How fast can PGA Tour players really play?

The PGA Tour recently announced several changes planned for the 2026 season mainly centered on smaller fields in events and fewer players with Tour cards. 

What went under the radar was the Tour was reimagining its Pace of Play policy, producing a series of announcements with financial penalties based on a structure of how long it takes to hit shots when timed.

This leads to really two questions:

Question #1: Why can’t the PGA Tour time every player for every shot for all four rounds?

Amazingly this has been tried … once.  The DP World Tour played an event in 2018 in Vienna, Austria, called The Shot Clock Masters.  A digital clock – like something you would see at a high school basketball game – followed each group around and a rules official would start a 40-second clock for every shot. (Players were granted two time-out extensions per round and, in certain cases, players were granted an extra ten seconds.) Rounds were more than a half-hour faster than other Tour events that season, and it was deemed a success (less than five penalty shots were handed out). Sadly, for a variety of reasons, most notably the staff required (qualified rules officials must be with the groups – not just volunteers) the tournament has not been repeated.

Question #2: Why is it so hard for players to play golf in four hours? 

Let’s explore that a bit, but TLDR, it is either not possible or very hard for even the most well-meaning players.

First, let’s look at the starting times for the first two rounds of the most recent PGA Tour event – the RSM Classic. I previously discussed how starting times are set up. The first tee time on each tee, on both courses, was 8:50 AM. If the first groups play the first nine holes in two hours that would mean they are arriving on the 10th tee at 10:50 AM.  Surely, they would be able to hit their tee shots and continue on, right? Well … no – players are still teeing off to start their rounds. That group instead would have to wait until the 11:02 AM group both teed off and cleared the fairway before they would hit – 20 or so minutes of inaction. At best, they would finish their rounds in four hours and twenty minutes.

Second, let’s do some math to see how long it really takes to play a round of golf. The PGA Tour, and the vast majority of organizing bodies, allow up to 40 seconds for a player to hit a shot, with an extra 10 seconds for the first player to hit (the idea being other players can discuss strategy while someone else is hitting).

Let’s use a hypothetical threesome with an 8:00 AM tee time playing a straight-away 420-yard hole with nothing but fairway, rough, bunkers and a green. “You may play away,” comes from the starter at the stroke of 8:00 AM. The first player takes 50 seconds, and the other two players take 40 seconds each. In addition, between the first and second and the second and third player, let’s add 10 seconds to allow for the previous player to watch his ball land, pick up his tee, react to the shot, acknowledge the gallery, etc. The threesome is walking off the tee at 8:02.40 AM and, assuming each hit their balls 300 yards and all finished side by side in the fairway. 

How fast three players and three caddies walk 300 yards is a bit of a guess so I will use how fast I walked my dog last night around my neighborhood: 22:45 minutes per mile. That works out to 3 minutes and 45 seconds, taking us to 8:06.25 AM.  Another 50 seconds for the first player and the other two players taking 40 seconds each, plus two sets of 10 seconds for the previous player’s shot to fully finish and the next player’s turn to start. This now takes us to 8:09.05 AM. Assuming all three players hit it on the green, add 1 minute and 25 seconds for the players to walk to the green and the caddies to fill the divot and set the bag down – taking us to 8:10.30 AM. 

That is 50 seconds + 10 seconds + 40 seconds + 10 seconds + 40 seconds for the birdie putts, now taking us to 8:13.10 AM.  Let’s say none of the three players make their birdie putts and all must mark their ball ahead of their par putts – they are not close enough to simply tap their par putts in, so repeating the times again means we finish the hole at 8:15.50 AM.  But … there is 100 yards or so to walk from green to the second tee, adding one minute and fifteen seconds. We are now standing on the second tee, ready to start the whole process again at 8:17.05 AM.

Here are the totals: Starting at 8:00 AM and playing eighteen 420-yard par 4’s without any obstacles and walking between the play of the holes, the players put the flag in the last green at 1:05 PM – a total of 5 hours and 5 minutes.

Of course, there are numerous variables I am skimming over: not every shot requires 40 seconds, not every hole is the same (of course), birdies are made (one shot less), bogeys are made (one more shot), lost balls (3-minute search + walk back), tap in pars (takes only a few seconds), calling for and waiting for a rules official, longer and shorter walks between holes, walking around obstacles, and so on.

And if you are wondering, if players take a golf cart, they save 1 hour and 36 minutes. That converts to putting the flag in the 18th green at 11:29 AM, making the round just less than 3 and a half hours.

If we want to move players around the course, maybe a golf cart is a possibility: the vast majority of non-Tour events use golf carts, including the Senior PGA Professional National Championship.

I plan on discussing in a future article golf course setup and how tournament committees can influence pace of play. 

In the meantime, we can agree players can certainly try to play faster, but three players and three caddies walking is naturally going to take a long time.