Amid the ‘will they, won’t they’ discussions regarding a prospective agreement between the PGA Tour and LIV Golf (to which the answer would appear to be ‘won’t), last month the PGA Tour commissioner, Jay Monahan, made an announcement regarding the pace of play in his tournaments. (I know; he took his time about it.) A new penalty system is now being tried out on the Korn Ferry Tour. The first offence of a ‘bad time’ will now result in a one-stroke penalty. Under the previous policy, a one-stroke penalty was not applied until a player was guilty of a second ‘bad time’. We will see how this goes, but perhaps more significant is the prospect of later this year the Tour introducing a slow-play name-and-shame list.
Certainly something needs to happen. At the recent Masters Tournament, rounds over the first two days were routinely taking almost six hours – that’s playing threeballs, of course, which are inevitably slower, but they should not be that glacial. We’re talking about the best golfers in the world taking about 72 shots each and taking about a cumulative 360 minutes to hit them. Granted a lot of those shots would be putts, and the treacherous greens at Augusta National were cut to a height of one-eighth of an inch, but much as we all love being on a golf course, a round of golf should not last that long. The schism in the professional game occasioned by the creation of LIV may be a factor behind the sharp drop-off in television audiences but the soporific slowness with which some players go about their business surely has to be a contributing factor, too.
Collin Morikawa is one eminent player to embrace the idea of more transparency when it comes to identifying the offenders. “I see no issues with it,” he said. “If you’re slow, you know you’re slow. I mean, if you don’t know then there is an issue. I think you just have to start stroking guys [he means penalising them shots; not doing what you might do to a cat] and giving guys actual penalties, whether it be strokes or FedEx Cup points. Monetary fines are useless [because] we make so much money.”
He’s right about that. For example, Rory McIlroy collected $4.2 million for winning the Masters. None of this matters now but in making the first of his four double-bogeys that week, a seven on the 15th on Thursday, McIlroy was delayed by a drop taken by Akshay Bhatia, his playing partner, and by having to wait for players to hit their tee shots on 16. “Those incidents slowed him down by almost three minutes from when it was his shot to play before he actually played it,” noted Paul McGinley. “That is a long time for Rory McIlroy, one of the quickest players in the game.”
He is correct in that assessment. But what about us, the spectators? We have to put up with the somnolent (non) pace of play – or else simply quit watching? – and, unlike Rory, we get no handsome financial recompense to make it worthwhile!
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com
