Slow Play-Heated Debate Among Golf Professionals and Tour Officials

[Tim Gavrich]

What takes longer - walking a 7,000-yard course or a 7,500-yard course?


It's the equipment (partially).

[Matt Schoolfield]

What takes longer - walking a 7,000-yard course or a 7,500-yard course?

It's the equipment (partially).

I don't think this is relevant. The main cause of long round time is the waiting, which ripples through the field like a traffic jam. The delta in time to walk to each shot can trivially be compensated for by slightly longer tee time intervals.

[Jerry Kluger]

I have watched very little of the TGL golf but to me it is quite clear that all the time a player takes on the PGA Tour makes no sense when you see how comfortable they are with the shot clock.(Except of course, Tiger lining up a putt.) No matter how much time they spend they will still misread a putt or misplay/calculate an iron.  It is just a question of forcing the issue and when it comes to the end of a tournament I don't think the results would be significantly different if the players took 4 hours to play a round versus 5 or more hours.

[Niall C]

I have watched very little of the TGL golf but to me it is quite clear that all the time a player takes on the PGA Tour makes no sense when you see how comfortable they are with the shot clock.(Except of course, Tiger lining up a putt.) No matter how much time they spend they will still misread a putt or misplay/calculate an iron.  It is just a question of forcing the issue and when it comes to the end of a tournament I don't think the results would be significantly different if the players took 4 hours to play a round versus 5 or more hours.

Jerry


I generally agree with what you say. It seems to me that they have their routines that are taking too long and they need to learn shorter set up routines. It's being forced into that which is/will likely cause the grief but once the new standards are set and they learn new quicker routines I don't think it will prove a problem for the players.


Niall

[Jerry Kluger]

Niall: The most dramatic example I have seen was Keegan Bradley subject to a shot clock.  No bouncing back and forth, no twirling the club, no straddling the line, etc. - I cannot believe that he couldn't play that way in a tour event.  Sergio was a nervous wreck at one point and somehow he was able to get himself to a point where he cut back by perhaps 90%. The biggest problem would be the LPGA and their almost robotic preshot routines.

[Niall C]

Jerry


It was the robotic pre shot routines I was thinking about. Maybe hard to change a routine as a one off but if they knew that at the start of the new season they'd have to play quicker on every shot and not just when on the clock or whatever, then I'm pretty sure they would spend the off-season developing and honing a quicker pre shot routine so they wouldn't have to worry about their time.


Niall

[Erik J. Barzeski]

What takes longer - walking a 7,000-yard course or a 7,500-yard course?

That accounts for about five minutes. What about the other 55 or whatever?

Those comparing TGL to the PGA Tour… they're not the same. The pressure is not the same, the money is not the same, the wind is non-existent, the greens are a known firmness on the sim (as are the fairways), they've walked 30 feet, not 300 yards, the yardage is pre-calculated, there's no elevation change… nothing is the same except that they're hitting a golf ball.

[Ben Sims]

What takes longer - walking a 7,000-yard course or a 7,500-yard course?

That accounts for about five minutes. What about the other 55 or whatever?

Those comparing TGL to the PGA Tour… they're not the same. The pressure is not the same, the money is not the same, the wind is non-existent, the greens are a known firmness on the sim (as are the fairways), they've walked 30 feet, not 300 yards, the yardage is pre-calculated, there's no elevation change… nothing is the same except that they're hitting a golf ball.

Erik,


I don’t think anyone is saying otherwise. But the argument that the stakes are just too big for players to adjust their pace and routine seems to fly in the face of what lots of people like to argue, that these golfers are athletes. Baseball adjusted VERY quickly to a pitch clock. I know a baseball pitch clock and a golf shot clock aren’t perfectly comparable. But I would make an argument that the pitch clock is the single biggest change in baseball in three generations, maybe longer.


I love golf. I think most of us here do. But I can’t watch professional golf. It takes forever and the commercials are worse than college football. Everything that isn’t a major or tour event seems like an exhibition. Regular tour events don’t have the gravitas save for just a couple of events. So I don’t watch unless it’s a major. That’s a HUGE problem for professional golf, that lovers of the game watch things other than golf when golf is on the TV.


As I said above, golfers are athletes. They train like athletes. And if they’re forced to change their pace and routine, they will. Just like other sports have done.

[Erik J. Barzeski]

But the argument that the stakes are just too big for players to adjust their pace and routine seems to fly in the face of what lots of people like to argue, that these golfers are athletes.

I'll stop you there. I'm only saying that comparing TGL to real world golf is a non-starter given the many, many differences.

PGA Tour players absolutely can and should learn to play faster. I'm just saying that the TGL angle isn't a great argument, as it's got a lot of holes due to the differences.

[Ben Sims]

But the argument that the stakes are just too big for players to adjust their pace and routine seems to fly in the face of what lots of people like to argue, that these golfers are athletes.

I'll stop you there. I'm only saying that comparing TGL to real world golf is a non-starter given the many, many differences.

PGA Tour players absolutely can and should learn to play faster. I'm just saying that the TGL angle isn't a great argument, as it's got a lot of holes due to the differences.

Okay that’s my bad. I projected your TGL post into other stuff.


I will say that from what I’ve seen and read, the TGL stuff does have many differences but also illustrates that these guys can hit a ball pretty flush without a ton of pre-shot needs.