How to Speed up Your Golf Rounds

When the sun is shining, golfers flock to golf courses. As such, queues can then emerge at the tees. If that happens during your round, you should maintain a good pace on a busy golf course to ensure that play is not held up. Here are a few suggestions.

Do not Linger on the Green

When you have holed the ball, do not linger on the green. Do not remain on the green to fill out your scorecards and put clubs back in the bag. You should put the flag back in the hole as soon as possible, and then vacate the green. Fill out the scorecard and put your club back in bag when you're at the next tee.

Searching for Balls

You must not spend any longer than five minutes searching for a ball. That's stated within the R&A book. If you can't find your ball after five minutes, drop another one to resume play. Don't search the ball at all if it lands somewhere where you probably won't be able to find it in five minutes.

Play Provisional Balls

If your tee shot might have landed the ball somewhere where you might not find it, you should play a provisional ball. A provisional ball is a second shot from off the tee. If you cannot find your original ball, you can then resume play from the position the second ball landed at. This will save you having to go back to the tee after searching for a ball. If you do find your original ball, don't include the provisional shot on your scorecard.

Don't Always Play to the Rulebook

If you're not playing in a golf tournament, don't always stick to the rulebook. For example, if your ball landed in an unplayable like, you would have to drop it two club heads back from the point it landed. However, if you drop the ball in a more convenient location, on a better lie, than two club heads back your next shot will probably come off better. That could save quite a bit of time. 

Those suggestions should speed your golf rounds up a little bit. If you're still holding up play, you might as well stand aside for the group behind to play through.

The Quarry at La Quinta Golf Course Video

The Quarry at La Quinta is a golf course built on the remnants of a gravel quarry. It is set alongside the Santa Rosa Mountains, and includes plenty of untrimmed palm trees. The 7,083-yard golf course is ranked among the greatest in the USA. Check out the Quarry at La Quinta Golf Course below:

Vice Golf Balls

Vice Golf have launched a new range of golf balls. They are the Vice Tour, Vice Drive and Vice Pro series of golf balls. These are superbly packaged golf balls with great logos, and each ball also includes a putting line on it.

For a low compression golf ball you should check out Vice Drive. This ball has been primarily designed to optimize distance. Consequently, it's a two-piece golf ball with long run/roll.

The Vice Tour is a 3-piece golf ball. It provides good distance off the tee as well as decent spin. Overall, it is a mid-range golf ball. Check out the Vice Tour video below.

The Vice Pro and Pro Neon are the same golf balls, except one is white and the other is yellow. They are three-piece, urethane covered golf balls that have great durability. The video below provides some further details about the ball.

The new Vice golf balls series shows some innovation. You can find further details at this website: http://www.vicegolf.com/uk/?forceLang.

Golf Club Selection for Chip Shots

Chips shots can be very useful shots in or around the green, or even to lay the ball up onto a better lie. Likewise, they are flexible enough not necessarily to be limited to the use of one or two clubs.

The 7-iron is a golf club that is often used for chipping. This is perhaps unsurprising, for it strikes a good balance of possessing a reasonable amount of loft; while also giving reasonable ball roll. As such, it might be ideal for for a standard chip shot onto the green from 20-30 yards.

At any rate, however, the 7-iron will not always be ideal to use. Let us say you find yourself more like 10-15 yards within the flag, or even less, without being on the green itself. Then you might find yourself parked up close to the collar but not quite on it. Consequently, a 7-iron would not be a suitable club to chip with here.

Wedge clubs, like the sand wedge, are best to use under such circumstances. They have greater loft and minimize roll to ensure the ball will not go so far and will stop on the green fairly swiftly. At any rate, you could even just try putting the ball onto the green if the fairway is reasonably smooth. A long putt from 10-15 yards out will travel along the ground throughout, and could be just as effective.

To chip the ball onto a green from slightly longer distance, consider using a longer iron. Let us say you are about 30-35 yards from the flag. A 6-iron will provide a good deal more roll towards the flag stick than a pitching wedge, and the chip will have less loft and greater accuracy. Ultimately, that roll of the ball is what will give the distance. Remember that you can probably chip a ball anywhere between 50 -70  yards on a golf course.

Chipping out of longer grass will require shorter club selection. This is because you will need their loft to be able to chip through the longer grass. As such, the wedges can be the most effective clubs to use when in longer grass around the fairways and greens. A 9-iron might also give you enough loft to make a chip out of the rough.

A wet or dry golf course might also require different use of clubs. On wet grass the ball will not roll as far, and so you might want to pick a slightly lower iron than usual. In dryer conditions it will roll further, and so moving up to a higher iron will reduce that.

Ultimately, there is some flexibility for club selection with the chip shot. Do not to limit yourself to just one or two clubs for chip shots, and take distance and conditions into account when on the course.

Oak Hill (East) Golf Course Video

Oak Hill's East is ranked among the top golf courses in the USA. This is a golf course that expands 7,145 yards. It has hosted myriad golf championships such as the U.S. Open, PGA Championship and Ryder Cup. This video gives you an overview of the golf course's 18 holes.