ON YOUR MARKS . . . GET SET . . . GOLF? : DOES TEE TIME FEEL MORE LIKE TEA TIME? SPEED GOLFING GIVES THIS LEISURELY SPORT A JOLT.

Byline: Dave Shelburne Daily News Staff Writer

Like a lot of golfers, Jay Larson always felt the pace of the game was too slow.

Unlike most, he felt it was really too slow.

In January, the former Southern California teaching professional and world-class triathlete, who once finished 11th in the Hawaiian Ironman competition, founded the International Speed Golf Association.

``What we are doing is creating another format in golf for the fitness golfer,'' Larson said.

What he and others - nearly 500 in five test events last year - are doing is literally running from shot to shot with little apparent adverse effect on their scores.

Larson, 42, set the standard in May at the first official ISGA event, shooting 2-over-par 74 in just 40 minutes and 17 seconds at Rancho Bernardo Inn and Country Club.

Fifty-one speed golfers showed up for that competition in San Diego County. No player needed more than 80 minutes to finish. More than a third of the field broke 90 in a tournament that was completed by 10 a.m.

That's the point Larson hopes to emphasize with his fledgling organization - that good scores and satisfaction need not be bound to rounds lasting five hours or longer.

``We're not trying to be better than golf,'' Larson said. ``This is just another way for golfers to enjoy the game.''

It's a bit different - the flagstick is left in the cup on all putts - but for the most part speed golf is just like regular golf, except for getting players on and off the course a whole lot faster.

In ISGA competition, players are seeded by how fast they play. They tee off in three-minute increments, fastest players first. From there, it's regulation golf on the run.

A caddie, driving a cart, stays ahead of his golfer and yells out the yardage remaining to the green as the golfer sprints down the fairway after his shot. The golfer yells back which club he wants, grabs it from the caddie much like a baton in a relay, and the leapfrogging process continues nonstop throughout the round.

American-record miler Steve Scott has been credited with launching speed golf in 1979, when he played a round in less than 29 minutes in a successful attempt to break the old mark in the Guinness Book of World Records.

But no one has played as fast and as well in the same round as Larson, who got started in speed golf as a participant in the celebrity events spawned by Scott's inaugural run.

Larson set the world speed-golf record of 111.55 (the combination of strokes and elapsed time) by shooting even-par 72 in 39 minutes, 55 seconds during a round at Rancho Bernardo. Scott was 10 minutes faster than that during his Guinness record bid in '79 but shot 95 that day - an effort that would have given him a speed-golf score of more than 124.

``The scoring system (which assigns the same value to a stroke as a minute) favors golfers,'' said Larson, who thinks that aspect will attract more golfers than runners to ISGA events.

``Before, it felt more like a running event,'' Larson said. ``Now it feels like very fit golfers playing.''

If they don't all play as fast as Scott, most play fast enough to like the concept, according to ISGA president J.T. Visbol, Larson's boyhood friend who serves as speed golf's caretaker and publicist.

``We have players in our tournaments who have shot the lowest rounds they have ever shot,'' Visbol said.

That's not too surprising to Larson, who has long believed standing over a ball is a detriment rather than a plus. Visbol contends it's also not that much fun for those doing the watching and waiting.

``We've all seen the player who stands over the ball for like five minutes, fidgeting or waggling, and then hits the ball in the water,'' Visbol said. ``He could have done that in 30 seconds. I want that four and a half minutes of my life back.''

Larson and Visbol are hoping similar opinion will help increase the popularity of speed golf, which the ISGA officials say is already attracting interest in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Plans are under way for a U.S. national championship in late 1999 or early 2000, preceded by 10 regional qualifying tournaments. Beyond that, Visbol hopes to promote speed golf on a local basis nationwide if he can persuade some clubs to set aside early morning time once a week.

Any such accommodation would need to be an early morning, first-off-the-tee arrangement because of the pace of play. But Visbol thinks that brisk pace could be a successful argument in persuading courses to give speed golf a try - perhaps on a nine-hole basis played on back nines while regulation 18-hole play goes off on front nines.

``As a businessman, I don't often have five hours to devote to golf,'' Visbol said. ``But if could play nine holes in an hour, I would look to do more of that.''

More likely, players looking for opportunities to play speed golf will have to settle for the ISGA's tournaments.

Woodley Lakes Golf Course in Van Nuys is one of the busiest public courses in the Los Angeles area, with nearly 200,000 rounds played there since January of 1997. But Woodley head pro Larry Atlas speaks for many of his fellow pros at other daily fee courses when he says he doesn't know of any daylight hours not regularly scheduled for golf - on back or front nines.

Beyond that, Atlas addresses the subject many golfers consider important when they regard golf at any speed:

``You want to take time to smell the roses,'' he said.

Craig Kessler, president of the Public Links Golf Association of Southern California, likewise suspects speed golf will remain a tournament or specialty event rather than sharing time with regulation golf on crowded courses.

But he likes the message Larson and Visbol are promoting with their Carlsbad-based ISGA:

``If someone can play a round in one hour, it's realistic for all of us in foursomes to play in four and a half hours rather than six,'' Kessler said. ``And to the extent this focuses attention on that aspect, it's good for the game.''

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DRAWING: (Color) no caption (Running speed golfer)

Bradford Mar/Daily News