It is customary to say that slow play is the bane of golf, it breaks the rhythm and can ruin your games. This is confirmed by a study carried out by the manufacturer of Arccos sensors now present on most clubs sold by major brands.
Thanks to the millions of strokes recorded each year in their database by the sensors placed at the top of the grip, Arccos was able to provide some interesting insights regarding playing time.
By correlating their data with the scores compiled in their app by practitioners, the leading American company in this innovative market has demonstrated with certainty the consequences of slow play on the score.
The study focuses on players with indexes ranging from 0 to 20 and demonstrates that the longer the games last, the more it has a very negative impact on performance.
For every additional half hour on the course, golfers concede an average of 0.4 to 0.7 strokes. For games whose duration approaches 5 hours, it takes 1.3 to 1.7 additional moves compared to a game of between 3 and 3.5 hours of play.
©Arccos Golf
The best players manage better
The data shows that higher handicappers fall victim more to slow play.
A player with an index greater than 15 loses an average of 1.7 moves when the duration of his game increases by 2 hours! While the player whose index is between 0 and 5 will only concede 1.3 hits.
The greatest increase in strokes per additional half hour is again for high indexes. When their game goes from lasting between 4 and 4.5 hours to longer than 4.5 hours, they lose 0.7 moves on average!
The data does show this trend that higher handicap golfers play worse with longer rounds, while players with a handicap of less than 5 are slightly better at coping with longer playing time.
