It’s nice to see that the blame for slow play in golf is finally going to who deserves it. Mainly, golfers who think they’re better than they are. Guys like myself who know we’re below average to downright mediocre are your best friends out on the course because we play as brisk as a New Yorker walks to the Subway.
It’s the golfer who thinks he’s a lot better than he is that will turn your round into a rush hour traffic replay. Personally, I call them Tim McDonald types - this guy once thought he was good enough to challenge WorldGolf.com’s near pro/Michigan Bagger Vance legend BTuck and he brags about having once edged the ad guy like he expects a green jacket for it - and I think he protests way too much about slow play to hide his own shortcomings. Or, in this case, slowcomings.
You don’t get these McDonald types just out on public golf courses though. You’ll find plenty of them on the PGA Tour. It turns out that 90 percent of the pros think they’re better than they actually are too. You can include anyone who thinks they’re capable of challenge Tiger Woods in this group.
Tiger himself rather ruefully lamented the slow play that often paralyzes the Tour during the WGC Accenture Match Play Championship.
“Welcome to the PGA Tour,” Tiger said more than once. “Guys play slow out here.”
Tiger’s comments came during a match play event where only two players played together and they conceded more putts than a drunken salesman. And still, four and a half hour rounds were routine. With twosomes, only 64 players in the entire field and matches that often ended before the full 18 to cut down on the overall average.
“The guys don’t police it out there with pace of play,” Tiger said after winning the trophy and staying undefeated for 2008. “And it’s getting slow out there, especially if we have any kind of frost delays or any kind of weather delays. From what I remember we didn’t have any kind of delays out of LA and the guys had to come back and finish the next day. That’s not good.”
When Woods was asked about the rules about docking strokes already on the books actually being enforced - like they recently were in the LPGA - he could only shrug.
“They might have to,” he said. “But the guys are a little sensitive about that.”
If a little sensitive means the way a mom is a little sensitive about making sure her kids aren’t left in a burning building, he’s right. The Tour players aren’t sensitive about it. They’re apoplectic. If you think the Tour has their polos in a bunch about the new drug testing policy, just wait to see the reaction if Tim Finchem has rules officials take strokes away. No one’s been penalized for it in 16 years. This in the era of Ben Crane.
Tiger is keeping the heat on though. He wrote about slow play again, unprompted, in his website newsletter this week.
“I would like to talk about slow play,” Tiger wrote or talked and had someone else type (can you imagine Tiger hunched over a keyboard?) “It’s been an ongoing problem on the PGA Tour for a long time. I honestly believe the pace of play is faster in Europe and Japan. It has been suggested offenders be penalized with strokes. The problem is, you may get one guy that slows down a group for playing at a snail’s pace and gets them all put on the clock, which isn’t fair. I know this is a complicated issue.
“Hopefully, it can be addressed in the near future.”
Which translates into: Get your butt in gear, Timmy Finchem!
The best golfer in the world and the worst golfer in the world are united in this one aspect: Our speed.
It’s those McDonalds you have to worry about.
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Comment feed for this post
Brandon Tucker:
Katharine Dyson:
The Accidental Golfer:
Mark Nessmith:
"If you can't play well, play FAST". Learned that when I was a kid on public courses. I think we need to re-teach that philosophy.
And Wendy - I really wasn't concerned about your original post. I was merely using it as a springboard to take a shot at the old Bal One. Didn't intend any disrespect, ma'am!