Slow pace hurts PGA Tour anew

PARIS, France (AFP) — Slow play dogged the PGA Tour for a second consecutive weekend, as the last group again took five and a half hours to complete their final rounds during the Farmers Insurance Open won by Harris English.

The leaders were on the course for almost three hours on Saturday before even completing the front nine at Torrey Pines, prompting two-time women’s major champion Dottie Pepper to express her frustrations.

“We’re starting to need a new word to talk about this pace of play issue and its respect for your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasting,” said Pepper in her role as a US television reporter.

“It’s just got to get better.”

Various rule changes were introduced in 2019 to try and speed up the pace of play in golf, including being allowed to leave the flagstick in the hole while putting.

They had more of an effect in amateur golf, though, with fans and pundits continuing to complain about slow play in the professional game.

The new indoor TGL golf circuit, founded by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy, has included a shot clock in its format, as was introduced to professional tennis to speed up the time taken between points.

The PGA Tour has said it expects slow play to improve from next year due to smaller fields being introduced for many events.

Last November, English LPGA Tour star Charley Hull called for strong punishments for slow play, pointing out a round with friends can be more than two hours quicker than a round on tour.

“I’m quite ruthless but (my idea would be) if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a two-shot penalty,” Hull said.

“If you have three of them you lose your Tour card instantly. I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up and they won’t want to lose their Tour card.”

“That would kill the slow play, but they would never do that.”

Rounds tend to take longer in tournaments played on notoriously tough courses, such as the US Open.

American English closed out his first PGA Tour win in three years with 12 consecutive pars on Saturday in difficult conditions at Torrey Pines.

Two-time PGA Championship winner Justin Thomas said at a recent TGL event that it would be tough to speed up play when golfers are taking on tricky courses.

“They (fans) like harder golf courses, they like watching us play difficult places, but they want us to play faster, so those two don’t go together,” he said.

“You’ve kind of got to pick and choose your battles.”

However, two weeks ago, winner Sepp Straka took five hours and 39 minutes to finish his final round at the American Express — a tournament played in excellent scoring conditions and which he ended on 25-under-par overall.