I am a senior golfer who is semi-retired and owns a small business. My business is conducted by appointment only, so I have control over my schedule. I have given up on playing on the weekends, it is painfully slow. The only time I can play a round in under 4.5 hours is before 10 am on Saturday. Forget Sunday - 5-6 hours. Unfortunately those Saturday early tee times are usually booked by course regulars and are rarely available.
I usually play one morning (Tuesday or Wednesday) and on Friday afternoons around 1 pm. My friends and I know the courses we can play in about 4 hours and we frequent those courses. Occasionally we will play a course we know will be slow but try to go at a time when we have the best chance of not being held up. Most courses book tee times 8 minutes apart which is OK unless some group plays so slow that they get 2 or more holes behind. The courses we prefer will keep a group like that moving or make them skip a hole to catch up. I would prefer 10 minutes between tee times, generally those courses cost a lot more.
I am not sure what can be done to speed up pace of play on courses that don't care about getting people to play a 4 hour round. One suggestion is to require courses to report the time of their average round during the week and on weekends so that golfers will know going in what they are in for if they book a tee time. It might make more courses pay more attention to pace of play and allocate resources (marshal's) to maintain a good pace. Course design also plays a part and I see many courses in our area taking steps to increase pace of play by converting sand bunkers to grass bunkers, providing drop areas on par 3's with water fronting the green and generally using common sense allow golfers to play by the rules but not slow the course down. The new shorter lost ball time and the stroke and distance change should help.
