Imaginary Mulligans

replaying after a poor shot or a good shot is an excelent after shot routine. nevertheless it's not necessary to do it from the same place you played (in your exemple the tee).

If it's once in a blue moon, and he's otherwise keeping up, I don't think it would bother me.  If it's an every other stroke occurrence and I'm waiting on him a lot, I could see it getting old in a hurry......!

I agree

Yeah, and one attempt is enough, not 2 or 3 or more.  In reality, he should leave the teeing ground to the next player and make his replays someplace out of the way.

These are the little things which when added together can turn a 4 hour round into a 4½ or 5 hour round.

Have you ever said anything to him?  Next time you are up and he lingers on the tee politely ask him to work on his swing to the side as you would like the tee.  If he won't cooperate drop him from the group or find yourself another group.  Most people are unware of their habits and I find a large percentage have no problem with making a reasonable change.  Those that persist in their aggravating behavior get left behind.

Whacker - No problem with going back and replaying a swing. I don't do it often, but a friend of mine does.  When he does replay his swing, the group continues ahead to their next shot and he quickly catches up, AND, he is a fast player so there is little, if no, delay with the group. I know that he is just trying to mentally and physically correct his last swing. It is good therapy, and it does help his round.

But, I know you pain when it comes to slow play. If I was your playing partner, that is where I would have the problem. We used to have a friend (deceased) who could be notoriously slow when he played. The group valued his friendship more than worrying about his annoying habit of slow play.  What did we do?  In the nicest way possible, we would tell Austin that he needed to "pick it up," and then we would play out of order and hit our shots while he was diddling around. Eventually, he got the message and became a faster golfer, even though he never broke 100.

Tell him to knock it off, if he wants to work on his swing tell him to take it to the range. I'm sick and tired of playing 5, up to 6 hour rounds of golf. I also get pissed at people who take forever to putt out, especially when they are putting for 10+.

ha ha . .this guy takes forever to putt, too.  Like sometimes he'll walk all the way down to the apron . . .view the putt . .then walk all the way off the back of the green. . view the putt . .and then line up the ball, take practice strokes, back away, etc, etc.

I guarantee you that he'd never be a part of my group playing like that.  We'd give him an earful and he'd have the choice of shaping up or finding someone else to play with.  You can laugh if you like, but I would tell him flat out to straighten up.  There is no excuse for that sort of behavior and the guys I play with wouldn't put up with it, period.

I realize it's not a very nice thing to say but if somebody is playing a friendly round with me, and not in stroke play for money, or in a tournament, and they are putting for a 10 more than once I'm not playing with them anymore anyway. More than three over on a hole and it's time to put the ball in your pocket and move on. (Maybe to the practice area).

Let's face it, a large part of the issue is that the rest of us don't deal with the problem.  If your golf buddy is as slow as indicated, there are a lot of people playing behind him that are suffering, too.  The group owes it to the golfing world to figuratively slap some sense into this friend or leave him at home.  Many of us are too nice to these laggards and I include myself in this indictment.  We have to stop worrying about hurting someone's feelings and politely remind the sloths among us to maintain pace.  We have to stop hustling and taking short cuts in our own game in order to make up the time lost waiting for Waldo to hit.

Studies have shown that slow players are typically unaware that they are slow.  A large part of that disconnect is that the playing partners enable the tortise to creep through a round by playing their own game at a faster pace.  Further, the partners never tell the tortise that he (or she) is slow.

As Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."  Let's all start taking some responsibility to assist slow players to become more aware of their problem and how to fix it.

Slow players are my pet hate, fair enough if you are going to take time to line up your shot, but after that GET ON WITH IT.. Slow players ruin my life.

Seems to be me that this would only ever be an issue on the tee box, so when he does it on the tee box just tell him to move the 'eff over.

I feel your pain, I've got a acquaintance that is a pain on the golf course.  He pulls the same thing, over and over, and honestly it slows our group up as we have to wait for him to "play" all his shots and I agree, it's really annoying.  What adds to all of this, his pre-shot routine is to get all lined up, just for a couple of practice swings, then repeat the process for a real swing, and a third time for his after shot swings.  He is by far the slowest player I've ever played with, and quite honestly, I don't play golf with him anymore.