Women on the run to speed up golf round

Published on Monday 14 September 2009 22:43

THE sight of people running up fairways is part of the proof that players have responded positively to a drive by the Ladies’ Golf Union to improve the pace of play on golf courses.

The LGU, the governing body of the women’s game in Great Britain&Ireland, has decided to take action after becoming increasingly frustrated at a continual increase in the average time a round of golf was taking in its championships.

“Rounds were starting to get over 5-5 hours and, sometimes in the worst-case scenario, it was touching on six hours,” said Susan Simpson, the LGU’s head of operations. “The players were dictating how long it was going to take to play a round, and we felt that was unacceptable.”

During last year’s British Girls’ Championship, Simpson and her team undertook a trial by implementing a new system that involved four checkpoints being set up around the course. Clocks were placed at these locations and players were made aware of what time their group was expected to reach those points by having it printed on pin sheets.

The system proved so successful that it has been in operation at all of the LGU’s events this year.

“The check points are normally at the fourth, ninth, 14th and 18th holes and the times we are looking for them to get round is usually about four hours and 20 minutes in stroke-play and three hours and 40 minutes for match-play, taking into account weather conditions and the course set-up,” added Simpson.

In stroke-play, if players miss one time, they are given a warning. If they miss a second one, a one-shot penalty is incurred by the whole group. In match-play, the initial warning is followed by the loss of a hole.”

“Under the system, a player has the right to ask for the group to be individually timed as sometimes there are mitigating circumstances as one player can be quicker than other individuals. While we are not scared to penalise them, that hasn’t happened so far but there have been several cases of players, in the Ladies’ British Open Stroke Play Championship up at Royal Aberdeen, for instance, who’d been warned who were running up fairways to make up time.”