Day one of The Open Championship produced some fantastic golf, but there was one glaring issue as well.
The Open is widely regarded as the best and most prestigious golf tournament in the world.
The R&A have set up Royal Portrush perfectly this week.
The golf course is rewarding good shots and severely punishing bad ones – the way that it should be.
However, the R&A have a seriously big problem on their hands – one that was highlighted on day one at The Open.
And now golf fans the world over have demanded that an urgent change be made.
Angry golf fans demand change after ‘absolutely horrendous’ day one of The Open
Golf fans were not happy one little bit with something specific about the opening round at Royal Portrush.
The problem? Slow play.
Rory McIlroy’s group took four hours to play 11 holes! That is simply not good enough, whichever way you look at it.
And golf fans let the players know that something has to change really quickly.
One fan said: “We HAVE to start stroking guys.“
Whilst another golf fan said: “The pace of play needs improved drastically and quickly.“
Meanwhile, a third fan urged the governing bodies to take action: “Ridiculous….. they should be on the clock, and then fined a shot or two.“
Then a fourth golf fan said: “It’s players stepping off to try wait for wind to die or something. Just hit it.“
A fifth was very critical of the players: “Doesn’t help when every player stands over their putt for 5 minutes just to miss it short.“
Meanwhile, a sixth fan simply said: “Absolutely ridiculous.“
Before a seventh fan summed it up nicely: “Absolutely horrendous pace of play but seems it’s getting more common. A hole even for pros shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. Slow play is killing golf.“
How Keegan Bradley reacted to slow play on day one of The Open
Keegan Bradley was asked what he thought of the six-hour rounds at Portrush on Thursday.
He said: “It did, yeah. There’s a couple long waits. We had about five groups on that par-5 6th or whatever, 7th, to play. Then we had long waits on all the par-5s. It gets windy like this, it gets backed up.
“I don’t think they can do anything about it. I don’t know. You get to the tee, and there’s groups on the tee, there’s nothing — I mean, what do you do? I don’t know what you would do.“
Anything even approaching six hours is simply not acceptable.
Interestingly, Colin Montgomerie demanded change regarding slow play just before The Open began.
And it is clearly an issue that is plaguing the professional game right now.
Aaron Rai was another player who chimed in with his opinion on the situation.
“I think it’s tricky with the style of holes, especially early on. Hole No. 5 is a drivable par-4, so there’s naturally a backlog there. Then you’ve got a par-3 straight after that and a par-5 that comes on hole 7. I think that just kind of stacks the groups.
“Then it kind of backlogs a little bit from there. So it was a little on the slow side.
“But naturally with the challenging condition, the challenging course, pace of play is going to be a little bit slower than normal.
“I think, again, same as the conditions and the golf course, that you have to be accepting of the things that come with it. Sometimes you’re going to get a little bit behind the pace of play. You may have a couple of ball searches, a couple of bad holes, and then you just have to try and deal with those things with what comes at you. Yeah, it’s just part of it at times.“
Quite what the solution is remains unclear right now, but the governing bodies around the world have to try something before the fans begin to switch off.
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