LPGA announces another change to its Pace of Play Policy, making it even tougher
The LPGA has announced an additional change to its Pace of Play policy for the 2025 season. Beginning next week at the Ford Championship, the tour will add a season-long tracking element for holes timed.
Players who have 40 or more holes timed during the rest of the 2025 schedule (with the exception of the T-Mobile Match Play presented by MGM Rewards, U.S. Women's Open, Dow Championship and AIG Women's Open) will receive a fine.
This also will go into effect on the Epson Tour beginning on April 25 at the IOA Championship. On that tour, players who have 20 or more holes timed for the remainder of the season will also receive a fine.
'Looking at the data, we concluded that if a player had 40 or more holes timed over the season, that player contributed to a slower pace of play,' said LPGA Player President Vicki Goetze-Ackerman in a release. 'We believe that this addition to the policy, along with penalty strokes being issued for plus times of +6 or greater, will increase the number of players who heed the initial warnings, leading to fewer players out of position and therefore timings.'
In February, the tour released a new Pace of Play Policy that introduced a one-shot penalty.
The current policy dished out fines for those who were 1 to 10 seconds over the allotted time and a two-stroke penalty for those who were more than 11 seconds over. The new policy gives a fine for those who are 1-5 seconds over, a one-stroke penalty for those 6 – 15 seconds over and a two-stroke penalty for more than 16 seconds.
In addition, players who tee off first on par 3s and reachable par 4s will continue to get an additional 10 seconds. The new policy, however, eliminates the additional 10 seconds that was given to players who are first to play from par 4 and par 5 tees.
The new policy was revealed at the first player meeting of the season in February at the Founders Cup. World No. 1 Nelly Korda's reaction to the news: Finally.
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Today in Sports - Week Ahead, August 15
Aug. 15 1948 — Babe Didrikson Zaharias wins the U.S. Women's Open golf title over Betty Hicks. 1950 — Ezzard Charles knocks out Freddie Beshore in the 14th round to retain his world heavyweight title. 1965 — Dave Marr edges Jack Nicklaus and Billy Casper to take the PGA Championship. 1966 — Jose Torres retains his world light-heavyweight title with a unanimous decision over Eddie Cotton in Las Vegas. 1993 — Greg Norman lips his putt on the PGA Championship's second playoff hole, giving Paul Azinger the title and leaving Norman with an unprecedented career of Grand Slam playoff losses. 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Drees became the first pitcher in the PCL or the major leagues with three no-hitters in a year. 1992 — Nick Price holds off a comeback bid by Nick Faldo with a 1-under 70 in the final round and captures his first major title with a three-stroke victory in the PGA national championship. 1995 — Ethiopia's Haile Gebrselassie shatters Kenya's Moses Kiptanui's record in the 5,000 by nearly 11 seconds with a time of 12 minutes, 44.39 seconds at the Weltklasse meet in Zurich, Switzerland. 1998 — Jeff Gordon drives into the record book, becoming the seventh driver in modern NASCAR history to win four straight races as he comes from far back to take the Pepsi 400. 2003 — Cristiano Ronaldo (18) makes his debut for Manchester United and the Premier League in a 4–0 home victory over Bolton Wanderers. 2008 — In Beijing, Michael Phelps touches the wall a hundredth of a second ahead of Serbia's Milorad Cavic to win the 100-meter butterfly. 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Katayama and Toms at 9-under 131, tie the PGA record for 36 holes last set by Ernie Els at Riviera in 1995. 2005 — The NCAA purchases the rights to the preseason and postseason National Invitation Tournaments as part of a settlement ending a four-year legal fight between the two parties. The 40-team postseason NIT, which is a year older and was once the bigger event, will be run by the NCAA. 2008 — At the Summer Olympics in Beijing, Michael Phelps and three teammates win the 400-meter medley relay for Phelps' eighth gold medal, eclipsing Mark Spitz's seven-gold performance at the 1972 Munich Games. Of his five individual races and three relays, Phelps sets world records in seven and an Olympic record in the eighth. 2008 — Jesus Sauceda of Matamoros, Mexico, pitches the fifth perfect game in Little League World Series history and the first in 29 years for a 12-0 win over Emilia, Italy. Sauceda also stars at the plate, going 3-for-3 with six RBIs, including a grand slam in the third. 2013 — Nick Davilla throws six touchdown passes and the Arizona Rattlers defeat the Philadelphia Soul 48-39 in the Arena Bowl. The Rattlers win the championship for the second straight year, beating the Soul in both championship games. 2014 — Inbee Park successfully defends her title in the LPGA Championship, beating Brittany Lincicome with a par on the first hole of a playoff to end the United States' major streak at three. 2014 — The Phoenix Mercury sets a WNBA record with their 29th win, beating the Seattle Storm 78-65 in the season finale. Phoenix (29-5) tops the previous mark set by Los Angeles (28-4 in both 2000 and 2001) and Seattle (28-6 in 2010). 2015 — The National Labor Relations Board dismisses a historic ruling that Northwestern University football players are school employees who are entitled to form what would be the nation's first union of college athletes. 2016 — Jamaica's Elaine Thompson completes the first 100-200 women's Olympic double since 1988. Thompson wins the 200 in 21.78 seconds to become the first woman since Marion Jones in 2000 to win both Olympic sprints. Jones' records have since been stripped, so Thompson goes in the record book along with Florence Griffith-Joyner, who starred in the 1988 Seoul Games. _____ Aug. 18 1923 — Helen Mills, 17, ends Molla Bjurstedt Mallory's domination of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships and starts her own with a 6-2, 6-1 victory. 1958 — Floyd Patterson knocks out Roy Harris in the 13th round at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles to retain his world heavyweight title. 1964 — The International Olympic Committee bans South Africa from competing in the Summer Olympics because of its apartheid policies. 1982 — Pete Rose sets record with his 13,941st plate appearance. 1994 — South Africa is introduced for the first time in 36 years during the opening ceremonies of the 15th Commonwealth Games held in Victoria, British Columbia. South Africa had been banned from the Games since 1958 because of its apartheid policies. 1995 — Thirteen-year-old Dominique Moceanu becomes the youngest to win the National Gymnastics Championships senior women's all-around title in New Orleans. 2004 — Paul Hamm wins the men's gymnastics all-around Olympic gold medal by the closest margin ever in the event. Controversy follows after it was discovered a scoring error that may have cost Yang Tae-young of South Korea the men's all-around title. Yang, who finished with a bronze, is wrongly docked a tenth of a point on his second-to-last routine, the parallel bars. He finishes third, 0.049 points behind Hamm, who becomes the first American man to win gymnastics' biggest prize. 2008 — A day after winning an Olympic gold medal in Beijing, Rafael Nadal officially unseats Roger Federer to become the world's No. 1 tennis player when the ATP rankings are released. Federer had been atop the rankings for 235 weeks. 2013 — For the first time in Solheim Cup history, the Europeans leaves America with the trophy. Caroline Hedwall becomes the first player in the 23-year history of the event to win all five matches. She finishes with a 1-up victory over Michelle Wie and gives Europe the 14 points it needed to retain the cup. 2013 — Usain Bolt is perfect again with three gold medals. The Jamaican great becomes the most successful athlete in the 30-year history of the world championships. The 4x100-meter relay gold erases the memories of the 100 title he missed out on in South Korea two years ago because of a false start. Bolt, who already won the 100 and 200 meters, gets his second such sprint triple at the world championships, matching the two he achieved at the Olympics. 2016 — Jamaica's Usain Bolt completes an unprecedented third consecutive sweep of the 100 and 200-meter sprints, elevating his status as the most decorated male sprinter in Olympic history. He wins the 200-meter race with a time of 19.78 seconds to defeat Andre de Grasse of Canada. American Ashton Eaton defends his Olympic decathlon title, equaling the games record with a surge on the last lap of the 1,500 meters — the last event in the two-day competition. Helen Maroulis defeats Japan's Saori Yoshida 4-1 in the 53-kilogram freestyle final to win the first-ever gold medal for a United States women's wrestler. 2018 — Accelerate cruises to a record 12 1/2-length victory in the $1 million Pacific Classic at Del Mar, becoming just the third horse to sweep all three of Southern California's major races for older horses in the same year. 2021 — Atlanta Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman hit for the cycle for the second time in his career as they beat the Miami Marlins 11-9.
NBC Sports
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Olympic's graveyard is D-3 product's proving ground at U.S. Amateur
SAN FRANCISCO – The Olympic Club has earned the nickname, 'The Graveyard of Champions,' for a reason. It all started with Jack Fleck, the improbable 1955 U.S. Open winner on the Lake Course after outlasting Ben Hogan in an 18-hole playoff, a day after the television broadcast signed off by declaring Hogan the champion, not considering that Fleck still had holes to play. Billy Casper followed in 1966, rallying from seven shots back of Arnold Palmer with nine holes remaining to claim his second U.S. Open. Lee Janzen, in 1998, also made up seven strokes on the final day as he beat Payne Stewart. There was Scott Simpson over Tom Watson late in 1987, and Yuka Saso ending Lexi Thompson's U.S. Women's Open dreams by erasing five shots down the stretch in 2021. This week at the 125th U.S. Amateur, there is no Fleck, but there is an Abdo. Meet Jimmy Abdo, the 19-year-old from Edina, Minnesota, and a rising sophomore at Division-III Gustavus Adolphus, though only because he sat in the transfer portal all summer, drawing no real interest from Division-I programs. He sits No. 4,292 in the world amateur rankings with just four counting events, and he isn't shy about the sizable chip that rests on his shoulder. 'I love proving people wrong,' Abdo said. 'I just have to keep telling myself that I belong.' Abdo birdied three of his last six holes on Tuesday on the adjacent Ocean Course just to get into a 20-for-17 playoff for match play. Two pars later and he was on to the knockout stage, where he knocked off Logan Reilly, the much-ballyhooed Auburn incomer, in the Round of 64 on Wednesday evening. Having just rattled off four straight birdies, Abdo left himself about 10 feet for par on the Lake's par-4 finishing hole. He then stepped up and confidently holed the lightning-fast putt before punctuating the 1-up victory with a thunderous fist pump. The No. 4292 amateur in the world is moving on ‼️ Jimmy Abdo — a sophomore at Gustavus Adolphus College (@GustieGolf) — wins 1 up with this par save on 18. 'That's the kind of putt you dream of,' Abdo said. 'The biggest moment of my golf career for sure.' And it's only getting bigger. Abdo will face Houston grad Wolfgang Glawe in Thursday morning's Round of 32. Glawe produced an equally thrilling finish on the 18th green, finding the rough long and then whiffing on his first chip by sliding his wedge right under the ball, only to then regroup and hole his next chip for par and a 1-up victory over Ole Miss' Tom Fischer. There were some other cool moments on Wednesday: John Daly II, son of the two-time major champ, tied 17 holes with Louisville's Cooper Claycomb, with Daly's birdie on the par-4 11th hole marking the only hole won by either player. Medalist Preston Stout of Oklahoma State carded seven birdies in 15 holes to beat high-schooler Pennson Badgett, while world No. 1 Jackson Koivun didn't make birdie until the last hole of his 2-and-1 win over Illinois' Ryan Voois. Scotland's Niall Shiels Donegan, an adopted Bay Area product, arguably had the loudest gallery as members of both public Mill Valley and private Meadow Club made their way across the Golden Gate Bridge to watch the North Carolina transfer and Walker Cup hopeful drain an 8-footer at the last to defeat Florida's Luke Poulter. Two matches went extra holes, including Georgia commit Mason Howell's bout with sixth-ranked amateur Tommy Morrison, who led for 16 holes until Howell prevailed in 19 with a winning bogey on the par-4 first hole. And perhaps the craziest match was contested between Princeton's Reed Greyserman, the youngest brother of PGA Tour player Max Greyserman, and Texas Tech's Tim Wiedemeyer, who found himself 5 down after seven holes before winning five of his last six holes and closing out Greyserman on the par-5 17th. But when it comes to underdog stories, there isn't a longer shot left in this field than Abdo. Never even the best player on his teams at Edina High, Abdo signed with the Gusties and immediately rooted himself at the program's practice facility, which, unlike many schools at that level, features multiple hitting bays with TrackMans and other high-end amenities – more than enough for the mustachioed range rat to develop quickly. Abdo won his first tournament in April, a victory that landed him in the world ranking, and followed with a runner-up showing before being named the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's rookie of the year. With the iron hot, Abdo decided to test the portal waters. It wasn't that he needed to get out of St. Peter, but it had always been his dream to play Division-I golf. Having also qualified this summer for his first U.S. Amateur – in his first try, too – via a 4-for-2 playoff, Abdo thought he'd at least field a few offers from schools. But weeks went by, and to date, just one Big Ten program, which Abdo wouldn't address by name, has shown marginal interest. 'After a couple of calls, I was told that there wasn't enough time to make a decision,' Abdo explained. 'I accepted that and used it as fuel to come out here and prove them wrong, and I think, so far, I've done that.' Abdo birdied the treacherous first hole, a converted par-5 playing as a 522-yard par-4 on Wednesday – and a hole that yielded just three birdies in stroke play. He won the second hole, too, to take a 2-up lead out of the gates. But Abdo knew Reilly was too talented not to mount a charge, which came immediately; the Lovettsville, Virginia, native, whose dad, Terry Reilly, is the EVP of Wasserman, holed a 30-yard bunker shot to win the par-3 third and two holes later chipped in for birdie to flip the match to 1 up in his favor. Reilly led 2 up after 11 holes. 'I think a lot of people would've folded and gave up,' Abdo said, 'but me and my caddie (childhood friend Evan Raiche) were like, we got to this point, there's no point in backing down now. … What kept me fighting is knowing that there's not much pressure on the 61 seed. I knew I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I knew that if I just stayed aggressive and stayed with it – I'd been hitting the ball too good to not make something happen.' Did he ever. And he doesn't plan on folding either, no matter who he's matched up against. 'I'm not afraid of anybody,' Abdo replied when asked what he hopes people will learn about him this week. 'This is the best opportunity of my career to make myself stand out, and that's the way I'm going to view everybody,' he added. 'Doesn't matter if it's the No. 1 player or like me, the No. 4,000 player; the better the player, the more focused I'm going to be, and I'm going to use that to my advantage because I know I can trust myself out there. 'You don't get chances like this to play against the best players in the world very often. This is probably going to be one of my few opportunities, and I just have to go out there and take care of it.' On Olympic's graveyard, Abdo's proving ground.
