Why is The PGA Tour Dithering Over Slow Play Solutions

Oh, for goodness sake. I despair, I truly do. We all know that slow play is the curse of modern professional golf. The players know it, the PGA Tour knows it and the fans know it.

In his so-called annual state of the union address to the world’s media on the eve of The Players Championship, Jay Monahan, the tour’s commissioner, admitted it and announced measures to tackle it.

That’s the good news. But, of course, there is bad news. 

I think it is safe to say that all of us believe that the only way to address this issue is by imposing proper penalties. We all know that financial penalties do not work because of the vast sums of money now on offer. The only thing that is going to work is to impose one- and two-stroke penalties and even disqualification for persistent defenders.

So what is Monahan’s radical solution?

He is allowing the use of range-finders at tournaments between The Masters and the US PGA to see if that improves times. It won’t make a jot of difference in my opinion. Today’s top pros already know exactly how far they are from the flag. Range-finders will simply confirm what they already know.

Monahan said: "We have committed to addressing the speed of play. We will begin publishing speed-of-play statistics later this season."

He also announced that from April 14 testing will begin on the PGA Tour’s feeder circuits to impose stroke penalties on the slowest players. And that, right there, is the nub of the problem.

Monahan knows that penalty strokes are the only solution. He must also surely know that he does not need to test it on the feeder tours. It is almost as if the PGA Tour is frightened of its own players and how they are going to react if threatened with proper penalties. It is time to bite the bullet.

I believe that Monahan thinks that the distant threat of penalties will be enough. He is wrong.

He said: "We are listening to our fans and we are responding and clearly this is something where they would like to see improvement."

Jay, you are 100% correct. But we as golf fans want to see an improvement immediately. We do not want to wait until you have tested it on the Korn Ferry Tour first.

He went on: "I think there is a real commitment from players across the boards to make certain that we are doing everything that we possibly can to improve and there steps are just a start."

The LPGA Tour also knew it had a problem, with rounds routinely running to five hours and 30 minutes. And it has taken proper action.

At the start of the year the LPGA Tour's policy regarding slow play stated that "a player in a group which is out of position may be penalised for unreasonable delay if: a. the player takes more than 60 seconds to play one shot, including putts, and/or b. the players exceeds the maximum allotted amount of time for the total strokes timed on a given hole by more than 10 seconds."

Its players have now been told that they can be fined if they go one to five seconds over the time allotment, can be assessed a one-shot penalty if they go six to 15 seconds over it and can be assessed a two-shot penalty if they go 16 seconds or more over it. There was no consultation period, no testing on feeder tours.

And it is something that has been welcomed by players such as Nelly Korda and Charley Hull, two golfers who like to get on with it.

Korda simply said: "Finally! I'm very excited about it. One of the things that I've just noticed over my time on tour is that we used to go from five hours, under five hours to now it's just five and a half, typically, our rounds. Implementing harsher rules is going to be good for the game because they're saying we're an entertainment product and if we're taking really long out there, that's not entertaining."

There is much about LIV Golf that I detest but one area where they got it right was by making it clear from a very early stage that stroke penalties would be imposed on slow players.

Let’s be clear - this is not rocket science. You tell a player how long he or she has to hit a shot and if they consistently fail to hit those target times then you penalise them where it hurts - and that can only be the introduction of penalty shots.

Monahan said: "I think this is a positive development. It is pretty telling that when you have six player directors that sit on our boards and you have 16 members of our player advisory council that there’s a lot of shaking of heads and an understanding that this is an area where we need to improve."

If that really is the case, I ask again: why test out penalties on feeder tours rather imposing immediate penalties on the PGA Tour? 

Collin Morikawa surely spoke for most players where he said he was in favour of naming and shaming the slowest players.

He said: "I don’t know why you wouldn’t want that to be released? You have to start giving guys actual penalties, whether it be strokes or deducting FedEx Cup points. What I have learnt is that monetary fines are useless. What is there to hide? If you are slow, you know you are slow. If you don’t know then that is an issue."

Justin Thomas, who admitted that he is one of the slower players on tour, is also in favour of stroke penalties. He said: "Nobody wants to be known as one of the slower players. I am the first to admit that I am one of the slower players. I have talked to officials about it because I want to know why I am slow. The first thing that any slower player thinks is that they are not slow."

If the players accept there is a problem and that stroke penalties are the way to stamp it out there is simply no need to test it out on lesser tours. The prevaricating simply has to stop.

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