Brailsford's thinking about marginal gains can probably be applied to life generally, but it lends itself especially well to pace of play. The average round lasts forever, Tony and I are convinced, not because golfers "play slowly" but because they waste 10 seconds here and 20 seconds there, pointlessly, on every shot on every hole. This is an existential issue for golf, because one of the biggest beefs that new players have about the game (in addition to the fact that hitting a golf ball is demonstrably impossible) is that it takes all day. If the members of a foursome each trim just 30 seconds a hole—a target easily within the capabilities of almost any player—the total savings, over a single round, add up to more than half an hour.