19TH HOLE: NEWS & VIEWS.
Slow play is out of hand, causing rifts between players, turning o fans and threatening the future of the game itself.
The recent BMW PGA Championship saw the dawn of a new era on the European Tour. The Tour’s flagship event was the first trial of a new pace-of-play initiative, designed to tackle the worsening problem of slow play that is angering fans and players alike, posing the greatest threat to golf’s wellbeing.
Under the new system, referees will have access to precise times for each group, while displays on each tee will show players their position in relation to the group in front. The initiative was rolled out in full at the start of the new European Tour season in November, including reduced time allowances to play a shot when on the clock and increased fines for players who regularly take too long.
“The time was right to take these additional steps,” said European Tour chief executive Keith Pelley. “I believe the plan will bring about meaningful change that will make golf even more enjoyable for the players and fans.”
Tackling slow play to make golf more enjoyable for fans is imperative. Without fans, there is no professional golf. And not many people, in a hectic world with a myriad of distractions and time pressures, want to watch Bryson DeChambeau take two-and-a-half minutes to line up an eight-foot putt (and then miss). The age of social media makes it easy to see how much slow play is a turn-off for fans. The snail-like routines of DeChambeau, JB Holmes, Kevin Na and Keegan Bradley have attracted attention for all the wrong reasons this season. And it’s not just fans who have had enough. Faster players, like Brooks Koepka and Rory McIlroy, think stronger action from the PGA and European Tour is long overdue.
“Everybody’s going to get bored,” Koepka said. “I just don’t understand how it takes a minute and 20 seconds to hit a golf ball. It’s not that hard. Guys are so slow, it’s kind of embarrassing. I just don’t get why you enforce some things and don’t enforce others.”
The World No.1 even admits he has deliberately taken unnecessary toilet breaks to ensure his group gets put on the clock in order to force his playing partners to up the pace.
“I think guys who are slow get too many chances before they are penalised,” McIlroy said. “It should be a warning and then a shot. That will stamp it out right away. I don’t understand why we can’t just implement that. We are not children who need to be told five or six times what to do. You’re on the clock. ‘Okay,
I know if I play slowly here, I’m going to get penalised.’ That’s the way forward.”
Both Tours issue fines to repeat offenders, but the amounts involved – a few thousand euros or dollars, at most – are meaningless given the prize money on the line.
“I don’t understand what the big hoopla is all about,” said JB Holmes after being criticised for taking more than four minutes to hit a shot on the 72nd hole of the Farmers Insurance Open, leaving playing partner Alex Noren, who had a genuine chance to win the tournament, stewing on the other side of the fairway. “I was
“IT SHOULD BE A WARNING AND THEN A SHOT. THAT WILL STAMP IT OUT RIGHT AWAY. THAT’S THE WAY FORWARD.”
just trying to give myself the best chance to win the tournament.”
The views of Holmes and other serial offenders prove that the steps being taken are insufficient. As McIlroy says, the only way to actually make players play faster is the introduction of shot penalties for offenders, something both Tours seem reluctant to introduce.
“I hate slow play as much as the next guy, but I can’t agree with the idea of hitting players with penalty strokes,” says the PGA Tour’s Vice President of Rules and Competitions, Slugger
White. “Maybe it’s because I was a player once, but I envision these horrible, trickle-down effects. Say there’s a player who barely squeezes into the top 125 of the final FedExCup points standings because he made a couple of thousand dollars more at a tournament than the player right behind him on the list. Imagine if he’d been hit with a one-stroke penalty at a key moment because he was two seconds over his time. Say the penalty cost him $5,000. Suddenly he’s so far down the FedExCup point list he doesn’t have a place to play the following year, which in turn might mean his kid can’t go to college, or he can’t put a down payment on that decent house. Or worse. Basically, it means you’ve drastically affected the guy’s life with the click of a stopwatch. I’m all for looking at fine structures, maybe increasing them. But determining his fate with a stopwatch is a little harsh.”
This ‘won’t somebody think of the children?’ sentiment pulls on the heartstrings, but holds no weight. Competitive sport will always create winners and losers, often by the finest margin. A player missing a short putt by a millimetre and consequently losing his card is “a little harsh” – does that mean we should put a hand on his shoulder and let him have another go? Matthew Southgate’s life was “drastically affected” when a leaf blew across the green and hit his ball, costing him a PGA Tour card. Them’s the breaks.
The fact is, slow play is already affecting livelihoods. Both Tours have been forced to reduce the number of players in the field to ease congestion as a result of ever-lengthening rounds. European Tour fields will be reduced from 156 to 144 this season, while the number of players making the cut on the PGA Tour will drop from 70 to 65, making it harder for players to make money week-to-week. Weekend payouts will be larger, with the prize fund divided among fewer competitors, another case of the rich getting richer while things get harder for those battling to make a living.
“We are currently reviewing this aspect of pace of play and asking ourselves, ‘Is there a better way to do it?’” said Tyler Dennis, the PGA Tour’s chief of operations.
There is a better way. It is shot penalties for those who continue to refuse to play by the rules. It’s about time both Tours took their responsibilities seriously and administered them. It’s the only way the situation will change.
“We know that players all over the world are watching the best players in the world and they mimic their actions,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. And he’s right. Tackle slow play at the top and let that “trickle down” to the amateur level, for the good of the game.
New Zealander CAMPBELL RAWSON won the Victorian PGA Championship at RACV Cape Schanck Resort, defeating Olympian Marcus Fraser by one stroke to record his maiden title on the PGA Tour of Australasia. It was the 31-year-old’s first PGA Tour of Australasia win.
The USGA and R&A announced the World Handicap System will launch in January, 2020. Australia will be one of the first countries to immediately implement the new system.
West Australian MIN WOO LEE mistakenly believed he had earnt enough Race to Dubai points to automatically receive his full European Tour playing card for 2020. Instead, he finished two spots outside of the top-115 players who automatically receive cards.
CHRISTINA KIM received an LPGA Tour card for 2020 via the LPGA Q-Series at Pinehurst – but she raised some eyebrows in the process. The American spoke up after the sixth round to inform her playing partners they had broken
Rule 10-2 between them as Kendall Dye asked Dewi Weber’s caddie what club she had used. Without naming anybody, Kim later implored players to know the Rules via Twitter and received mixed reactions.
Evergreen PETER SENIOR came from behind to win his first Australian PGA Seniors Championship defeating Peter O’Malley and Peter Fowler by one shot at Richmond Golf Club in
New South Wales.
It was déjà vu for MINJEE LEE at the Swinging Skirts event in Taiwan, finishing runner-up to Nelly Korda for the second year running. The West Australian lost to the American in extra holes alongside Germany’s Caroline Masson.
World No.2 RORY MCILROY won his third World Golf Championships title at the WGC-HSBC Champions in China, defeating defending champion Xander Schauffele on the first hole of a playoff.