Saturday, July 8, 2017

Ask Linda #1566a-Follow-up to #1566

Dear readers,
Several of you offered useful suggestions related to #1566 to help speed up the pace of play.

from Lulu in Hercules, California:
Our club agrees that if a group gets behind, the first two to putt out go ahead to tee off at the next hole. They wait for the other two players to tee off and complete the hole together. They do not split up for the remainder of the round; they just speed up play a little until they catch up with the group ahead. It works!

from Lulu in Australia:
We often do this, but we don't split the group. We only send two who have finished putting to tee off and they wait on the next tee for the remainder of the group to arrive and tee off, before continuing as a group. We strongly suggest that they tee off before marking cards! There is never any question of poor sportsmanship. It’s encouraged as “ready golf.”

from Lou in California:
In a related instance we encourage our junior players to go and tee off after they have putted out (especially if they are behind their Pace-of-Play requirements) to go to the next tee and tee off. I was questioned on this practice because there was no marker present. I checked with a USGA official, and received the following response: “While the player and his marker have an explicit responsibility for the correctness of the player’s scorecard, there is nothing in the Rules of Golf that requires a marker to witness every stroke a player makes. After each hole the marker should check the score with the competitor and record it – see Rule 6-6a.”