The English golf association “England Golf” is introducing stricter regulations at the start of this season to combat the slow play “epidemic”. Checkpoints will be set up at all championships taking place under the sovereignty of England Golf: Playing groups must have passed the checkpoints after holes 4, 9 and 14 of each round within a predetermined period of time, otherwise warnings and penalty strokes will be issued if the dawdling is not made up for in the following round. The rule is that the distance to the previous group should not exceed twelve minutes.
England Golf: “We try to make the game a bit quicker”
The new rule is to be “strictly enforced” in this year’s test phase: “What I looked at is what we can do as an organisation to try and make the game a little bit quicker,” said James Crampton, the governing body’s director of championships.
“What I wanted to do was put the onus much more back onto the players – rather than the players thinking it’s the referee’s responsibility to get people round in a suitable time. Previously, if there were instances of players playing slowly, the policy was difficult to implement in terms of applying penalties,” Crampton added according to the National Club Golfer.
After an initial warning after the first delay, players have the chance to clear the backlog until the next check point. If this does not happen, two penalty strokes are added to the scorecard. In addition to the new rules on flight speed, individual time penalties can still be imposed, up to disqualification after four offences.