Slow play is the thing golfers complain about most and do least about. The Rules of Golf have actually taken a position on it, and it is more specific than "keep up."
Prompt pace is a rule, not a courtesy
A player should play at a prompt pace throughout the round, including the time taken to walk between holes.
The recommendation: make your stroke in no more than 40 seconds after you are able to play without interference or distraction — and usually you should be able to play more quickly than that.
Forty seconds sounds generous until you time somebody. The forty-second clock starts when it is your turn and you can play — not when you arrive at the ball. Everything before that, the walking, the yardage, the club selection, the debate about wind, is supposed to have happened already.
Ready golf is encouraged
In stroke play, the Rules encourage playing out of turn in a safe and responsible way to save time. That is the official position, not a workaround. If you are ready and the person away is still looking for a ball or fussing with a glove, play.
Things that are always fine and always help:
- Hitting when you are ready, if it is safe
- Playing your shot while someone is still searching for theirs
- Putting out a short one rather than marking and waiting for your turn
- The player closest to the cart or path leaving first after everyone has holed out
- Teeing off first when whoever has honour is not ready
- Anyone marking the card at the next tee, not on the green
Match play is different, and this matters
In match play, order of play still counts. The player away plays first, and if you play out of turn, your opponent may cancel your stroke and make you replay it in the correct order.
They have to do it promptly, and most opponents will not bother — but the right exists, and in a tight match at a decisive moment somebody will use it. So in match play, either agree with your opponent up front that you will both play ready golf, or wait your turn.
This is the distinction that catches people who play both formats. The same behaviour that speeds up a stroke play round is a live risk in a match.
What the committee can do
A committee may adopt a Pace of Play Policy with actual penalties attached — timing groups that fall out of position and applying strokes for bad times. That is how it works in tournament golf, and it is the only version of pace enforcement with teeth.
At club level there is usually nothing formal, which means pace is a social contract. Which means the tools are social too.
The things that actually save time
Not your pre-shot routine. The savings are almost entirely in what happens between shots.
Play the right tees
The single biggest pace factor in amateur golf. Playing a course 800 yards too long adds shots, adds searching, and adds an hour.
Take three clubs to the ball
If you are walking or riding with someone else's ball to visit first, take a spread. The trip back to the bag is pure dead time.
Play a provisional
Every walk back to the tee costs your group five minutes and the group behind you five more. Forty seconds of provisional buys all of it back.
Give the three-footers away
In a casual match, concede them. Nobody's handicap is built on the ones you would have missed.
Keep the search honest
Three minutes. Called out loud. It is the rule anyway and it is the most reliable five minutes a round you will ever save.
The short version
Rule 5.6 at a glance
- Standard
- Prompt pace throughout, including between holes
- Recommendation
- 40 seconds per stroke once it is your turn and you can play — usually less
- Stroke play
- Ready golf encouraged, if safe and responsible
- Match play
- Order of play applies. Play out of turn and your opponent may cancel the stroke.
- Enforcement
- Only where a committee has adopted a Pace of Play Policy
Written against the 2023 edition of the Rules of Golf, which remains the edition in force. The R&A has said the next full edition arrives 1 January 2028. Local Rules at your course can change any of this — the card and the notice board win.