Slow play has dominated the headlines during the early part of the 2025 PGA Tour season.
The American Express was marred by slow play, and legendary broadcaster Dottie Pepper slammed the issue during the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.
Golf fans have grown tired of watching the world’s best players take far too long to hit their shots, and thankfully, the PGA Tour has taken note.
The PGA Tour is testing allowing rangefinders to be used, which, in theory, should speed up play. Furthermore, naming and shaming the slowest offenders has also been proposed.
Rory McIlroy, speaking during his pre-tournament press conference at the Genesis Invitational, has attempted to defend the pace of play on the PGA Tour in the wake of the authorities clamping down on the problem.
Rory McIlroy makes pace of play comment about Augusta National
“The pace of play issue is a funny one because that all started here a few weeks ago when the golf course got really difficult, and it was windy. As I said earlier, the pitch and slope with these greens and you get those things running at 12 or 13 with that wind, it’s going to take a while,” McIlroy said.
“And then you had Pebble last week, and you know CBS are complaining because we finished 30 minutes early. So it’s like, you know, what do you want? It is a part of it; no one really complains about the pace of play at the majors.
“Usually, if you’re in one of those final groups at Augusta on Friday afternoon, it’s probably the slowest round of the year. No one complains about the pace of play at Augusta.”
Unfortunately for McIlroy, his claim about Augusta National is not strictly true.
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What Brooks Koepka and Tyrrell Hatton said during the 2023 Masters
During the 2023 Masters Tournament, Brooks Koepka–one of golf’s fastest players–was critical of the pace of play during the final round.
“The group in front of us was brutally slow,” Koepka said. “Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting.”
The group in front of Koepka and Rahm included Patrick Cantlay and Viktor Hovland. Cantlay is a notoriously slow golfer. In front of the American’s group were Hideki Matsuyama and Russell Henley. The 2021 Masters winner is by no means fast.
What’s more, LIV Golf star Tyrrell Hatton was scathing of the pace of play during the 2024 Masters.
“The lads in front have been so slow,” he said. “It’s pretty poor from the officials that it took 32 holes to put them on the clock. Yesterday, they’d lost a hole and a half, and then they weren’t any better even this morning, and then for the second round, they were just brutal.
“Fine for them — they’re not waiting on any shot that they hit,” he continued. “But for us, we stood in the fairway, we stood on the tee. It was really hard to get a rhythm, so it was disappointing that it took 32 holes for an official to go, ‘Oh, we’ve put the group in front on the clock.’”
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