Sunday
Nov252007
"Now that a sound and defensible system is in place, maybe Tim Finchem will show some courage and business sense."
Outside of some of Darwin's rants on the topic, Links Magazine's George Peper pens the best slow play column I've read in a long time, tackling all of the key points and asking all of the right questions. He explains the USGA's promising new pace of play, something I wrote about for the L.A. Times earlier this year (naturally, it's disappeared from their archives!).
Thankfully George presents it here much better than I did, then takes it a step further and questions why this has not been implemented already.
OK, the system isn’t perfect. So what? Golf isn’t an exact science. In fact, it’s not a science at all, despite the proclivity of some tour players to treat each shot as an exhaustive experiment in physics, geometry, agronomy, meteorology, kinesthetics and psychology. Say the USGA comes down hard on a few players. What’s the downside? A whine or two from the likes of Ben Crane? I suspect they’d be drowned out by the chorus of approval from their peers. Besides, the system has a built-in appeals process, so every accused offender has the opportunity for a postround hearing.
Moreover, when it comes to pace of play, there is no reason for the USGA or R&A to be as fearful as they are of regulating equipment—imposing a limit on time will not bring a billion-dollar lawsuit from Rolex. Nor can they hide behind the other rationale they’ve used on equipment—that most amateur golfers want to keep the status quo. Most amateurs may want to hit the ball longer, but they don’t want to stay on the course longer.
Still the sense is that the USGA is taking the same timid stance as they have on the question of throttling back the golf ball: Let the PGA Tour take the lead.
Fine. Now that a sound and defensible system is in place, maybe Tim Finchem will show some courage and business sense. Seven years ago, the commissioner challenged the game’s movers and shakers to transform golf into America’s No. 1 spectator sport. Instead, television ratings are down and golf participation over the past decade has been flat at best. One big reason: Golf is slow, both playing and watching.
I remain convinced that if the PGA Tour's VP's and players ever paid to go to one of their events and tried to spectate, they would quickly launch an emergency initiative to do something about pace of play.
Sunday, November 25, 2007 at 07:17 PM
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Reader Comments (32)
Golf has always been a sport that is incredibly boring on TV, unless you are an avid player, and then you seem to be able to tolerate almost anything. The comment about the players treating "each shot as an exhaustive experiment in physics, geometry, agronomy, meteorology, kinesthetics and psychology" is really funny.
5 hour threesomes in the U.S. Open are a pathetic joke, a disgrace.
Taking an hour out of the time of play would free up about two hours of tee times - 48 extra players at more than $200 per. Obviously, those idiots who own golf courses think they will lose more players by making them play fast than they will make up by providing fast golf. Idiots.
I have turned down the many opportunities to pay $450 to stand around for 5 & 1/2 hours at Pebble
This year at Oakmont, I was the walking official with the first group of #1 on Friday. We were 5 minutes over the prescribed time leaving #6 and were put on the clock immediately. We made the turn 2 minutes over time, but the last group off #10 was still in the fairway. So, because of 13 groups with 11 minute intervals and a hard starting hole we were back in position and waited the rest of the round on the group in front of us. No matter how fast we played, we couldn't have played 18 holes any faster. The group could have played slower but by putting them on the clock, they were able to be at #10 in position with the other side.
Peper fails to point out that the USGA's new pace of play system and the similar ones used by regional associations and the AJGA still give players 4:20 to 4:30 to play 18 holes in groups of 3.
Aaahhh, two-somes on the PGA Tour before urethane distance balls took less than three and a half hours, today with all the great advances in technology and the super conditioning of professional golfers those same weekend pairings now average four plus hours.
As a resident of Houston I ventured over to a second stage round of Q-school, the round lasted almost six hours. The look on Bill Glassons face soke volumes, Tour veteran participating in a batan death march. Poor choice for a discription, but, this was not Tour level golf for sure. Veterans forced to compete under mini-tour pace of play guidelines. In truth it should be the other way around, mini-tour players should be forced to compete under PGA Tour pace of play rules, if they can't keep up they certainly shouldn't be on tour (Ben Crane). Pace of play is part of the test, or it should be, golf on tv has become stagnant in terms of revelant, its become slower to watch than baseball.
I asked a Tour rules official why the round took almost six hours, "we don't time players during Q-school".
Maybe its TIME they did.
That said, Slugger's right - it's the equipment, baby. We saw it at golf school in our tournaments...three groups on every par five, tee, fairway and green, 'cause these guys can go at every par five in two...and have to to post a decent score. Our head instructor would look at it, laugh and say "That's forty minutes, right there..."
(which is why I'd ask to be the rabbit and get done in under three :)
Distance may exacerbate the problem, but it isn't the problem -- eternal preshot routines on full shots and infinitesimal calibrations on the greens are the problem. Like Soylent Green, "it's people."
And I don't believe for a second that slow play on TV has any effect on ratings. (Except that slow play on our courses, resulting from what people see on TV, drives people away from the game, and makes them less likely to watch on TV -- an extremely indirect effect at best.)
Slow play's a scourge and must be eliminated. It helps when, as at the Old Course, the next tee isn't two housing developments away from the previous green.
1. The pros have caused the slow play problem, just as Peper says in his article.
2. Fixing it will be darn near impossible, at least with respect to the method of corollaries to the rules, sanctions, penalties, etc.
The reasons have been stated here before. There's lots at stake...the tour will only go so far in rushing Tiger Woods, or even Cameron Beckman...it's hard to come up with a reasonable standard for pace of play and even harder to come up with reasonable penalties and enforcement.
But I really wish they could do it.
Slow play is analagous to batters in baseball stepping out of the box after every pitch to fix their batting gloves, walk around, pull their crotch, etc.
In baseball, this stuff may help the batter by throwing the pitcher's rhythm off. But everybody does it, so it helps/hurts all competitors equally, while also being rude to fans.
In golf, I am sure that the player gets a benefit from sweating every detail, but since everybody does it, nobody gets a relative advantage, and fans and the rest of the golf world have to suffer through all of this crap.
If possible, they should, somehow, tell these guys to quit farting around and just play golf.
Are you a sawbones?
I once spoke with Dave Catalano (he runs the park) about the slow play issue and he said he was fully prepared to start taking people off the golf course if they couldn't stay in position...
...but the elected official over the parks at the time (a woman, drawing a blank on her name) wouldn't allow it, she was worried about the political fallout.
No matter where you turn, nobody wants to take responsibility.
ES
ES: I think it was Bernadette Castro. I will refrain from making gratuitous jokes about putting a woman in charge of pace of play.
Everybody must have his favorite slow-play story. Mine is years ago, on the University of Minnesota golf course (a public course), eighth hole, a difficult uphill par 3. My group had been chafing behind a very slow group of students for several holes. As we stood on the tee, they suddenly waved us to hit! -- and then all four of them walked onto the green and stood next to the pin (true, it was the safest place on the course with my group on the tee, but man, were we mad!). One of them helpfully put his hand on the flagstick, I guess in case one of us had a shot rolling to the pin so he could pull it and save us a penalty according to his understanding of the rules of golf. My buddies and I just stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds -- and then starting screaming at them. Only later did we think that, as university employees, we had probably broken about fifty rules -- you don't offend the customers (students) in this day and age.
Until public course players, especially younger ones, are better educated in golf etiquette, slow play is here to stay. And what they learn watching golf on TV only hurts the cause.
My course in Melbourne bulldozed its short (driveable) par 4 first hole as 'the field wasn't getting away quick enough'. I think blaming the course for slow play is a bizarre concept. I think it's the humans, not the courses, that are the problem - the 'puttee', not the putter.
With caddies, people walk more, lose fewer balls, ramble around less, etc. they probably play faster.
At the same time, with active caddy programs, whole generations of young players would be raised on the game in good venues. (Private clubs may be bastions of social snobbery, but they are usually also solid training grounds for better play and better etiquette on the golf course.)
It is true; nowadays, more and more young players learn the game by watching tv. And on tv, everybody (tour pros and, heaven forbid, Big Break contestants for the Gen-Y contingent) stands over a shot for two minutes and looks at putts from four sides. It would be infinitely better if those young people were learning the game from good recreational players who want to finish in less than four hours.
Again, resorts and the Troon Norths of the world are unwilling to challenge these guys to play faster.
They must have some information that shows they will lose more money by alienating lousy golfers by enforcing pace-of-play rules than they make up by attracting more golfers with a 4 hour round.
Does anyone know of other courses that go out of their way to feature pace-of-play in its marketing/advertising? I can't think of too many.
My first time there my group had the day's first starting time. We "chased" the divot-fillers and sprinklers throughout the round and finished 50 minutes ahead of the 2nd group of the day (who finished 55 minutes ahead of the 3rd group).
We certainly weren't rushing or setting scoring records.
In a study on slow play referenced in the article, it mentioned that there was much delay caused by long pre-shot preparation, and then similarly slow post-shot stuff, like watching it land, putting the club away slowly, fiddling, practicing some swing move thought to have been botched in the actual shot, etc.
The National Golf Foundation is constantly serving up reminders that their polling suggests that pace of play is one of the biggest impediments to more play.
My ideal on the rangering of such courses would be that if you were out of position so as to be noticed for more than an acceptable time, you would simply be instructed to pick up and go to the next hole. Indeed, after a warning, the rangers would be empowered to pick up balls in play (on a green, for instance) and take them to the next tee and drop them there. A notice of this policy would be printed on every scorecard.