. Fast Forward This Pace of Play By Jerry Walters MTT Contributing Writer Member of the Golf Writers Association of America What's all this flap about Pace of Play? Isn't golf supposed to be about relaxation, unwinding from your stressful life away from the course, and the occasional fellowship with your cronies? If I'm spending up to $50 and beyond to play golf, I'm going to take my time and enjoy the day. I contend that pace of play and the time attached to it is simply made up by the course management, as it is their charge to produce a solid bottom line figure. If, during a summer day, the course normally puts out 100 foursomes at 9-minute intervals at an average price of $200, all it takes is a few groups slowing things down to create a reduction in revenues. Courses are banking on a projected dollar figure every single day. They're counting on you finishing on time so as not to disrupt their cash flow. Now, here comes a tournament that's threatening to assess a two-stroke penalty for threesomes that don't finish in 4 hours or less. Put on the track shoes and get into the starting blocks! Find me the fastest cart! There's certainly no time for schmoozing with the cart girl! Why stop at this mere slap on the hand? If you would follow a few simple guidelines, pace of play would take care of itself: 1. No ballhawking! Period! Your garage is no doubt full of old golf balls that you'll never have the time or inclination to hit anyway. What, pray tell, would you do with another seven dozen waterlogged, gray golf balls? Solution; get caught looking in the lake for balls other than the ones you've sliced there yourself, and you relinquish your putter for the remainder of the round. 2. Unless it's a sanctioned CGA event, or men's or women's club tournament, there will be no five-minute rule searching for lost balls in the woods. If the club is so intent on driving up revenues, they surely need those fine State Farm Specials you're playing to resell to the public. Let 'em have 'em. 3. All putts within a six-foot radius of the cup should be given. This forced pace of play is promoting the speeding up of play. Why not give everything on the putting surface? You could attach a six-foot, no better yet, a 20-foot string to the bottom of the flagstick in order to measure putts. All putts inside are GOOD! Who cares about score? All we want to do is hurry up and get your group the hell off the course so we can run another full-paying foursome through. 4. How about this one since we're willing to make a travesty of the game for the sake of the almighty dollar, put bumpers on the edge of the rough like at the bowling alley? You could use the same equipment as the inflated monkey at the lube shop, only about six feet high, running the entire length of the hole, surrounding the green. The effect; no lost balls, which equals faster play. 5. Lose the stroke and distance rule. No one uses it anyway, and it cost John Daly the 2000 US Open. If you're OB, lay another egg and spank that bad boy. Rules be damned, we've got to finish quickly. Now we've got this game streamlined. At this rate, we could send groups off every three minutes instead of 8, 9, or 10. We could line them up in a chute waiting their turn like jet fighters on the deck of an aircraft carrier. If the course owners really want to write some black ink, just have them use their imagination. Jerry Walters is co-host of Chip Shots radio on AM 950 Sports Radio The Fan, heard every Saturday morning from 6am-8am.