Russell's Exit Interview: Slow Play, Field Sizes, Sitcoms And Late Evening Golf

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The PGA Tour won’t be quite the same without former Mickey’s theme park employee-turned-golf-pro-turned longtime rules official, Mark Russell.

Hopefully he’ll still get called Slugger in an airport (hopefully) and get in plenty of golf as he turns to sitcom writing and more late evening rounds. He also touches on this idea of 156 player fields, slow play and suggests it’s time to trim things down.

From his “exit interview” with Golfweek’s Adam Schupak.

Q: Don’t you want to give out one last slow play penalty (during the final round of the Wyndham Championship) for old time’s sake?

MR: (Chuckles) Not really. Again, we’ve got 156 players, we should never do that in 2021. This Tour should be 120 players maximum. You know, when they came up with (fields of 156), there was no place to play. Now we’ve got the Korn Ferry Tour. We’ve got PGA Tour Champions, tours in Canada and Latin America, too. You know, if you’re good enough, you’re going to be right back here. But I mean, 156 guys, there’s groups waiting 10, 12 minutes at the turn to play. That all goes away if you did that, like at Bay Hill, 120 players and we give them 12-minute intervals and they can’t catch each other. I mean, the slow players have no place to hide.

Most of the slow players play so much better if they go ahead and play. You know, I said, we oughta make them play like that on the range. You can only hit one ball a minute, and then they’d realize. But for the most part, like I say on Thursday and Friday, we breed slow play. There’s no place to go.

While I’ve had my share of spirited chats with Russ about field size (me fighting for a 144-player “Open” field here in LA), he’s right. I concede. It’s looking like the combination of all reachable par-5’s and drivable 4’s, while a huge issue, matters less when fields are getting huge enough to welcome back winners from the late 90s!

"We're going to lose fans because we are taking so long to play"

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Stacy Lewis was talking about the LPGA Tour but she certainly could have been referring to the men’s game as well.

Returning to Scotland for the Trust Golf Women’s Scottish Open, one of the fastest players in the game discussed the issue in this piece by Beth Ann Nichols.

The key quote:

“I just think it needs to be a courtesy thing,” said Lewis, “because we need to realize as a tour, we’re going to lose people watching us and we’re going to lose fans because we are taking so long to play and I think that’s what really needs to be hammered home to people is we need to do it more from that side than anything.”

Here's Hoping Golf Does Not Listen To Adam Silver's Advice To Embrace Slow Play

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As the gambling talk speeds up and rounds continue to bog down, golf’s slow play may be seen as a positive in some sectors.

Let’s hope they don’t read Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s advice from his NBA counterpart: “you gotta stop talking about the pace of game because your pace of game is going to be absolutely perfect for sports betting.”

Sigh.

The full quote and the interview excerpt is embedded below.

Manfred reminded everyone of this Monday speaking at a webinar hosted by Sportico. He recalled the story of a conversation he had a few years ago with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who told Manfred that MLB’s slower pace gives it an advantage when it comes to placing wagers:

“I’ll tell you a funny story; I don’t think he would mind. One night, I was coming back from an event and the phone rang; it was Adam Silver. He said: Rob, you gotta stop talking about the pace of game because your pace of game is going to be absolutely perfect for sports betting. And he’s right; he usually is. And he was right about that. So we see it as an opportunity to make everything we do… better for our fans. It’s an opportunity that our fans clearly want.”

Would golf embrace slow play to help people get their bets in?

Yes I went full rhetorical there.

Si Woo's Penalty And Signs That Slow Play Might Be Wearing Thin With Officials

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Now that a twosome of American pro golf takes north of four hours to get around any course—even short and well-synced Harbour Town—there are signs the PGA Tour might be recognizing the absurdity of it all.

Since the Florida swing when the Tour has played twosomes on weekends (unless forced by weather to go out in three), their network partners at NBC and CBS have routinely missed their scheduled sign-off on time. This means the rules staff projects a pace hoping to have the round finish just before the network sign-off time. Yet fields are still missing the time par.

Besides being tedious to watch, the extra 45-60 minutes costs “partners” money. And every sport is trying to prevent bloat in fear of the coveted demo going back to their Playstations (if they ever left them to watch golf).

I realize we’ve known this is a problem for a decade or more going back to the Finchem era when the idea of handing out penalties was physically repulsive to Commish Moonbeam. But there were signs last weekend that the act has grown old. CBS noted when Stewart Cink or the group in front of him was put on the clock and without any defense of the slowpokes. The announcers repeatedly questioned the amount of information discussed with caddie/son Reagan. Hint, hint: there was not a lot of admiration for the extent of chit-chat. (Though I’d argue the banter and “process” has helped Cink re-focus to pull off an incredible resurgence.)

Since pace rules have not been enforced with penalties the Cink’s and other slower players have no incentive to change. Throw in green books, all par-5’s within reach in two, a drivable par-4 wait, and it’s hard to break four hours.

The weekend also produced Si Woo Kim’s one-stroke penalty for exceeding the ten-second rule. Noteworthy here is not the enforcement of the rule, but the Tour posting so much controversy on their Twitter feed and the wild sight of Matt Kuchar coming to Kim’s defense. This, as official Stephen Cox calmly explains the rule without highlighting that no ball, dangling on the edge, can move for a minute and not fall in the cup!

Predictably, Tour players whined about this travesty, as Nick Piatkowski documented. (You’ll be shocked to learn Grade A whiner Charley Hoffman once again blames the USGA.)

The sad reality? The entitlement factor is strong in these ones.

Without any enforcement of rules, players have come to believe they should be able to do as they see fit as long as it’s cool with their bros on Tour. You look the other way when I take 3 minutes to hit a shot and I’ll be real slow to mark my ball behind the cup. You know, to speed up play.

No entertainment vehicle today can afford to take its sweet time or to not enforce its rules. With betting getting a hard push from the Tour, slow play penalties or backscratching behavior will only scare off wagerers. So even if the stars believe in talking out every element of a shot on Thursday, or believe it’s their right to watch a ball hanging on the edge for a minute, the business of golf cannot support the pace.

But I leave you with good news!

Over in Hawaii the leaders whizzed around the LPGA Tour’s Lotte Championship final round in just over 3:30, as Twitter noticed in celebrating Lydia Ko’s first win in three years. And check out the speed of that Golf Channel cameraman running to get to the notoriously speedy Nelly Korda in time. We need more of this…

"How to cure the bane of slow play in golf"

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Daniel Zeqiri pens a lovely slow play analysis for The Telegraph based on the continued heat after Sunday’s slow match play finale and the ongoing realization that, as a player-run organization, the PGA Tour is unlikely to do anything. Even when they cost their network partners money running consistently long, as they have the last several weeks with twosomes taking well over four hours to play.

Plus, Zeqiri is talks banning green reading books and rolling back the ball so he gets it.

He writes:

As ever, there are those who would like to see Tour officials reach for punitive measures more readily. ShotLink data also means they can be forensic and indiscriminate in their application of the rules, just as technology has enabled in other sports. No more complaining about a capricious rules official: if the clock says you were too slow, then there's no debate to be had. 

In 2019, there was a change in the rules to prevent caddies from lining their player up on the greens. The reasoning was that alignment - a player's ability to align his body and feet with the target - was a fundamental golfing skill. Quite right too, although even this straightforward change brought teething problems with Haotong Li issued a harsh two-stroke penalty in Dubai when his caddie appeared to walk away before he took his stance. 

There is an argument that reading greens is also an integral part of the game and a skill in itself. While players will occasionally 'call in' their caddie to help them read the break of a putt, they will pride themselves on their ability to read greens. It is part of what separates great putters from the merely good. Any player who backed themselves to be an above average green-reader would welcome the guides being outlawed. 

The counter-argument is that these books are for players to consult on their walk to the green after their approach shot. As Phil Mickelson tweeted in 2019: "The greens book allows me to do 80% of my read before I even get to the green. For anyone to say they slow up play is flat out idiotic."

Actually, they slow up play.

Anyway there is more to read in the piece and I’m sure Zeqiri has been added to the Fairhaven war room bulletin board.

Oh and this was fun from Monty:

Matt Jones Overcomes Brutal Pace, Nightmare Pairing To Win Honda And Head Back To The Masters

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Two-time Australian Open winner Matt Jones returning to the PGA Tour winner’s circle after major putting struggles was impressive.

But the faster-than-most Aussie had to deal with a dreadful final round pace that had the leading groups taking 4:20 (twosomes!) and alongside never-ready J.B. Holmes, who stumbled to a 79.

Holmes, not that he cares or will ever change, had his lack of preparedness to play called out during the NBC broadcast. (At least, the parts where I remained awake.)

From Craig Dolch’s story the Palm Beach Post on Jones winning the Honda and heading back to Augusta:

The five-shot victory tied the largest in tournament history, matching Jack Nicklaus in 1977 and Camilo Villegas in 2010. Jones had gone 174 starts since winning his first PGA Tour title at the 2014 Houston Open, holing a chip in a playoff to beat Matt Kuchar.

“I’ve had some tough times in between that (win),” an emotional Jones said afterward. “Seven years … I had some tough times putting, worked hard and it finally paid off.

PGA Tour highlights, including Jones showing emotion just seconds after sinking the final putt:

Stacy Lewis Wins Scottish After Not Letting Herself Complain About Dreadful Pace Of Play

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Telegraphing another long day with her slower peers at the Renaissance Club, Stacy Lewis vowed Sunday to not complain to her caddie.

This is what it has come to.

Lewis prevailed in the Aberdeen Standard Investments Ladies Scottish Open after four-player playoff that included Azahara Munoz, Cheyenne Knight and Emily Pederson.

Here is what she said after Saturday’s tepid round, from Beth Ann Nichols:

“I think the biggest challenge for me tomorrow is staying in what I’m doing,” Lewis, “and the pace of play is dreadfully slow, and that doesn’t play into my favor. People I’m playing with are pretty slow.”

And she was right, but as The Scotsman’s Martin Dempster reports, Lewis made a vow and channeled a Taylor Swift song to avoid getting sidetracked by her slower playing partners.

The final group took five hours and 16 minutes to complete their round. “It does,” said Lewis of that taking some of the gloss of an enthralling title tussle. “It shouldn’t take that long to play. I knew it was going to; that’s the sad part. I do think an effort needs to be made across the board to play faster. I’m sure it couldn’t have been fun to watch on TV. I’ve been an advocate for changing our pace of play, getting people to play faster for a long time, and we’re still going the other way unfortunately.”

The course did play much tougher than last year when the men were there for the Scottish and the hole locations were referenced as pretty difficult by the announce team. Still, to have a player so openly saying something and no one is able to do anything, is pretty bizarre.

After TV Interview-Infused Slow Play Warning, McDowell One Bad Time Away From Penalty As He Leads

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Graeme McDowell holds a one-stroke lead over Victor Dubuisson heading into the finale of the Crown Prince Classic in Saudi Arabia. But as part of the European Tour’s crackdown on slow play, he faces another twist in search of his first ET win since 2014: a penalty.

Under the new guidelines recently updated after the PGA Tour announced an updated policy, McDowell’s warning earlier in the week means he’s one more away from a stroke penalty. Adding to his frustration? The warning came after doing a mid-round interview with Sky’s Tim Barter.

Brian Keogh at the Irish Golf Desk with all the details. This was particularly wild:

Under the new regulations, he could have called to the referee during his allotted time and asked for a once-per-round "time extension" and an extra 40 seconds.

"I actually jokingly called a time out after the shot because I thought he'd have given me the benefit of the doubt, but he was like, 'no, that's a bad time’,” he told reporters. “I'm like, brilliant mate!"

Feeling rushed as he played his approach on the seventh, TV cameras caught him grumbling loudly.

"Such a rush to hit this shot!" he said as he sized up his approach from the rough. "It's a joke.”

And we wonder why players are resistant to mid-round interviews. This won’t help the “product.”

PGA Tour's New Slow Play Policy Leans On Jargon To Coddle The Turtles

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Joel Beall’s “here’s what you need to know” item on the new PGA Tour slow play policy can be whittled down to telling what you jargon you need to be warned about.

Because as with so many rules shaped by the players, heavy petting is involved. Beall explains the core components, both supported by a jargony name and a long list of ways to help a slow poke get multiple opportunities to take his time before experiencing a penalty.

After setting up the backstory of how the Tour got to this point, Beall writes of the “observation list”:

An "Observation List" will be created, one that will be kept private from the public and PGA Tour membership as a whole.

And right there the policy already became less effective than it could have been.

How will a player make the list? The parameters are as follows:

—Each stroke throughout the round must be played in under 60 seconds in absence of a valid reason. If observed by an official to exceed this time, that player will be timed on an individual basis as soon as he can be notified. If the player does not have a bad time (same bad time rules as with out of position) within two holes, timing will cease.

At multi-course PGA Tour events, there is now just one rules official per nine holes. Kind of tough to be a roving rules official and be timing the slow pokes, it would seem. But, should they be able to find the time to pull out the stop clock…

—If any player is observed to take more than 120 seconds on a shot in the absence of a valid reason, he will be given an "Excessive Shot Time" and observed throughout the round by an official.

—The list will be updated on a weekly basis. Any player with an overall average of 45 seconds or more per stroke based on a 10 tournament rolling period will be on the list, along with anyone who receives two "Excessive Shot Times" in a tournament will be played on the list in subsequent tournament rounds.

Scary!

Oh but there’s the enforcement. At least the bank accounts are getting hit harder, but will we ever get to this stage?

A player will receive a warning for their first bad time. On the second, he will receive a one-stroke penalty. For each additional bad time, another one-stroke penalty will be given.

There will also be fines. Excessive Shot Times will receive $10,000 and $20,000 punishments for second and additional offenses (with the first offense receiving a warning). Though the first bad time also gets a warning, a second offense comes with a $50,000 penalty, with a $20,000 penalty attached to further offenses.

"We are not looking to hand out these penalties," Dennis said. "But players have to know they are there."

Players may know, but if players, fans and media knew they’d made the list, might that be just as effective as strokes and fines?

PGA Tour Still Slow Playing Updated Slow Play Policy

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Rex Hoggard’s GolfChannel.com story from the RSM Classic gives the impression the PGA Tour PAC and Policy Board have signed off on giving their referees more leeway to zero in on slow-pokes.

Naturally, they remain in no hurry to usher in the policy:

The new policy is aimed at avoiding situations where players take an inordinate amount of time to hit a shot, like Bryson DeChambeau at The Northern Trust in August. The plan is to also empower Tour officials to take action if a player is impacting pace of play.

According to the Tour, the revised policy will go into effect in the second quarter of 2020.

Bryson Says The Data Will Prove He's Not The Slowest By Any Means, So Why Can't We See It?

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At the risk of sounding old, I wrote back in 2010 about the PGA Tour’s slow play data and what a wonderful opportunity it would be to sign up a sponsor and reward the tour’s fastest players. Nine years later we’re still hiding the data on PGA Tour’s equivalent of the codeword servers to protect repeat offenders.

Maybe with Bryson DeChambeau blowing the whistle on this hidden data that could easily make for one really fun bonus pool, we’ll get some of the numbers published. Shoot, we’ll take the top 75 and let people with no lives try to figure out who the bottom 75 are in pace of play.

Here’s DeChambeau, now (maybe somewhat slightly kinda unfairly) branded as the poster child from Saturday at the Safeway Classic:

“There’s data out there now that shows that I am not the slowest player at all by any means,” he said.

When asked to elaborate on the data he was referring to, DeChambeau was less than forthcoming.

“Well the PGA Tour has it. I’ve seen it. I don’t know if I can disclose any of it,” he said. “But I’m definitely not in the top 10 percent. I’m not close to that. That’s from Shotlink data. We have that. So, I can say that, I know I can say that without a shadow of a doubt.”

Well, not a shadow of a doubt until we see the full list. But the point is, the PGA Tour has the data, knows who the fastest and slowest players are, and just doesn’t want to share.

And maybe they are right to keep things private given the crueler world we live in now compared to 2010. Twitter and the discourse has become coarser.

Still, a points race focused on the fastest players and a sponsor wanting to be associated with efficiency and speed sounds a lot more interesting than the FedExCup.

Dunhill Links Trots Out Stellar Field But Will Slow Play Keep The Scots Away?

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Rarely have I seen anyone project a tournament struggling to attract fans due to slow play, but as Martin Dempster writes for The Scotsman, this week’s Dunhill Links at St. Andrews-Kingsbarns-Carnoustie features a strong field, some A-list celebrities and players happy to be there (like Rory McIlroy teaming with his dad).

Still, as Dempster notes, the tournament can lack in Scottish support due to dodgy weather and 6-hour rounds.

Put it this way, more non-golfers are likely to take in this event, especially when they can take advantage of a free admission offer on the first three days, than have attended any other golf tournament held so far this year in Scotland and the game can surely only gain from that.

The Irish would be all over an event like the Dunhill Links like a rash and Scottish golf fans should certainly be giving this week’s event the support it deserves.

Playing the Irish card! Bold. But maybe helpful.

Still, it’s fascinating to see the length of the day possibly factoring into decisions about whether to attend even when admission is free. That’s a big deal if the Scots are ahead of the curve when it comes to attendance and pace of play.

European Tour's Crackdown On Slow Play Gets Off To A Slow Start

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At least in Matthew Fitzpatrick’s eyes, after having his and ever other player’s bag bugged for electronic time posting, only to still take too long.

The four-point plan debuted this week at the BMW PGA and despite some nice additions to the list of slow play remedies, we know the players aren’t always to blame. Even with the overrated field size reduction to 132, there is the pesky matter of modern distances on any course under 8,000 yards. That means waits, more waits and almost no chance of getting around in the time par of 4:30 or so.

His Tweets:

asfd

Rory: If Tennis Can Hand Out Penalties For Slow Play, So Can Golf

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The Rory McIlroy news from Wentworth has, so far, been mixed: he’s retaining his European Tour card after some negotiation with Chief Executive Keith Pelley (good), he opened the BMW PGA with a 76 (bad).

But as Rex Hoggard reports for GolfChannel.com, his comments on slow play add to the list of strong remarks by top players advocating penalty strokes for slow pokes. While that may not seem earth-shattering, the recent shift of players advocating penalty strokes is a change from years of players protecting slow pokes and muttering nonsense about field size.

The U.S. Open’s recent penalty of a lost point after a third violation by Rafa Nadal, got McIlroy’s attention:

Like many Tour players, McIlroy sees a reluctance to penalize players in high-profile situations and used last month’s U.S. Open in tennis and Rafael Nadal’s timing violation during a match as an example of what golf needs to embrace.

“Rafa got a time clock violation on a really big serve like at the end of the final of the U.S. Open, so if they can do it then, there's no reason why we can't do it in our tournaments, either,” McIlroy said. “It's just a matter of enforcing it and being consistent with it.”

This Week In Game-Killing Pace Of Play, Slowheim Cup Edition

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Four-ball play has become a glacial-paced nightmare at all team events, yet appears to be festering in new and amazing ways at the 2019 Solheim Cup, writes Golfweek’s Beth Nichols.

The day one debacle, which did not improve as day two conditions deteriorated and matches barely finished in daylight, earned this rant by Golfweek’s Alistair Tait.

Snails, turtles and tortoises move faster than some of these players, especially in the fourball matches.

Yet only one player was given a bad time.

Just one!

How slow were they? The first fourball match featuring Suzann Pettersen and Anne van Dam against Danielle Kang and Lizette Salas took 2 hours and 57 minutes for nine holes. Nine.

They took five hours and 11 minutes to play 16 holes.

USA Captain Juli Inkster added:

"Yes [it was an issue], it's painfully slow out there," said Inkster. "I know we had maybe a couple on our side that are maybe a little bit slower, but they have a few on their side, too, that are a little slow. So I don't know, I don't know what to do.

During Saturday’s play, pace talk took up much of the broadcast as players often took shockingly long over putts and poor weather added to the misery.

That said, the matches are tied heading to Sunday singles and things should move faster.