European Tour takes action on slow play

THE European Tour yesterday announced they are taking action to tackle the scourge of slow play — including a shortened process before players are handed a one-shot penalty. Financial penalties will also be increased for players who are regularly timed by officials during the season, while members will have to pass an online rules test and field sizes in fully sanctioned events will be reduced from 156 to 144 players when possible. Currently, a player being monitored would have to exceed the time allowance — 50 seconds if first to play, 40 seconds thereafter — before being timed and would then have to exceed the limit twice more in the same round to be given a one-shot penalty. Under the new regulations for next season, when players are out of position and being monitored or timed, a one-shot penalty will be incurred if they exceed the time limit twice. Players will have the option to request one time extension per round, giving an additional 40 seconds to hit a shot. Fines for consistently slow players, who are regularly timed, will increase. For example, a player who is timed 15 times in the 2020 season will have to pay £26,000 in fines as opposed to £9,000 this year. The slow play debate turned personal last week as Bryson DeChambeau came in for stinging criticism from fellow professionals after taking two minutes and 20 seconds to hit a putt during the second round of The Northern Trust at Liberty National. But the European Tour’s initiative was approved in July. ‘Pace of play is a hot topic and as players we were keen to explore ways to address these issues in various areas,’ tournament committee chairman David Howell said. A trial pace-of-play system will be conducted at the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth in September.