Peter Williams: Time has come for the slowcoaches to stop

Auckland golf is seeing red - and yellow and orange - over slow play during this season's Bissett Shield and Interclub competitions which begin next weekend. After years of complaints that nothing is ever done to penalise slow players, match committee officials, wearing orange jerkins, will have the power to issue yellow cards to an entire group as a warning that they're playing too slowly.

Then if, in the opinion of the match committee official, one player in the four continues to be the reason the group is playing too slow and not keeping up with those in front, that player will be issued a red card and suspended from the next round of the competition.

These are drastic measures which seem more in keeping with football codes or race walking than golf, but it's about time. After seeing, and being the victim of some outrageous slow-play culprits during last weekend's Auckland Anniversary Championship, I couldn't agree more with any measures put in place to weed out this plague on the game.

Akarana's a course you can complete comfortably in a foursome in a few minutes over four hours. During the Anniversary I was in, groups took almost five. There were players in the field that I'd love to name but can't for legal reasons. I saw pre-shot routines which lasted so long, playing partners walked hundreds of metres ahead down the side of the fairway and had putted out by the time the slowcoach arrived at the green.

One of my playing partners had a habit of stalking every putt, no matter the length, from about four different angles before finally addressing the ball. By then I was on the next tee, trying to breathe through the nose but wondering why something wasn't being done - like official warnings, two-shot penalties or a disqualification.

The final group in the final round last Monday hadn't reached the 17th tee when the group in front had putted out on the 18th. It was a disgraceful performance by a four which included young representative players of some reputation. So now officialdom at Auckland Golf has got serious.

When the new Interclub season starts a week today, all players will be handed a pace-of-play sheet on the first tee. That will give them a target time to have completed each hole during the round.

In basic terms, a group will be allowed 17 minutes for a par five, 14 for a par four and 11 for a par three. There will be allowances on the sheet for things like extra-long par fours or a big walk from a green to the next tee. But players will be expected to maintain the pace as defined by the sheet or be in touch with the group in front.

Pace-of-play sheets are not a new idea but their effectiveness in the past has been negated by the lack of enforcement and, more significantly, the unwillingness of volunteer match officials to penalise some of the best players in the city. In fact, the knowledge that he would not be penalised once led one particularly arrogant representative player to go even slower in a Bissett Shield match after he'd been asked to play more quickly.

Now the tools are in place to do something. As players, we'll be told before the season starts, and then before each match, what the rules are. We expect players to abide by those rules - and we want the officials to properly enforce them.


- HERALD ON SUNDAY