You wail, in lively letters to us, about pace of play. Without putting too fine a point on it, a few of you are approaching homicide over the television-trained duffers you play behind. This week you'll watch the Presidents Cup and wonder how it's possible to play a two-ball that takes longer than the law boards.

Which brings me to Indian cricket. Ancient, unchanging, out-of-step, cricket.

Did you catch the story in the Times yesterday about India's new compact, (3-hour instead of 5-days) version of cricket called Twenty20? Writer Somini Sengupta described the young Indian side:

Not only was the game different, but the team was unlike those past. This one was youthful, hip, dynamic and very...well, uncricket. Its members played fast and furious. They danced victoriously on the cricket pitch.....

Where gentlemen players once distinguished themselves in white trousers and knit vests, Twenty20 was accompanied by cheerleaders wearing what resembled sports bras. Restraint was out. Music was in.

This was no Play Cricket India promotion. This was "kamikaze cricket," someone called it, designed to revive a stuffy game.

Our problem is different. We're not stuffy. We're stuck. We've turned the game into a National Molasses- pouring contest. And we can't change.

Here's what I mean. This summer I played in a member-guest where flights of 8 played seven nine hole matches against one another. Two-and-half to three hours a nine.

Closer to home, our magazines, Golf World and Golf For Women on one side and Golf Digest on the other, play an annual Presidents Cup/Ryder Cup match. Most years it takes us six hours. Never less than five. Someone suggested the equivalent of kamikaze cricket: the alternate shot or foursomes format. Traditional. Quick. Still a good walk and still 18 holes. The response: Nothing doing. I want to play my own ball.

I know it's not true everywhere. We played quickly in a Cuscowilla member guest last weekend, where the competition never got in the way of the fun. But that's rare. An old editor friend said today that nine holes was our future: "Two hours, just the right amount of time." I agree. If we could play nine holes in two hours.

I'd love to think we can save the 18-hole round, too. Maybe it's time we took a lesson from that wild-and-crazy game, cricket.

--Bob Carney

(Photo: Alexander Joe/Agence France-Presse--Getty Images)

These greens are so fast I have to hold my putter over the ball and hit it with the shadow. Sam Snead

After the discussion of slow play here a few days ago—it is a topic that frequently ignites our readers—I came across this data from a poll we did of superintendents a few years back. "What factors contribute to slow play?" we asked the supers. Their responses:

Increased course traffic 33%
High rough, fast greens 26%
Decline in etiquette 23%
Reduction of monitoring
by course personnel 11%
Cell phone usage 3%
Increased tree growth 2%

And, we asked further, what course grooming techniques had they used to successfully reduce slow play? (The supers were to choose one):

Shortening of rough 46%
Widening of fairways 25%
Slowing of greens 14%
Faster/firmer fairways 7%
Shorter tees 5%

Then, about a year ago, we did a survey of average golfers on what they wanted most in a golf course. Essentially, the response was: Give us a course that is not difficult but well manicured.

Developers, with our ratings and rankings encouraging them, I'm afraid, have been driven to build what they call "country clubs for a day". Judging by these studies, what we really need are munies for a week, well-conditioned courses that you can afford to play more than once a week—afford in terms of money, ego, and, yes, time.

—Bob Carney

"By the time you get to your ball, if you don't know what to do with it, try another sport." Julius Boros, quoted in The Future of Golf, by Geoff Shackelford

It's the beginning of the season up here in Connecticut and opening day conversations at our club, down the street from where Julius Boros learned the game, had already turned to pace of play on Saturday. Thanks to a golf chairman who was willing to be unpopular for a while, we benefit from a good, almost brisk, pace most days. It's on your minds, too. A letter to the editor by reader in which he rued the loss of putting time when forced to play in four hours, brought this response from Arthur Willis of Houston:

Don Hill laments not being able to put out because he is being pushed to play a four hour round of golf. Putting is not what lengthens a round of golf. It is 3 players standing around watching the fourth player hit his shot. If each player would play ready golf, they would have no problem playing a 3:45-4:00 hr round, We do it on a regular basis.

Right on, Arthur. Playing "gallery" when you should be playing golf is a huge problem. Here are five other time-devouring habits that drive me batty:

1. Walking from cart to ball without a club or clubs in hand, assuring a second trip once careful assessment of lie and distance are completed.
2. Taking one's glove off and then, only when it's on'es turn to hit, slowly putting it back on again, tour-pro style.
3. Asking, "Are you away, or am I?" If it's that close, hit.
4. Not bringing all the wedges that you might need to a short shot around the green.
5. Faced with an open fairway, waiting to tee off while the player with the honor sits and marks scores. "Didymus, was that putt you picked up for a seven or an eight?"

No doubt some of these habits are borrowed from the tour, where the pace of play is now super slo-mo. (There's an idea. "Today's pace of play is sponsored by Turtle Wax....") As someone said, "If you were meant to act like a tour pro, there'd be a courtesy car in your driveway."

Love to hear from the rest of you on either your pet peeves or methods you've used to speed up play at your courses.

Bob Carney