Players must be hit where it hurts to cure scourge of slow play

Telegraph

3 days ago

Officials judged JJ Spaun to have recorded a 'bad time' here at the 153rd Open Championship and the US Open champion's playing partners, Jon Rahm and Xander Schauffele, were not best pleased.
Goodness knows how they identified Spaun alone. Rounds were taking beyond six hours by the end of the opening day – everybody was slow and they surely could not blame one player. Indeed, picking out Spaun in this trail of the slugs was akin to singling out an Irishman here for having the odd pint.
In fairness, however, Spaun is not quick and clearly was not quick and in this respect, it is gratifying to witness the referees actually enforcing the rules, even if it was in an isolated case. Now let us see if they follow this through.
Should Spaun record another 'bad time' in the second round, he will receive a penalty shot and an example would thus be made. If you pardon the pun, it would be long overdue.
Despite the scourge of slow play raging all but unabated in the elite male professional game for the past decade there has not been a penalty in an individual event on the PGA Tour since Glen 'All' Day in 1995.
In the majors, the most recent player to be hit with a sanction on the scorecard was China's Guan Tianlang at the 2013 Masters. And he happened to be a 14-year-old schoolkid. Otherwise, they want us to believe that the transgressions of the rulebook are so rare, it is difficult to catch the slowcoaches.
That is nonsense, as the women's game is proving and, to a certain extent, LIV Golf as well. The LPGA Tour has issued four slow play penalties since March, including at the season's fourth female major – the Evian Championship – last week when another Chinese Yan Liu had two strokes added to her score for repeated infringements. On LIV, England's Richard Bland has twice fallen foul of the stop clock and it has cost him shots and money.
Australia's Marc Leishman, a LIV member, made this point after his 72. 'Felt like we were on the golf course for about 12 hours,' he said. 'We've been on the course for three hours through eight holes. That was tough to deal with, especially coming from somewhere where we play in under four and a half hours every week.'
There is mitigation. This is an immensely tough layout and the record-breaking crowds do not foster haste. Furthermore, the squalls meant players were clambering in and out of waterproofs at repeated intervals. That is all excusable. What is not is when the players wait for gusts to calm or when they simply take too long over a shot, either in the planning, the execution or most often, both.
This is what occurred to Spaun on the 17th. The group had been 'put on the clock' and each player was being timed over each shot. At this stage, they usually pick up the pace. But on the penultimate hole, Spaun went over the allotted 50 seconds he was allowed as the first golfer to play (the other two in the threeball get 40 seconds). Thus his 'bad time' warning carries over into Friday.
There were remonstrations against the rules official, with Rahm's caddie, Adam Hayes, reportedly particularly animated in a tense exchange. The referee stood his ground and should be applauded. John Wood, the well-known caddie who used to work for Matt Kuchar, was with the group as an analyst for USA TV and said the decision was perfectly correct.
'I've been with them for five holes,' Wood said, 'and I have not seen a group in front of them. They are definitely behind.'
No, the trio were not the reason for the wretched pace of play. What is at fault is the culture on the PGA Tour and a belief among the entitled multi-millionaires that they will not get punished. The only way that the authorities will break that culture is by hitting the players where it hurts. Not in the wallet, but on the scorecard. More instances like Spaun will speed up the solution.