Quote from a PGA Rules letter: "In an effort to control the length of time for PGA outings, only scores submitted within 5 hours of a team´s tee time will be accepted as official. Our better-ball format easily supports completion of rounds within a 5-hour time period. To play a little quicker, walk just a "tad" faster. Add scores on your way to the next tee - not the green! This "pace-of-play" policy will apply to monthly and year-end competitions." There is no reason that we all should not be able to get around the golf course in about four-1/2 hours and have an enjoyable, unhurried, round of golf. This is especially true since we are riding in carts and many times can drive right to the ball." Here are a few important tips and techniques we can all use to speed up play:

Tips For Speeding Up Play

• In general, play quickly and without delay. Socializing is an important aspect of this league, but please save most of it for the 19th hole.


• Please get to the course in time to warm up and be ready to play. PGA scoring rules do not allow for Mulligans on the first or any subsequent tees.


• The PGA scoring format is team best ball, not individual play. If your partner is in good shape and you are hitting 5 or 6 already, or are out of the hole, please pick up. On the green, if your partner is in the hole for less than you can make, please pick up.


• The stroke and distance penalty for OB or Lost Ball is in effect at all courses. You may drop a ball within 2 club lengths of where the ball went OB or you believe it is lost, instead of re-hitting from the tee or the place from which you played the shot.


• Play Ready Golf! Go to your ball and hit it as soon as you´re ready. Be courteous, but don´t wait for someone else across the fairway to hit, even if they are further from the hole. If yours and your cart partner´s balls are on different sides of the fairway, drop your partner off at his ball and then go to yours, or one of you grab a few clubs and walk to your ball. Hit when ready.


• If we must keep carts on the paths, estimate your yardage and then always take at least 3 clubs to the ball: The one you think is right, one more, and one less.


• When leaving the cart on the path, always park it where you have to walk back to your ball to hit, not forward. This allows you to walk forward after hitting and get out of the way of the players behind you as quickly as possible.


• When parking the cart near the green, take it around to the back of the green, or to the point where you will be exiting the green to go to the next tee. Do not park it in front of the green where the players behind you will have to wait for you to walk back toward them before they can hit.


• On the green, go ahead and make your stroke, and if by some chance it doesn't go in, go ahead and putt out unless you would be standing directly on someone else´s line.


• Do not replay your putts, or any shot, if there are players waiting in the fairway or on the tee.


• Please do your score keeping on the next tee, not on the green, nor sitting in the cart next to the green such that the groups behind still cannot hit.


• Finally, if you see your group is falling behind by a full hole or more, and a group is waiting behind, please be courteous and let the faster group play through. It is not an insult for a group to ask to if they may play through, so if asked, please show courtesy and sportsmanship and let them go through.

There are many other techniques to help speed up play. If you have a good one, please post it on the website. You will also find several of these suggestions in the Rules of Golf. However, they are just common sense and common courtesy, and will make our golf outings more enjoyable for everyone.

"Your proper place on the golf course is directly behind the group in front, not directly in front of the group behind!"