Jay Monahan, slow play, bad weather, and the same old PGA Tour issues stuck on repeat. The solutions? Hard to come by! Take this year’s Farmers Insurance Open as an example. What happened when the golfers finally got ready to play the 2nd round? Suspended because of the winds! The Tour halted play for nearly an hour and a half, resuming the game when the clock hit 6:30 PM (ET). This was neither the first nor the last time this occurred.
In fact, during the final round of the same event, slow play plagued the game. The final pairing took 3 hours to complete just 9 holes! The trend is clear: they exceeded the standard 4-hour mark. Undoubtedly, frustration is in the air!
Back in January, 17-time LPGA winner Dottie Pepper shook her head in exasperation. She blamed the players, calling this behavior a lack of respect for her fellow competitors. “I think we are starting to need a new word to talk about this pace-of-play issue, and it’s ‘respect.’ For your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasts, for all of it. It’s just gotta get better.” The months rolled by without any real solution, so another important name, Stephen Cox, VP of Rules & Tournament Administration, joined the conversation.
Cox said, “Generally speaking, it’s fair to say that round times are getting slightly worse…our analysis is telling us that this journey we’re on, we’re going in the wrong direction.” This statement has also to do with the Tour’s consistent insistence that they’re doing everything in their hands to resolve the issue. But The PLAYERS Championship is coming ahead and things don’t look very good.
“We’re teeing off two minutes after sunrise, and I think the time between the last tee time and sunset is something like four hours and 10 minutes,” Cox said. “We’re not going to finish.” The PLAYERS Championship will tee off on March 13 at 7:30 a.m. (ET) and is set to finish by 2:46 p.m. (ET). Cox’s concern makes sense. The final group at The American Express took 5 hours and 40 minutes to complete its final round! With the sunset at 7:33 p.m. (ET), it’s no wonder everyone’s worried about the games. More recently, it happened at the Champion course. The Cognizant Classic round 1 was suspended because of short daylight hours. Plus, moisture from pre-tournament showers added 15 minutes per group due to casual water rulings.
With mounting concern, what does Jay Monahan think? “We’ve committed to addressing the speed of play,” he said. “It’s easy to identify the problem. It’s a little bit harder to find the solution, just given the depth and breadth of everything that goes into the pace of play.” In the end, the Tour has decided to publish speed-of-play-related statistics soon, sharing the names of both fast and slow players. Additionally, the Tour will introduce new speed-of-play policies. Is the golf world convinced?
Golf’s biggest names are getting tired of the slow-play issue
Back in February, during the WM Phoenix Open, the 1st round halted at 6:13 PM (ET), forcing players to compete the next morning. The tour pointed to a scheduling error, but fans blamed slow play. The issue isn’t new; that’s part of the problem. With no solution in sight, the golf world is speaking out more than ever. Adding fans to the mix makes it an urgent matter. So when Jay Monahan shared his idea for a solution, World No. 4 Collin Morikawa nodded in support.
The golfer attended The PLAYERS Championship press conference. Morikawa believes that imposing fines on golfers will be of no use because everyone wants to play good golf. Consequently, they take their time with it. But what if the stats come into play? “…I see no issue with [publishing pace stats]. What is there to hide, right? If you’re slow, you know you’re slow. I mean, if you don’t know, then there’s an issue. To me, there’s no issue with letting it out. It’s only going to make things better because then you’re either going to have a target on you – put a little more pressure and hopefully you pick it up – or you get penalized.”
Justin Thomas had a similar reaction. “I mean, I’m the first to admit that I’m on the slow side of players. It bothers me, but I’ve talked to many officials about it because I want to understand why I’m slow. Obviously, the first thing that any slower player thinks is that they’re not slow.” No one’s more tired than fast players!
Jay Monahan’s new speed-of-play policies will also include assessing penalty strokes for violations on the developmental tours. The policies will test the impact of using rangefinders during the six tournaments between the Masters and the PGA Championship. “We’re excited to learn more about the impact of increased transparency and accountability through these efforts,” he said.
However, the question remains: will we see a solid response to this issue in The PLAYERS Championship? Or will Stephan Cox’s worry come true?
The post Jay Monahan & Co. Warned That Their ‘Wrong Direction’ Will Worsen PGA Tour’s Biggest Issue at PLAYERS appeared first on EssentiallySports.
