There is a particular kind of golfer who arrives at the first tee already three holes ahead in his mind. He is thinking of the turn, of the card, of the drink at the end. He plays the front nine as a formality to be dispatched, and by the time he has settled it is usually the fourteenth, and by then the light is going.
We would gently suggest another way. The opening holes at Greensward are not an overture to the round — they are the round, as much as any that follow. The dew is still on the first fairway. The sea is louder than it will be at noon. There is no one behind you, because at this club there rarely is.
To hurry the front nine is to arrive at the tenth having missed the morning entirely.
The unhurried tee
A slow start is not a slow game. It is simply the refusal to treat the first hour as a warm-up for the second. Walk to your ball. Look at the line twice. Talk to whoever is with you, or say nothing at all, which is often the better company. The score will take care of itself, or it won't, and either way you will have been outside on a good stretch of ground for the length of a morning.
Our oldest members play the front nine more slowly than anyone, and win most of the medals. We do not think this is a coincidence.
— The Secretary