just to clarify, the 3 minute shot would be multiplied by par. Therefore, par 3, 9 mins. Par 4, 12. Par 5, 15 minutes. Or have a 60 second shot clock on each shot for every player on TV. It's getting more and more difficult to watch golf. 5 1/2 to 6 hour rounds, slow play, are killing the greatest game ever invented. It all starts with the pros. But I highly doubt anything will ever be done.

So 3 minutes includes travel time to your ball so 3 minutes between short putts is the same as 3 minutes to walk down the fairway to your drive to hit your second shot. Doesn't sound like a good model to me. Let's just get to our next shot, quickly pull a club, and hit it. Keep up with the group in front and don't hold up anyone behind you. Play "ready golf" when playing with others. I see so much wasted time where people in front of me will not even make a club selection until someone else has played their shot. Then they take 10 practice swings and top the ball 20 yards. I don't see a shot clock rule changing that.

I agree with Dale V. The pros play a different game for more money than us.

With respect, somebody has too much time on their hands.....I think 12 seconds is plenty of time to hit the ball.....

Thats’s true but they also have caddies, yardage books, green slope charts, played practice rounds, etc. they have more info and they still are slow. I love golf but sometimes the pros are painfully slow. Not all, but some.

Dale V has it exactly right! Keep up, ready golf, and don't hold up faster players! On the pro level they can do what ever they want as it is their money and they will police themselves (hopefully).

If it was three minutes once they arrive at their ball, that would be excruciating. PGA needs to enforce their current rules to start.

I’m not sure if this is the right method to speed up tour play. I agree that the slow pace is killing my enjoyment of the tour. I would agree with giving this a try, improve where necessary and keep the game enjoyable. Something needs to be done. Watching a caddie go through the yardages at length is killing the game. Play READY GOLF!

Ready Golf! I think it should be mandatory. Also it drives me crazy when people take over 4 practice swings. If you are trying to repeat a certain movement in the swing, 3 should be enough. Just my opinion.

Brandon and myself went out this past Friday, tee'd off around 5 and were behind a foursome. We got to the first green and finished up as we were driving to the second hole, one person hit their tee shot and there was still another person to hit his. We decided to skip 2 (par 3) and jump ahead. We saw a single on the box and he just hit his tee shot. It looked like he striped it down the middle so we asked him if he wouldn't mind pairing up. He said yes and that he was learning. He took at least a minute or more to hit each shot, we never saw the group in front of us and we were not able to finish. The front 9 (after we played 1 and skipped 2) took about 3 hours. We played yesterday with a group in front of us and we played 2 balls each or hit multiple shots to practice and not wait much and we finished in less than 4 hours. So 3 minutes to hit a shot...totally unreasonable.

As a Marshal on the Champions Tour over the weekend. While lining up the putts could be excruciating, with rate exception, all 3 in the group would be off the tee on par 4s and 5s in less than 2 minutes. Approach shots/tee shots on par 3s took more time, but still less than a minute after checking distances. Every now and again, that would be stretched by club selection. Rangefinders w/o elevation would so speed up the pro game. Especially when the nearest distance cover was on the other side of the fairway. Other than tradition, I'm not sure why a rangefinder would harm the game.

I agree with the shot clock ideas, and have for a long time. Seems simple.

If the pros had a shot clock that started when it was their turn to hit, I believe that might solve the problem of the excruciatingly long rounds on Tour. Treat everyone the same. You get a predetermined amount of time to play your shot. A REASONABLE amount of time. Do whatever you want during that time. Take 12 practice swings if that's your thing. But when the time runs out, if the ball is still at your feet, you get a one-stroke penalty. This way, an innocent playing partner does not get docked because he is unfortunate enough to be paired with a J.B. Holmes-type. Everyone gets the same amount of time.

With today's technology, this would be very easy to implement and police, especially on Tour. Just like bad bounces in golf, sometimes you get bad lies that take some analyzing, which might require extra time to think through. Too bad, deal with it. And deal with it fast. Everyone gets the same time. It becomes part of the challenge. If you can't manage that time well, that is your problem and only you will pay. Just as course management is a major factor in scoring, so too would be time-management. It becomes just another part of your overall game. Down the road it would become another aspect of learning the game. It would trickle down to recreational golf and the next thing you know, golf may be quite enjoyable on a busy Saturday morning, knowing you will not be wasting an entire day on the golf course. (Not there is anything wrong with being on a golf course all day---as long as you are playing 36!)

The PGA Tour can't regulate slow play with the rules they have now. When was the last time that you saw a slow play penalty given to a player? All the things you see on TV drifts down to the average player. When I see a player at our club come up 2 feet short on a putt and then mark it, I want to SCREAM! As far as full shots go, get to your ball, get the yardage with your rangefinder, pull the club and go. This should not take more than 15 seconds. I personally am not a practice swinger on the course as I'm more concerned with aim and setup.