Woods has been known, on occasion, to say I have the patience of a saint. Of course, we've never played a round of golf together (The Links at Petco Park doesn't count for the purposes of this blog).
Slow play on the golf course (and the baseball diamond) is one of my biggest pet peeves in sports.
The issue seems to get a lot of attention two or three times every year on the PGA Tour, usually when a particularly slow player finds himself in contention at a big tournament. It happened again this past week at the Northern Trust, where the notoriously slow play of Bryson DeChambeau drew the ire of some fellow players, including 4-time major champion Brooks Koepka.
The duo eventually hashed things out in a face-to-face meeting over the weekend, but the issue of slow play remains unsolved.
When guys are playing for millions of dollars each week, it's reasonable to expect them to need an extra moment every now and then, to make sure they've got the right club or the right read on the green. Still, that should be the exception rather than the rule. PGA Tour players and weekend duffers at the local muni should all strive to operate under the same simple guiding principle: be ready to hit the ball when it's your turn, and then hit it. Don't chit-chat for two minutes and then realize everyone else has already played. No one needs two practice swings or ten waggles. Everyone understands that you sometimes need a couple of minutes to find your ball in the deep rough or the trees, but once you do, it's not rocket science (although DeChambeau makes it look that way sometimes).
If everyone played with that mentality, there'd be no need for PGA Tour players to worry about getting a penalty for slow play and no need for course marshals to be patrolling the local links in their carts.
By the way, these rules should apply to baseball, as well. Forget pitch clocks. The game is best when batters get into the box quickly, and then stay there until their at-bat is complete. Pitchers get the ball from the catcher and start looking in for their signs right away. Golf and baseball were always my two favorite sports to play. We don't need to change the rules; they've worked in baseball for a century and in golf for about half a millennium.
Just keep it moving, people.