It's a fact, Jack -- delays in play problem here, too

While cars, food and diets have become faster, golf is slowing down.

If you ask Arlo Cramer, tournament director of the Pikes Peak Amateur, the pace of golf was fine until everyone decided to imitate Jack Nicklaus.

"Everybody says that Jack was the best," Cramer said. "But a lot of players started emulating him and taking their time, thinking they could be just as good as him if they took their time, and they couldn't be."

Cramer remembers a simpler time, when balls were hit without hesitation and there was little glaring at the hole on a 6-inch putt.

It's tough to find someone in golf who doesn't believe slow play is a problem, but the Catch-22 is that it's equally difficult to find someone who has a solution.

"I don't know what you really can do to shorten a round of golf that much," said Bill Martin, a professional at Patty Jewett Golf Course. Martin said the biggest problem with slow play at Patty Jewett is all the traffic the course receives.

"The number of golfers here tends to slow things down just like a highway that gets too many cars during rush hour," Martin said. "Our goal here is to keep it at 41/2 hours."

"That's perfect timing," said Heather Fodor, a professional at Valley Hi Golf Course.

Fodor said if she sees someone playing slowly they are given up to three warnings. On the second, they are asked to move directly to the next hole. On the third, they are asked to leave. Martin said he will send course marshals to help golfers speed up their game.

"We keep two marshals on the course at all times to monitor play," Martin said. "The marshals can give them advice on how to speed up play."

Martin and Fodor said they advise "ready golf," where, instead of the player with the honor teeing off first, whoever is ready goes. For beginning players, Martin advises them to stop at double par.

"It should never take longer than 15 minutes to play a hole," Martin said.

When amateur golfers try to emulate their favorite pro's game, golf can become tedious.

"I do blame the PGA," Cramer said. "If they'd put some teeth in their rules and assess penalties to the players on tour it would filter down and play would get faster.

"Then you got 120 (stroke) shooters that get behind the ball to see where it's going and they have no idea -- none."

Fodor said players are threatened on the tour but it's rare that anything is done.

"I think some guys like Sergio Garcia, he re-gripped his club 14 times in his pre-shot routine," Fodor said. "The guys on tour have so many pre-shot routines that you can flip through several channels and come back in time to watch them hit the shot."

Even if penalties were assessed, four hours is typically too long, for many, to watch golf on television.

"I don't find it very fun to watch on television unless Tiger Woods is playing," said Kyle Burns, who plays at the University of Northern Colorado. "He's just the most exciting player."

Said Cramer: "Jack Nicklaus started it and everyone else decided that if you looked over the putt for 10 minutes you would make it."

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