Slow play on the PGA Tour has been one of the main talking points in the early stages of the season, with fans growing increasingly frustrated with the pace of some of the events they are sitting through.
Of course, slow play is not a new problem for the PGA Tour. But it really does feel as if the situation has got worse; perhaps with some players well aware that little is likely to be done if they take a significant amount of time over their shots.
Fans hit out after the final round of The American Express took nearly six hours, while the final group on the last day of the Farmers Insurance Open took nearly three hours to complete the front nine.
There have been a range of suggestions for how the problem can be dealt with. Rory McIlroy said smaller fields would help, while Lucas Glover called for aimpoint to be banned.
Trevor Immelman suggests what he would do to tackle slow play on the PGA Tour
Trevor Immelman is someone who is in a unique position when it comes to talking about the issue of slow play. The 2008 Masters champion will know better than most some of the pressures these players are dealing with, particularly down the stretch on Sunday.
But he now works with CBS, and he is the new chairman of the Official World Golf Ranking. So he will understand most of the factors which will have to be considered before changes are made to the policy.
And speaking to Fried Egg Golf, he outlined the big problem with relying on using fines to punish slower players.
“What are the things that I would do to make it go faster? I think you’ve got to enforce the rules more strictly. It’s a little bit loose I think. I think we could change the procedure of it, I think it takes too long to get to a penalty. I think you should be told that you’re out of position. At the same time you’re out of position, you’re put on the clock and then as soon as you go over your time, you get a penalty immediately,” he said.
“I would get rid of the fines because these guys are playing for so much money now, when you penalise somebody a stroke and tell him, ‘by the way, the next time’s going to be two strokes, and then it’s another two strokes every time after that’, you’re costing these guys a lot of money. And so, I would get rid of the fines and I’d just clean up the procedure a little bit so that everybody knows that there’s no messing around. Once you’re told you’re on the clock, you better get going. They’ll go fast because they know they’ll have to.
“Fining a guy $25,000 because he’s been put on the clock or because he’s been given a stroke penalty, they’re just not concerned about that. I know that might sound obnoxious or gross to say, because there’s a lot of people working their butts off and are struggling out there, but the strokes are really what’s going to get these guys fired up.”
Not everyone sees an issue with slow play on the PGA Tour
Interestingly, it appears that not everyone believes that slow play is a problem which desperately needs to be addressed.
Kevin Kisner said worries about slow play have been ‘overblown’. While he believes that some players need to speed up, he insisted that he has never been left frustrated by the pace of the round when he is playing.
Perhaps the broadcasters could do more to change perceptions by showing a lot more action.
While there is definitely a time and place to let the action breathe, there is surely a lot of scope for more shots to be shown – particularly at a time when the game is working out how to build new superstars.
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