About a month ago, I played golf with a group of four college guys. Didn’t know ‘em. I was playing as a single, and the groups were moving SLOW, so I just asked to join them. We finished nine holes in just about 3 hours. 

The group ahead of us was unfamiliar with the word haste. I’m slow to get upset with them, as I appreciate the slowness of the game, but golf course etiquette would suggest they do something differently. 

Let us play through, play ready golf… SOMETHING would have been nice. But alas, it was not so. 

By the end of nine, I bid my new friends adieu, and they shrugged off the slow play. Each of them agreed, “I mean I have nothing else to do.”

Seniors in college. Oh, to be responsible for almost nothing. 

Sure, we complained a little bit from time to time, but nothing crazy. These guys were really in no rush whatsoever. They were enjoying time outside on a warm February Saturday with nothing else to do. One even said, “I mean there’s honestly no where else I’d rather be. Well I’d rather be on a different golf course, but on the golf course at all is all I could ask for.”

Ol’ Colony Golf Course in Tuscaloosa, Alabama may not have been a dream destination, but it was a golf course nonetheless. 

With a speedy, or even average-paced round, more often than not, I come home, and my wife asks me, “how are your friends doing?”

I give the classic answer: “yeah I mean, I think they’re pretty good. They seem good.”

She’ll probe, “did you ask him how he and his wife are doing, what they’re up to, anything?”

I’ll respond, “I mean we really just talk about the shot they just hit, the shot they’re about to hit, and how they’ve played today I guess.”

A slow round gives you a bit more space to get to know the people you’re playing with. You can cover the basics pretty quick: how’s work, how’s your wife, how’re the kids? But an extra couple minutes per hole allows you to get into the weeds a little more, open up a little more. 

Ask them what they’re hoping for, what they’re praying for. Come alongside each other, encourage each other, push each other. 

That’s when the golf course becomes about more than golf, and the slow rounds make a little more space for it. 

So when the group ahead of you can’t seem to get on with it, try not to complain. Instead, ask your group a good question and see what happens. 

Luke Mangan
On Golf