Charge by the hour

Brandon Tucker, staff writer at WorldGolf.com suggests, tongue-in-cheek, that golf courses should charge by the stroke.  He makes a lot of sense but recognizes the real problem of enforcement.  After writhing through Sean O'Hair's excruciatingly slow pace of play and being stick behind a foursome that was clearly clueless about pace of play (why was the same guy always looking for his tee shot (from the blues no less) in the gorse about 50 yds off the tee box hole after hole? Even the 11-year old in his group that Saturday morning was out-driving him. And what is an 11-year old doing in a Saturday morning group anyway?)  I say charge them by the hour.  All it takes is a swipe of their credit card and an easy hook-up to a digital timer.  My comment to Tucker's article follows:

Courses could charge by the hour (or the quarter hour) with the rate per fraction of hour increasing, a lot, after four hours, and going through the roof after 4 1/2 hours.  On the flip side courses could offer discounts to players who finish or promise to finish in less than 4 1/2 hours.  Sheesh, when I was a young caddy, good players routinely finished 18 holes, with a snack and a roll of the dice at the turn in four hours--walking, no yardage markers (except a few buses at 150 yds out, no GPS or range finders.  Caddies helped but those guys knew how to play along.  Heck even the giggle golfers in the afternoons finished in well under 5 hours.  Charge by the hour and offer incentives for fast play.