The penny appears to have dropped with many of those associated with the PGA Tour that things need to change if the tour is going to realise its potential, with Justin Thomas sending a letter to its members this week.
It has been a tough start to the year for the PGA Tour. They were dealt the blow of losing Scottie Scheffler to injury ahead of The Sentry, with Xander Schauffele subsequently joining him on the sidelines.
The Sentry attracted disappointing viewing figures, while The American Express came in for criticism from fans after the final round took the best part of six hours.
Justin Thomas has recognised that things need to be different if they are going to stop losing fans. And with that, Thomas wrote a letter to PGA Tour members this week in which he encouraged players to give the media more access before, during and after rounds.
Jay Monahan urged to send letter to PGA Tour members
Thomas’ thinking is that getting more of their personalities across will help attract fans. But that is unlikely to fix all of golf’s problems.
Speaking on CBS’ The First Cut Podcast, Greg DuCharme implored Jay Monahan to react to Thomas’ message to players by acting immediately to stamp out the game’s biggest problem.
“I hope this works. I think what Justin Thomas said is spot on, and I hope he and everybody else follows suit, because it’ll make the product better. And it’s not that hard. One other thing, there needs to be another letter written badly, more-so than this, and it’s the number one crusher to the TV broadcast, and that’s pace of play. It needs to be the number one issue,” he said.
“I think it’s a different kind of letter. I don’t think it’s a suggestion. I think it’s from a Jay Monahan and it’s a hard and fast rule change, or Mike Whan from the USGA. It’s a hard and fast rule change. It’s not going to be discussed, we’re not going to talk about how to do it, we’re going to implement a shot clock, and if you don’t get your ball off in time, you are going to get penalised.”
How TGL has done the PGA Tour few favours
It is probably fair to say that TGL has done little to help the PGA Tour when it comes to dealing with slow play. Of course, the format of TGL includes a 40 second shot clock, which, so far, the players have had no issue sticking to.
Obviously, it is not so simple to bring something similar in during PGA Tour events. There are so many players on the course at the same time that it would be a huge undertaking. And TGL is not dealing with issues such as having to look for golf balls.
But that does not mean that the PGA Tour has a justified response to their critics. Even if speeding up leads to congestion problems of its own, fans will feel a lot better about events if they know that each day’s play is going to take less than five hours to get through.
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