USA TODAY International Edition
PGA Tour in no hurry to fix slow play issue
MEXICO CITY – With the golf tournament nearing its end, a camera zoomed in on two ducks on the bank behind the 18th green. Without hesitation, the announcer said the cute chicks were eggs when the last group of the day began play.
This came in the Kemper Open. In 1983.
Nearly 36 years later, slow play on the PGA Tour is still causing a slow burn. The latest episode in the voluminous record of glacial play on the Tour came Sunday, appropriately enough, near the notorious 405 in Los Angeles.
Slowly en route to winning his first PGA Tour title since 2015, J.B. Holmes held off Justin Thomas by one shot to win the Genesis Open in difficult conditions at Riviera Country Club.
It took the final group — Adam Scott was alongside Holmes and Thomas for the sluggish ride — 5 hours, 29 minutes to complete 18 holes.
Moving at a much faster pace were fans on social media, who took Holmes and the sport to task for being painfully slow. Members of the CBS broadcast team weighed in with biting remarks.
Holmes defended his pace of play, saying he “was never even close to being on the clock all week.”
Therein lies a major problem. Until officials start weighing in with slowplay penalties, this issue will still be an issue in 2055.
Just look to the past to predict the future. The final group in LA on Sunday fell more than a hole behind the next-to-last group, which should have led an official to at least warn the group of its slow-play infractions. No such warning came.
A year ago, Holmes became the latest poster child for slow play when he took more than 4 minutes to hit a shot on the final hole of the Farmers Insurance Open. He trailed by two and debated going for the green in two for a putt at eagle. He ultimately laid up.
Rare is the time a slow-play penalty is called. In the last 24 years, two have been called, one in 1995, one in 2017.
“It’s never going to change,” Scott said Sunday. “Until television and sponsors say no more money, slow play ain’t going to change.”
Holmes shouldn’t be singled out. In Dubai this year, Bryson DeChambeau took more than 90 seconds to hit a shot as his pre-shot calculations included consideration for air density. Kevin Na is to slow play what Jack Nicklaus is to majors. Jason Day sometimes takes all day to play. And there are many others.
While PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan has often said pace of play is an important issue, many players believe there should be some urgency behind the slow-play discussions at PGA Tour headquarters.
“We have a policy and we have rules that state what we should do,” Billy Horschel said as he prepped for this week’s World Golf Championships-Mexico Championship. “It’s an implementation problem because we don’t fully implement all the way. This is nothing against (the Tour), but you look at their comments, they don’t feel we have a pace of play issue. The issue comes down to guys not being ready when it’s their turn. That’s why we play slow. Until we punish players for not being ready to play, we’re never going to fix the issue.” And suffer as a result.
“The problem is leaking down to the amateur and college game,” he added. “When I play in pro-ams, it’s amazing to see how long some of these players take. We are such big influencers that whatever we do people are going to copy us.”
Wise words indeed. Similar to ones said in 1983.