"Montgomerie puts his foot down to stop slow players"
And there's a lot of weight behind...wait, no fat jokes when slow play is on the table.
Martin Dempster says that Monty hopes to work with Corey Pavin to continue the Faldo-Azinger Ryder Cup ban on practice putting, which mysteriously was not implemented at Harding Park for last week's Presidents Cup.
Of course, Monty's reasoning does make you wonder if even the ban will prevent the unthinkable: not finishing matches due to a lack of daylight.
Due to the fact the biennial match is being held at the start of October – a fortnight later than normal – there are concerns about being able to complete the two sessions that are played on the first two days to the light.
Montgomerie, for one, is well aware of that fact and the European captain will be urging his players to do everything in their power to ensure that matches don't have to be concluded the following day.
"We have to get round as quickly as we can next October. It is two weeks later than normal and a lost half an hour will be the difference between finishing a game or not. The latter is not the type of message we should be putting across to club golfers. We should be playing quicker than them because it's not as though we are having to look for golf balls."
I like this Monty:
"My players will not be practising their putting once the match is underway," insisted Montgomerie. "They'll have had three days to do that earlier in the week."
Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 07:55 PM
View Printer Friendly Version
Email Article to Friend
Reader Comments (15)
Now-any chance of a rest from this till well into 2010?
No-probably not.
Rule 7-2 should be changed to disallow practice putting altogether. Thank God the Tour writes a local rule to forbid practice putting during medal play, or we would have 7 hour rounds on tour.
The biggest reason for allowing it in the Cup matches is that a player may go two or three holes without hitting a putt in foursomes.
The problem isn't the time spent practice putting, it is all the time they waste in everything else.
But you could say the same thing about all the "everything else" (practice swings, not having a club set when it's your turn, etc.) All the "everything else," including practice putting, adds up to slow play. There is no single culprit. It's cumulative.
That they have to worry about daylight in a small-filed, team event shows how absurd the slow-play problem has become.
I live about 15 minutes from Gleneagles.We've had 4 ground frosts already this October when play would have been impossible to start until about 9.30.Dont know whose bright idea it was to put these matches back a fortnight but it makes me nervous.
It could be such a disaster as this should be a huge event for this beautiful part of Scotland but the golfing Gods will have to be on our side!
The four ball games are outrageously slow, but such sloth has become endemic in this form of the game. Improvement can be made if the players all commit to playing as quickly as possible, especially being ready to HIT the ball, not begin to consider their options, when it's their turn to play. But given the tension and the reputational risk they are all at, I'm not holding my breath.
The foursomes can be speeded up significantly if the non-striker proceeds to whence he will play his next shot, rather than to stand beside the striker while he hits his shot. We saw ludicrous delays at the Solheim Cup recently because the players were too stupid to do this (except for Matthew and Moody, who were brought up playing this form of the game in Scotland, where a round is expected to take no more than 3 1/2 hours, no matter how many balls are in play). The foursome is designed to be played MORE QUICKLY than a singles match (because the time between shots should be, in theory, much reduced). Again I see little hope of this fact dawning on the organizers or the players.
I think a sports psychologist would probably frown on the practice putting after you missed the putt. If you can't ever "move on" mentally and you are constantly thinking about the bad stuff in the past, it can't be good.
It's like when I play with my friend that is constantly dropping another ball to play another one...at the end of the round he has NO idea how he shot and he has never lived in the moment of playing golf.
Bingo. Ever seen a player re-putt the ten footer they just missed? They do it like we would. Make another stroke in about 5 seconds. Its the 85 practices swings and the 20 minute conversation about whether its inside right or right edge that makes them play so slowly.
So, some of the players do get it.
P.S. Plus, he let Hugh Grant live.
It's a known fact I have a strong distaste for Monty that colors my judgment, bu the real question is: Are you campaigning to be his next wife?