[PHOTO: Cliff Hawkins]
At long last, some real pace-of-play policies are coming to professional golf. Just not the PGA Tour… yet.
Speaking from the TPC Sawgrass media centre early this morning (Australian time), tour commissioner Jay Monahan began with a lengthy opening statement that addressed everything from US president Donald Trump’s involvement in the PGA Tour–PIF negotiations to the tour’s “Fan Forward” initiative to perhaps the most intriguing topic of all – slow play. It’s a hot-button issue that was reheated in early February when tour veteran Charley Hoffman sent a memo to his fellow players imploring them to speed it up.Â
Of course, as many fans have argued over the years, the only way to truly get these guys to pick up the pace is to actually make it hurt for the players who are more glacial than others. Brooks Koepka’s famous “start ‘stroking’ guys” quote comes to mind. Other suggestions have ranged from implementing a shot clock to a “shame list” designed to embarrass the snails.Â
Well, good news, golf fans, it sounds like your voices are being heard.
“We’ve committed to addressing the speed of play,” Monahan said at the Players Championship. “To that end, I’m excited to formally announce these recommendations from our player-led speed-of-play working group. We will begin publishing speed-of-play-related statistics later this season.”
As for penalties, those are coming, too.
“We will also begin testing a new speed-of-play policy on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas,” he added. “Beginning next month, on April 14th specifically, which will include assessing penalty strokes for slow play.”
The first time this policy will be enforced will be at the LECOM Suncoast Classic at Lakewood National Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch, Florida. The previous policy was a four-step process: first came a warning, then a timing, then a “freebie” if another bad time was incurred, and then, finally, a one-stroke penalty. The new policy will remove the “freebie” step, per Gary Young, senior vice-president of rules and competitions. The new process will be warning, timing, one-stroke penalty.Â
As for when these policies may come to the PGA Tour, Monahan did not speak about that. For now, the tour is simply testing them out on its other sanctioned tours.
“It’s easy to identify the problem,” Monahan said. “It’s a little bit harder to find the solution, just given the depth and breadth of everything that goes into pace of play. But we are committed to finding the right solutions and making progress on that front.”
