Jack Nicklaus is considered by many to be the greatest golfer to have ever lived.
Nicklaus won an incredible 73 PGA Tour tournaments including a record 18 major championships during his time in the game.
The Golden Bear, now 85, was playing at the highest level alongside Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Tom Watson when golf as a sport really boomed.
Then things went to a whole new level entirely when Tiger Woods burst onto the scene in the mid-1990s.
However, it’s not all sunshine and roses. Nicklaus has been critical of certain aspects of modern-day golf over the past few years.
Nicklaus has also lamented how new technology is making some of the greatest golf courses ever designed obsolete.
And while the PGA Tour product is a hugely popular one, there is something which needs to be changed as a matter of urgency.
Jack Nicklaus shared warning for the PGA Tour but nothing has changed
When the 18-time major champion speaks, it’s wise to listen.
However, it’s a shame that something he warned the PGA Tour about back in 2012 has actually got worse over the past decade or so.
13 years ago, Nicklaus warned the PGA Tour and all other levels of professional golf that something needs to change regarding slow play, as quoted by The Scotsman.
“I’m 72 and may kid that I’m out of touch, but I watch what’s going on and I am very concerned about the game of golf and its future because people will not take five or six hours at a time for a game of golf. This is a computer age and everyone wants instant satisfaction. If you are going to play in the computer age then you are going to have to learn how to play in computer time.
“All other sports are played in less than three hours, apart from the odd five-set tennis match. Golf needs to do something if wants to follow suit.
“In amateur golf, they use strokes to penalise [slow] players and they need to start using strokes on the Tour as well because fines mean nothing to these guys. They penalised Morgan Pressel and basically cost her the matchplay tournament she was playing in. That was devastating to her and I know how she feels. I got penalised twice when I was young and didn’t like it at all. I wouldn’t have minded a fine. But that [a penalty] gets your attention real quick and it got me moving along. I don’t think if I was ever a jet after that, but I learned how to play within the time limits.
“We all have to learn how to do that. Even when I was playing the Tour we were allowed four hours and 15 minutes. They couldn’t possibly play in four hours and 15 minutes today. The showcase of the game is taking too long and I don’t know where we are going to end up.
“It needs to be faster as tournament golf is the showcase. It’s where the kids get their role models. How do you think golf grew in Spain? Seve [Ballesteros]. How do you think it grew in Germany? Bernhard [Langer].”
Nicklaus makes great points here. Why are rounds taking five hours to complete? Why did it take six hours for some players to get around Oakmont at the US Open back in June?
Slow play is a disease which has slowly crept into the professional game and if golf as a sport is to continue to thrive, something has to change otherwise the young generation of fans will lose interest very quickly indeed.
Butch Harmon labeled the PGA Tour as ‘ridiculous’ after Patrick Cantlay’s actions
Nicklaus isn’t the only one who is concerned by the slow play issue.
Butch Harmon called for change at the very top of the game after the Tour Championship at East Lake in August.
In response to Cantlay’s slow play during the final two rounds of the tournament, Harmon ripped into the PGA Tour for their lack of action.
He said: “They’ve got to grow a pair, because fining people is ridiculous. These guys don’t care about money, they’re all multi-millionaires. You’re not going to speed them up by doing that. But if you put two shots on them it could cost them making a cut or winning a tournament.“
Harmon is right, something needs to change.
Penalizing players for slow play with strokes should be considered moving forward because simply fining players and then moving on to the next tournament clearly isn’t working.
Maybe the use of Aim-Point on the greens needs to be looked at as well.
The concerning thing is that Nicklaus highlighted this problem at the highest level of the game back in 2012, and if anything, the slow play issue has gradually got worse since then.
Now is the time for the PGA Tour to take action because if they don’t, they will no longer have an appealing product to sell and that’s when the game of golf could begin to implode.
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