over the round. At a walking speed of 5 kilometres per hour (3.1 miles per hour), it adds almost six minutes of movement before anyone takes a wrong turn.
The number is only an illustration, but the principle is real. Long transfers, a trolley park on the wrong side of the green or a buggy route that doubles back all form part of the round.
Members often stop seeing a routing problem because they know the next tee is behind the hedge. A visitor sees three tracks and a hidden sign. Useful wayfinding is visible before the decision point; distance markers should also be easy to find.
Some routing problems need investment. Others need a moved sign, a clearer mown path or a different place for bags and trolleys beside the green.
Some holes are bottlenecks by design
Long par threes, drivable par fours and reachable par fives can be excellent holes. They can also create stop-start flow when groups wait for the green and then fail to reach it. A club might adjust the tee, explain the line, improve a lay-up area or use a carefully managed call-up procedure.
Call-up procedures need clear safety instructions. The R&A notes that they may reduce waiting and frustration without necessarily reducing total playing time.
Routing can create broader bottlenecks. Reversing nines or changing the starting hole sounds radical, but some clubs have found that tradition is not the most efficient sequence. Before considering a permanent change, a club can map where queues begin and whether the current order places the most restrictive hole at the worst point.
Set up for the people playing today
Daily course setup is a form of operations management.
A senior roll-up, junior event, visitor-heavy afternoon and scratch championship do not require identical tee markers and hole locations. Wind, soft ground, autumn leaves, rough growth and cart-path restrictions also change the same architecture.
The aim is not to make the course easy. Challenge should come from decisions and execution. Delay often comes from uncertainty, repeated searching and shots that much of the field cannot reasonably attempt.
The Swedish Federation’s practical approach is to plan mowing and setup around the players, weather and booking situation. A windy links, wet northern parkland and Mediterranean resort will not find delay in the same places.
Test a small change before redesigning the course
The club does not need to rebuild a hole to learn whether setup is the cause.
Choose one recurring bottleneck and make one controlled change:
- Record arrival, waiting and completion time for several comparable days.
- Map searches in the relevant landing zone without identifying individual golfers.
- Change one factor: rough presentation, tee position, hole location, signage or bag route.
- Keep the interval, format and other major setup variables as comparable as possible.
- Repeat the observation and ask golfers a short, specific question.
Measure by hole. A round average can hide an important two-minute improvement where the queue used to begin. Record marshal interventions by cause: “two searches on hole five” is more useful than “spoke to the 10:20 group”.
Player responsibility still matters
Course setup is not an excuse for slow behaviour. Golfers should be ready when safe, watch one another’s shots, play a provisional ball when appropriate and keep up with the group ahead. Some players remain slow on a well-set course.
The reverse is also true. Organised golfers cannot walk through the group ahead, make hidden balls visible or remove an unsuitable carry.
A good pace programme addresses both. Teach the players, manage the field and inspect the course.
When the same delay appears for group after group, stop asking who the slow golfer is. Ask what the course is repeatedly asking golfers to do.
Primary sources
- The R&A — Pace of Play Manual: Introduction
- The R&A — Pace of Play Manual: The Golf Course
- The R&A — Pace of Play Manual: Appendices and time-par guidance
- The R&A — Rule 18: Ball Lost or Out of Bounds
- Svenska Golfförbundet — Spelupplevelse
- Nederlandse Golf Federatie — Ready Golf and course setup
Evidence reviewed 23 July 2026. Permanent course changes should be assessed with the course manager, a qualified architect or agronomist, and the relevant national authority where course rating or safety may be affected.