How to quicken pace of play

'Tell me when it's my turn.'

Indeed those who compete in front of the gaze of millions on TV could face disqualification much sooner than they think - the equivalent of two yellow cards in football combining as a red sending off.

Pro golfers on the European and US Tours won't face an automatic suspension just yet but persistent offenders will find their bulging pockets picked and a tournament ban could follow unless transgressors get a move on.

As yet, because the abilities of amateur golfers are so varied, it's rare to see a handicap player penalised (unless a competition committee lays down specific pace of play rules, Rule 6-7) but both the R&A and the USGA are known to be looking at the situation.

In order to stem a festering problem at professional level, both the policy boards on the European and US PGA Tours have turned the screw on slow players and adopted several changes for their 2002 seasons.

The European Tour, for example has reduced the number of chances it gives a player or his group - described in the Tour Rules as 'bad times' - to avoid being kicked out of the tournament, from five chances to four.

One bad time - taking more than 50 seconds if first to play or 40 seconds if second or third - incurs a verbal warning from an official. Two bad times and he faces a one stroke penalty and £500, three incurs two more strokes added to his score and a £1,000 fine.

If he does it again 'au revoir' and 'on yer bike'.

Rules official on duty.

Players are not advised they are being timed but it's not a rocket science, especially in the less-well attended events on the Continent, where the green-jacketed official on his buggy is as distinctive as a fire engine in a Sainsbury's car park.

Referees are usually alerted by walkie-talkie when a group gets 'out of position' - more than ten minutes (the starting time interval) behind the group in front.

On the US Tour last year, no fine or penalty for a second bad time was given but now, in a bid to halt a steadily declining pace of play over the last five years, a player with two bad times will receive a $5,000 (around £3,500) fine.

The penalty for a third bad time (one-stroke penalty) remains the same but the fine has been increased to $10,000 (around £7,000). A fourth bad time, as on the European Tour and World Championship events and majors, now means disqualification. Previously it was a two-stroke penalty and $2,000 (around £1500) fine. A first bad time brings only a warning, as it did in 2001.

Fines on the US Tour will also be cumulative during the year, even if a player receives bad times at two different events, though penalty strokes are not carried forward.

Woods and Price - getting on with it.

Says PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem: "I've been here almost eight years, and not a month or two goes by that we don't have a conversation about pace of play.

"We have released new guidelines this year that are more aggressive than last year."

Players in US Tour events are allowed 40 seconds to play their shot if they are first to play from the tee or fairway on a par-4 or par-5. And they are allowed a full minute around the green (including bunkers) or on the putting green - more than enough time for most handicap golfers to four-putt, hurl their club and reach the next tee!

A study at the recent Sony Open in Hawaii, where former winner John Cook had been a regular critic of the snail-pace of play on Tour, revealed that players competing in threes, were allotted 14 minutes per - that's a more than generous four hours, 12 minutes for their round.

Adds Finchem: "When dollars are what they are today, and the pressure is what it is, slow play has an effect on certain players - certainly a minority, but nevertheless a good number of players just slow them down. They tend to play in this environment slower, and we just can't tolerate that."

Cook, however, says the new regulations already are making a difference.

"It's going to catch some slow people. If a couple of us had had our way, it would've been a shot penalty on the second bad time."

I played in a fourball yesterday that completed 18 holes, in gathering gloom (the fading light, not, I'm pleased to say, the anticipation of losing!) in a leisurely three hours, 45 minutes.

But, according to many Golfmagic site visitors, that would be an exception in a competition.

So apart from employing golf wardens at great expense, like those to be found at St Andrews, what's to be done for amateurs?

Unless local Rules for competitions are both introduced - and enforced by competition committees - I fear there's little that can be achieved.

However, the odd compulsory notice around the course, as happens on many Irish and Scottish courses, identifying time guidelines, would be a start.

Also a well-publicised purge in prior to certain club events, with the transgressors, identified on the notice board, would have an even better effect!

What do you think? Is there a better way, of speeding up the game at local level? Submit your views to The Forum.