It’s not that hard to respect the clock

Ask golfers – amateur and professional – what their pet hate is on the golf course, and the majority of them will probably come back and tell you slow play gets their blood boiling.

Heck, even the slow players in your circle of friends will probably badmouth slow players, without realising they are the guilty party. A round that takes over five hours is unacceptable. Keeping up with the fourball in front of you is not that difficult even when you are battling with your own game. Simply put: you will remedy the problem by playing ready golf and picking up the ball when you are out of the hole.

With that in mind it was interesting to see a dozen professional golfers trying to break the record for the “fastest hole of golf by a team of four” ahead of the Turkish Airlines Open last week.

Four-man teams from France, England and South Africa tackled the 503-yard par-five 15th hole at the Regnum Carya Golf and Spa Resort under floodlights in fast forward mode.

Their mission: to beat the Guinness World Record of 34.87 seconds set by France’s Raphael Jacquelin, Alexander Levy, Gregory Havret and Romain Wattel last year.

The attempt is pretty simple. One players drives the ball, with the second waiting for it on the fairway. He hits his approach towards the green where the other two players attempt to put the ball in the hole as quickly as possible. Straight-forward on paper, but I suppose easier said than done. Cue the drum roll ... First up a returning Levy and Wattel hook up with Matthieu Pavon and Mike Lorenzo-Vera to make up Team France. However, their bid to beat their record flops after Pavon misses a tricky six-footer for birdie and Wattel completes the par with his driver after catching a lift on a golf cart following his drive off the tee box.

Next up, South Africa. Brandon Stone hits a thumping drive down the middle of the fairway, Haydn Porteous delivers a handy approach shot that just avoids the water on the left and finds the fringe, where George Coetzee shows a lovely touch with a lengthy putt that is tapped in by Dylan Frittelli for birdie. There is fist pumping, cheering and hugging all round. Their time is 32.9 seconds and they are the new world record holders. But wait, there’s more ... England are up. Tyrell Hatton hits a screaming drive to a waiting Matthew Fitzpatrick on the fairway. He is deadly with his iron as he finds the fairway just short of the green. Veteran Ian Poulter’s putt narrowly misses on the right of the hole, from where world No 119 Matthew Southgate makes a clutch putt for birdie. England’s time ... 32.7 seconds to establish a new record.

It’s a wonderful video, full of fun from some talented golfers.

So what’s this got to do with anything, you ask? No one expects you or your fourball to finish a hole in record time. No one expects you to rush. But if a hole can be played in less than a minute, as shown by these professionals – albeit through alternate shots and with players stationed along the hole – then every effort should be made to finish a round in just over four hours.

Who knows, you might even have fun in the process.