Pace of play is a capacity problem before it is a behaviour problem. The slowest group on the course sets the pace for every group behind it, and no amount of brisk play further back will undo that. Riccio's factory model of golf, published in the International Journal of Golf Science in 2012, names the mechanism plainly: "The slowest groups determine the pace of play for all groups on the course behind them, setting up a weakest link dynamic."
The corollary costs clubs more than the headline does. "Even if all groups are 'fast' but experience some time/shot variability, even if the overall pace is quick, most groups will experience some waiting and will perceive that the pace is slow." A golfer who felt they waited on every shot does not rebook, whatever the stopwatch says.
This playbook is built on two documents. One is that paper: Riccio, L.J. (2012), Analyzing the Pace of Play in Golf: The Golf Course as a Factory, International Journal of Golf Science 1(2):90-112, written at Columbia University. The other is The R&A's Pace of Play Manual (2021), published free and more specific than most club policies. Where neither has anything to say, this article says so rather than borrowing a number from elsewhere.
The real cost of a slow round
The R&A's 2015 Global Survey on Pace of Play received more than 56,000 responses from golfers in 122 countries. One headline finding: 60% of golfers said they would enjoy golf more if they played in less time.
Enjoyment is not the commercial argument, though. This is. The manual reports at §1.3 that "research has shown that golfers are willing to pay an average of 9.1 percent more in green fees for a significant improvement in pace, with significant being 15-30 minutes. The same research showed that respondents younger than 40 would pay 14.2 percent more." Take it with two cautions. The R&A credits the work to an outside firm and we have not read the underlying study, and a stated willingness to pay is not a transaction.
Even discounted, it reframes the problem. Pace is an attribute of the product rather than a courtesy the club extends, and the golfers most sensitive to it are the youngest in your database.
The direct cost is simpler. Slow rounds compress daily capacity, so fewer groups get out, and over a season that accumulates quietly. The players it drives away first are the occasional golfers who cannot surrender a five-hour window on a Saturday. They stop booking, they play elsewhere, and they tell their friends why.
What is a good round time for my course?
The honest answer is that the governing body deliberately refuses to give you one. From §1.2 of the manual: "There is no single solution that applies across the board. There is no single target for everyone to aim towards. Local, national and international variations in courses, forms of play, level of competition, weather and expectation mean that each facility has to set its own targets."
That refusal is worth more than the benchmark it replaces. A borrowed round time tells you nothing about your own course, because it was set on somebody else's routing, somebody else's green speeds and somebody else's golfers.
What replaces it is time par, which §2.6 defines as "the term given to the length of time allocated to complete each hole, a certain number of holes or the full round." Set it yourself, hole by hole, from your own data. Print it on the card, state it at booking, reinforce it at the first tee, and sign it on the course so a group can check itself. As §4.9 puts it, "without a time par it is impossible to gauge whether a player or group is fast or slow."
At the level of the individual stroke there is a real published number, and it comes from the Rules rather than from any club. Rule 5.6b recommends that a player make the stroke in no more than 40 seconds once it is their turn and they are able to play without interference or distraction, and it adds that a player "should usually be able to play more quickly than that."
The manual's arithmetic on that point is the most persuasive line you can put in a members' newsletter. Five seconds less per shot, 80 shots each, four players in the group: 26 minutes and 40 seconds off the round with nothing else changed.
Tee time intervals: the economics of eight vs ten vs twelve minutes
There is a definitive rule for interval spacing, it has been published since 2012, and most tee sheets ignore it. Riccio, p.97: "The optimal tee time interval for pace of play is equal to the cycle time of the hole with the lowest cycle time, generally the par 3s, not the opening hole. Sending groups out at a rate faster than the capacity of the bottleneck creates delays and significantly slows the overall pace of play."
The R&A reaches the same rule from the other direction: "A good guide is that the starting interval should not be shorter than the time it should take to play the quickest hole on the course, and this becomes particularly relevant when that hole features early in the round." Its recommendations are specific. At least 8 minutes when play is in two-balls, at least 10 for three-balls, 11 or even 12 minutes for fourballs, and where group sizes are mixed, cater for the fourballs.
Riccio's simulations put numbers on what happens when you go under. With every group playing quickly and no variability at all, a 9-minute interval produced a 241-minute round for the first group and for the last. At 8 minutes the average rose to 250 with a maximum of 260. At 7 minutes, 265 and 290. The study also found that "tee time intervals greater than nine minutes do nothing for pace of play if the speed is at least three miles per hour."
That is the fantasy course, where nobody loses a ball. Add realistic variability in shot times, green clearing and walking pace and the same model gives a different table. At a 12-minute interval, an average round of 298 minutes and a maximum of 324. At 10 minutes, 310 and 348. At 9 minutes, 324 and 362. At 8 minutes, 338 and 377.
Read that in the direction that matters. Twelve minutes looks extravagant on a tee sheet, and in this research it is the fastest of the four, by 40 minutes on the average round and 53 on the worst one. Squeezing the interval does not buy speed. It buys a queue, and the queue is paid for by every group after the third.
So why does nearly everyone squeeze it? The paper is blunt about that: "'Revenue management' and 'time to play management' compete against each other rather than complement each other. Most courses rationally maximize revenue by putting too many groups on the course at one time, and as a result create rather than manage pace of play problems." Working from a separate published dataset, the study finds a revenue-optimal interval of eight minutes for one course, then observes: "But that interval results in a six hour round!" Reaching four hours there needs about 12 minutes, which the study calculates reduces the number of groups who can finish in a day by about 17%.
Have the R&A's answer to that objection ready for the board. Faster rounds guarantee that later groups will finish, which makes later tee times sellable, and "very few facilities operate at maximum capacity, so stretching out the tee times is unlikely to have a significant impact on the number of players that will in fact play the course."
None of which gives you your number. Both sources point at the same measurement, and you can take it this month. Find the hole with the shortest cycle time, which is the interval between one group finishing it and the next, and do not start groups faster than that.
Can waving groups up on the par 3s add capacity?
It can, and the size of the gain has been published for over a decade. In Riccio's model a par 3 carries 6 groups an hour while par 4s and 5s carry 6.67, which is why the short holes are the bottleneck on most courses and why the opening hole is the wrong place to set your interval.
The study puts the gain from a call-up at par 3 capacity jumping "from 6 groups to 8.57 per hour, a 46% increase". It cannot be banked in full, because the par 4s and 5s promptly become the constraint instead. The research settles at a net figure: "by waving up, the capacity of the course goes from 6 to 6.67, a 10% increase."
Roughly one extra group an hour, for the cost of a sign and a briefing. The R&A's Appendix G guidance says a call-up belongs on holes where players wait for a green that a high proportion of them will not reach, meaning long par 3s, drivable par 4s and holes with a long approach. It also gives the honest caveat: call-up holes "may not necessarily reduce the time to play, they can reduce waiting time and the associated frustration." Given Riccio's finding on perception, reducing waiting is the half that decides whether people rebook.
GPS tracking and player self-management
The governing body's position here is about speed of response, not about hardware. §2.7f: "The key to effective pace management is ensuring that any pace of play problems are spotted quickly and acted upon promptly." The manual makes no technology recommendation of any kind, and it is worth being clear that it says nothing at all about tracking.
What follows is our view rather than anyone else's. A live position display is one practical way to meet that standard, because the alternative is a marshal covering 18 holes and hoping to be in the right place. Timing is the whole of it. A group nudged on the 4th can adjust and still finish on time, and the same group left alone until the 14th cannot.
The more interesting half is not the data the operations team gets. It is the data the golfers get. When a group can see the gap to the players ahead without a marshal appearing beside the cart, most of them close it themselves, without the resentment that a personal intervention creates.
One thing you will not find, and should not accept from anyone: evidence that position tracking pays for itself. Governing-body pace work covers policy and course rating, the academic literature is simulation work on intervals and shot times, and every payback figure in circulation traces back to a party that sells the hardware. Build the case from your own tee sheet instead, starting with the tee times you lose at the end of the day when the field runs late.
Starter and ranger workflows that actually work
Most clubs have a starter. Most have a ranger. Few have a system that connects the two.
The R&A is unambiguous about the second role: "One of the most effective ways of ensuring that golf is played at a good pace is to employ marshals that monitor pace of play (also known as course rangers) who are responsible for encouraging groups to play within the expected time and, importantly, helping them to enjoy their rounds as much as possible."
The starter sets the tone before any of that is needed. The manual describes the starter as generally the last person to speak to players before they begin, and pairs that with a finding most clubs would not guess: "Research shows that having two people make the same point can have a far greater influence than just one, and that verbal requests have more impact than written ones." The time par at check-in, then the same expectation from the starter on the tee, does more than either on its own.
The starter also holds a lever that costs almost nothing. §2.2b describes the empty starting interval, or starter's gap: at 10-minute intervals, leaving one slot empty after every tenth group creates a 10-minute break in play from the first tee every 90 minutes, which lets a delay built up earlier in the day clear itself rather than compound.
Then the ranger, where enforcement happens. Enforcement without data is nagging, and a ranger who can see which groups have dropped behind and which hole is generating the backup intervenes with precision instead of patrolling and hoping. The manual is direct about how that should sound: "Polite and friendly encouragement initially is more appropriate than stern warnings. Players can take offence at being told they need to quicken their pace, so marshals need to ensure that when they do make such requests it is entirely justified."
Justified means you can say why. "You are about three minutes behind the group ahead" is a fact a golfer can act on. "You are playing slowly" is an opinion they will argue with, and most of them genuinely do not know, because they are enjoying themselves and have lost track.
Slow-play penalty policies: members vs guests
Every club needs a written policy. Most do not have one, and the ones that do rarely apply it consistently.
The Rules give you the spine. Rule 5.6a provides that "A player must not unreasonably delay play, either when playing a hole or between two holes", with one penalty stroke for a first breach, the general penalty for a second and disqualification for a third. Rule 5.6b(3) is the route most clubs actually need: the Committee should adopt a Local Rule setting its own Pace of Play Policy. The manual notes that many club policies treat a first offence as having occurred only after an initial verbal warning.
The members-and-guests asymmetry is real, and the R&A publishes separate lists at §2.9. For visitors: being asked to leave the course, with or without a refund depending on what was agreed at booking; being told that future bookings will not be accepted; a report sent to their home club. For members: attendance at a session on improving their pace; suspension from the course for a period; being required to play at the end of the field in competitions for a specified time.
The reason for the split is not sentiment. The club's relationship with each party is different and so are the levers. Write both lists down and apply them evenly, because a policy enforced against visiting fourballs while member groups are waved through teaches the membership that the rule is about who you are rather than how you play.
The manual sets a gentler route alongside sanctions, at §2.10, and most clubs never try it: incentives for groups that finish inside the allotted time. A reduced green fee next round, a rebate scaled to how far under time the group came in, a drink at the bar, a ball from the shop.
Two survey findings should shape the tone of all of it. §2.1 reports that "players rarely cite golf management practices as a cause of slow play, but instead focus on the habits of their fellow players as being the root of the problem", so your membership will back enforcement in principle. And §4.5: "The main criticism levelled against slow players in The R&A's pace of play survey was that such players were not ready to play when it was their turn." Name that behaviour in your policy. Golfers already recognise it, and it costs nothing to fix.
Software dashboards that flag groups behind pace
A pace dashboard earns its place by doing three things. It shows the live position of every group. It compares each group against the time par for that hole at that time of day. It alerts the operations team when a group crosses a threshold you set rather than one a vendor set.
It should also show the gap between each group and the one in front, which is more diagnostic than round time. A group on the 14th at three hours might be exactly on pace or badly adrift, depending on when they went out and how far ahead the next group is.
The historical half matters as much as the live half, and Riccio's rule tells you what to look for in the archive: the hole with the lowest cycle time is your constraint, and it is usually a par 3 rather than the hole where the queue is visible from the clubhouse. Perhaps your seventh backs up because the green is too small for the volume of play. Perhaps the tenth, long and with trouble left, punishes higher handicaps. Once you know which, the fix is often a call-up or a tee change rather than another ranger.
Course design factors: par-3 backups and forward tees
Some pace problems are operational. Some are architectural. A course routed in the 1920s for walking players with caddies does not necessarily hold four-hour rounds for carted players with rental sets.
Par 3s are the usual bottleneck, and the model explains why: their capacity is lower than the par 4s and 5s around them, so a queue forms there first even when nobody is playing badly. The fixes are a call-up, a forward tee that lets shorter hitters carry the trouble, or signage telling players to play as soon as the group ahead has cleared the green rather than waiting for them to reach the next tee.
Forward tees remain the most underused pace tool in golf, and the R&A's finding on them is about naming rather than architecture. In many parts of the world red tees are associated with ladies golf and men are reluctant to use them, so the manual reports that clubs which drop gendered tee names in favour of forward, middle and back find that "men are more likely to choose to play from the forward tees". Naming a set by the yardage it plays, so that a 6,400-yard set becomes the "64 course", works the same way. One obligation comes with it: provide course ratings from every set of tees, for men and for women, or you have created a handicapping problem while solving a pace one.
The starter's line does the rest, and it costs nothing. "Would you like to play the forward tees today? You will enjoy it more and you will finish sooner."
Communication tools: text alerts and marshal radios
The communication stack has three layers, and clubs usually build the middle one and stop.
Players need to know what is expected before they are on the course. §2.8 sets out the forms this takes: education for new members and juniors, a realistic expectation adjusted for group size and weather, guidance on which tees suit which player, and clear rules about how long a stop at the halfway house should be. It also records something useful at §2.8h: clubs' own data shows visitors generally play slightly slower than members, which is expected given unfamiliarity with the course, and telling visitors that an allowance is being made while their responsibility remains sets a better tone than pretending otherwise.
Golfers need a way to learn they have fallen behind without being intercepted. A message that arrives quietly does what a marshal visit does, without the embarrassment in front of the group.
The operations layer still runs on radios, which is fine, as long as the traffic on them is driven by data. "Group on 12 is two minutes behind, can you check in with them" beats "anyone seen any slow groups out there" by the whole width of the problem.
Measurement methodology: round time vs gap to the group ahead
How you measure decides what you can fix. Total round time tells you that you have a problem. It does not tell you where it is.
The gap to the group ahead is the diagnostic. A group holding a steady gap is not your problem even if they play slowly, because they are absorbing nobody else's day. Your problem is the group that opened the gap, or the hole that compresses the field. Riccio's two findings make the distinction unavoidable: the slowest group sets the pace for everyone behind it, and variability in one group's pace creates waiting for everyone downstream.
Starting to measure requires no purchase. The manual is explicit that "collecting data need not be complicated or resource heavy. It can be as simple as taking note of the number of players in each group at the 1st tee and recording the time each group takes to play 18 holes", done by the starter or by someone in the shop, with a template in Appendix A. Two weeks of that will tell you more about your course than any benchmark will, and it is the baseline you need before evaluating anything that claims to improve it.
What the evidence does not settle
The two sources this article leans on are the best available, and they have limits worth stating.
Riccio's paper is a simulation. Its tables are output from a model of a modelled course, run under stated assumptions about walking speed, shot times and variability. They establish direction and mechanism with real authority. They are not measurements of your course, and the specific minute counts would shift on a different routing.
The R&A manual is guidance rather than research, except where it reports its own survey. Its sample pace policy in the appendix is a template with a placeholder for the committee to fill in, not a standard. And the willingness-to-pay figures are the R&A relaying work it credits to an outside firm, which we have not read at source.
Beyond those two, the field is thin. Nothing neutral measures what tracking hardware returns. If a payback number is quoted to you about pace technology, ask who published it and who sells the thing being measured, because so far the answer has always been the same party.
Building the pace management system
Assembled, the parts fit together in a defined order, and the order matters more than the parts.
Start with measurement, because it is free: two weeks of group sizes and round times off the first tee, plus the cycle time of your shortest hole. Set a time par from your own data and publish it at booking, on the card and on the course. Set the interval to the cycle time of the bottleneck rather than the opening hole. Add a call-up where a green is holding groups that cannot reach it. Brief the starter to reinforce the expectation and to offer the forward tees. Give the ranger position data so the intervention is specific and justified. Write the policy, with separate lists for members and guests, and apply it evenly. Then review the archive monthly for the hole that keeps appearing, because that is where a design or procedure change earns more than another member email will.
Software sits underneath all of that as plumbing, not as the plan. If you are evaluating it, ours included, bring your own two weeks of data into the room and make the system answer against it. Which hole is our bottleneck. Can you show gap to the group ahead rather than elapsed round time. Can the starter widen an interval mid-morning when the course is backed up and tighten it when things clear. Can the ranger see position without radioing the shop for it. A platform that cannot answer those with your own numbers on the screen is selling you a dashboard rather than a pace system, and you will know within ten minutes which one you are looking at.