Trying to maintain the pace.......

By my very nature I'M a very fast player. I walk fast & on the way to my ball I have a good idea what will be my next shot. I prefer to walk since I find it to be much faster then playing cart golf. Outside of walking very quickly I would say a good deal of my speed comes from being totaly absorbed in the game. In other words I'M thinking one or two shots ahead & most importantly I don't mess around wasting time between shots. I find I play my very best golf when I can cruise at this pace for all 18 holes.

When the pace slows it has the dramatic tendancy to throw my game off bigtime! Case in point: Last Thursday during a round I was paired up with 3 individuals. The pace started out well enough and my scores for the first 4 holes were par, par, birdie, par.....then disaster. The guys I was with started slowing up....looking for balls, changing clubs, running back in forth to their cart (90 degree rule in effect), & chatting, etc. Now they were a good bunch of guys & their company was cool but the pace of play was slowed up. This was not all their fault since every now and then we would be waiting for the group in front to clear the fairway or green. Their were instances where I was waiting over my ball more then 5 minutes. Now I'M not bemoaning slower players or folks who are just starting out & struggling (been there done that) but it does have a very bad effect on my game. To sum it all up the remaing 14 holes I found myself scrambling but I managed to notch an 88 for the round. Not my best but not my worst. My faster pace enables me to keep my swing smoothe & I don't think too much which enables me to notch some good scores.....but with courses being crowded & getting paired up with folks who play at a slower pace this situation is unavoidable at times.......

Obvious ansrews are to play early in the morning or twilight when I can head out on my own (which I do), or match up with folks who play at about the same pace. I guess the question is how do faster players maintain their level of play when the pace slows down? I take practice swings while waiting or I will just stay cool & relax.....neither approach really works......what are faster players to do???? Any ideas guys & gals???? I'M currently planning to work on my game for the rest of the season & through the winter to get ready for a run at some local tourneys next season & this pace of play is an issue I need to overcome!

I typically prefer mid-week or 6am weekend rounds, so that I or my group can dictate pace of play. I walk because carts are slower, but if I know I will get caught in a slow round on a hot day I may cart it.

My legs slow me down somewhat, I dont walk fast, but do not waste time either.

Most people dont know that there are holding things up. They put their bag on the left side of the green only to putt to the right and have to go right to tee off on the next hole, so they walk across the green twice, there goes 2 more minutes.

The marker says 150, well grab you 140 150 & 160 clubs.

Clean your club while you walk or ride. Ditto for scorecard marking.

If you hit the green, grab your putter as you approach, club selection shouldn't require thought.

If your buddy lost a ball, struggled out of a fairway bunker or otherwise took 3 shots in 12 seconds, play ready golf and go (if ready) even if your not away, it gives him the 5 minutes he will take to get his crap in order, and he is going to take it anyway.

Turn off cell phones or let me shove it up your rear.

This sounds like a question for Rory Sabatini. :D

I suffer the same problem. I usually tend to just concentrate on the surroundings, the trees, the sky, the wildlife, and not think about the golf side while waiting. Then again, I'm not positive this helps my game, but if I think about the golf side I will usually hit a crappy shot after waiting a long time.

It is a real pain in the butt. All of my better rounds are usually well under 4 hours.

Well slow rounds are inevitable. It's just something you can't control. The main thing is that once things start slowing down you don't start believing that your game will suffer. If you believe it, it will become true. Prophecies are usually self-fulfilled. I'm guessing you like the fast pace because you stay focused the whole time and never really get into lapses of unfocus. Sometimes switching between relaxed and focused can be hard. I'd say the best thing to do is to find a trigger or routine that'll easily put you back into focus when you're about to set up for your shot, and then you can just relax in between shots. I have no real advice on what that trigger or routine could be nor do I really know any. But maybe you can find something that'll work for you.

I think a lot of people seem to think that golf is an isolated sport where you're just all by yourself, but it's not. There's a lot of outside variables you have to adjust to. In other sports you have opponents affecting your play, but in golf you don't so you may not feel you ought to adjust to anything and just play the course. But that's not true, you do have to adjust. It's part of the game. Just like in basketball if the opponent starts going on a full court press and makes you play at an uncomfortable pace, you don't get frustrated and feel you're going to lose. Instead you find ways to break the press or slow things down to your pace. If you don't, you lose. Same in golf. If you can't adjust to these variables, whether natural or man-made, then you lose.

If you're playing on a public course or playing during primetime, you'll expect to wait. Almost every time I've gone the last month or so, I've been waiting about 2-3 minutes a shot since the players ahead of me were either beginners, total hackers, or just fooling around. I do seem to get my game a little thrown off, but the last few rounds I've taken the time to stretch a little or to take more practice swings.