Slow Play Penalty on the Young Japanese Player

[Bruce Katona]

I was just reading today's 3 rd Round hi-lites on Yahoo Sports and came across the reference to the penalty. The young man was in the thick of it, was assessed a stroke for slow play and bogies in on 18. His American playing partner was none to complimentary of the ruling in thevpostcriund interview. 

Any one else notice this? 

There was comment on the Ruling but was this justified/called for?

[noonan]

Those Asian players are slow

[Jon Wiggett]

Bruce,

there have been several slow play penalties of late. It is about time the various governing bodies started to really try to solve the slow play problem.

Jon

[Ronald Montesano]

Someone wrote that Matsuyama had whacked a spectator and was making sure that the person was ok, adding to the issue...I love that Johnson Wagner refused to sign the card until pressured.

http://golfweek.com/news/2013/jul/20/british-open-2013-muirfield-slow-play-hideki-matsu/

[Andrew Brown]

There was no language barrier. The refereeing observer for the group was Japanese. He would have known where he stood after the first bad time and the implications of further slow play.

[Jon Wiggett]

Interesting comment from his playing partner

"I didn’t want to sign it; I didn’t want to put the score down,” Wagner said after the round. “We were moving at a lovely pace for twosomes on a Saturday.”

I wonder how long they took to be playing at a fair pace for a twosome? 3 hours would be normal though even 4 would be nice for the professionals!!!

Jon

[Wade Whitehead]

After being warned he received bad time number one (on a very difficult putt), then took more than two minutes to play a shot for bad time number two.

I would bet he didn't believe they would penalize him.

WW

[Bruce Katona]

I'm watching the replay on ESPN now. Woods & Westwood are also being watched for being behind while dueling for the lead.  Can you imagine if someone called a stoke penalty on this two some on international TV!! If someone were to try to penalize Westwood the entire 3 lions supporters would perhaps have vigilante justice. If on Woods American Viewers would be called into the USGA for hours. 

[JLahrman]

It was nice of Wagner to stick up for him, but there are always reasons that a player can claim that a specific situation didn't call for a penalty. In this case, Wagner said it was because the shot called for "laying it up out of the fescue over the gorse and pot bunkers", and said that "his caddie had to pace all the way to the fairway, 100 yards to get his carry number", and also cited his position in the tournament.

All that is a bunch of hogwash.

However, I will support the slow play penalty process when I see one of the name player assessed a penalty. Sort of the way that maybe I'll support the death penalty once I see some rich people on death row.

[Jud_T]

I love how as soon as the guy was penalized Azinger and Strange started making excuses about why you can't keep pace when the greens are so difficult.  Next step is for a guy near the lead on Sunday to get penalized.

[Ronald Montesano]

I'm not sure what to make of this. Are you guys that personally offended when a player plays slowly? Do you feel entitled to watching quick golf on television? Sure, it's in their control, but it's also their profession.

I'm sure that fans of every other major sport have gripes and that they proclaim these loudly on chat rooms across the digital land. Someone mentioned vigilante justice for Westwood should he be penalized; I wonder about this mild vigilantism herein...

Slow play doesn't really affect televised viewing; commercial advertising and long-winded speakers do, as well. I suspect that both Azinger and Strange (throw Tirico and other USA commentators in, too) have a severe case of linguistic inferiority when they cohabitate with european counterparts at the Britisih Open...as such, they go on and on, hoping to make this case or that, this point or that. It must be like high school and they are the wimpy kids with underdeveloped grammatus obliques, getting pushed around.

[Pete_Pittock]

It was nice of Wagner to stick up for him, but there are always reasons that a player can claim that a specific situation didn't call for a penalty. In this case, Wagner said it was because the shot called for "laying it up out of the fescue over the gorse and pot bunkers", and said that "his caddie had to pace all the way to the fairway, 100 yards to get his carry number", and also cited his position in the tournament.

All that is a bunch of hogwash.

However, I will support the slow play penalty process when I see one of the name player assessed a penalty. Sort of the way that maybe I'll support the death penalty once I see some rich people on death row.

According to what I have read on another website the referee doing the timing didn't start until after spectator incident  and after the caddy had paced off the yardage.

Woods/Westwood and Jimenez/Stenson were both on the clock, being stuck behind Martin Laird after his quintuple on 3. I thought Westwood/Woods did okay keeping up (I heard they were on the clock on 12 but were in position on the 13th tee, but Stenson/Jimenez were much more than a hole behind, closer to two holes. It toolk them about 6 holes to get back in position. My take on the situation was the Jimenez-Stenson group was behind and that the referee gave them a couple of hole to catch up before putting them on the clock when it was evident that that was physically impossible. I hope the same leeway was afforded Matsuyama.  

[Dan Herrmann]

To me, the timing rule(s) are as important as the old Tiger drop problem during the Masters.  This is golf - all 34 rules carry the same weight, no?

[Joel_Stewart]

I'm watching the replay on ESPN now. Woods & Westwood are also being watched for being behind while dueling for the lead.  Can you imagine if someone called a stoke penalty on this two some on international TV!! If someone were to try to penalize Westwood the entire 3 lions supporters would perhaps have vigilante justice. If on Woods American Viewers would be called into the USGA for hours. 

I know a person who play at The Medalist and he said Tiger Woods is the fastest player he has ever seen.  He can play 18 holes in 2 hours.

What are the consequences if Wagner does not sign the card? 

[JLahrman]

According to what I have read on another website the referee doing the timing didn't start until after spectator incident  and after the caddy had paced off the yardage.

Pete, I don't doubt that the player deserved the penalty, and the younger players coming up today are used to a more deliberate pace. I just find it impossible to believe that no top 50 player seems to have warranted a pace of play penalty in the past 15 years, while somehow these two young players at the Masters and British Open deserved the only penalties that have been assessed.

[Doug Siebert]

Slow play doesn't really affect televised viewing; commercial advertising and long-winded speakers do, as well. I suspect that both Azinger and Strange (throw Tirico and other USA commentators in, too) have a severe case of linguistic inferiority when they cohabitate with european counterparts at the Britisih Open...as such, they go on and on, hoping to make this case or that, this point or that. It must be like high school and they are the wimpy kids with underdeveloped grammatus obliques, getting pushed around.

Of course it doesn't, but it does affect the pace of play of some of the people watching the tournament.  Or do you think that all the people who now up their putts using an alignment mark on the ball decided to start doing that on their own, rather than from seeing it done on TV?

While watching people play 'fast' on TV isn't going to make slow players play faster, seeing pro golfers at the highest level penalized for slow play may wake some of them up to the importance being placed on maintaining proper pace and make it a bit easier for those courses and rangers who do try to keep things moving along.

[Pete_Pittock]

According to what I have read on another website the referee doing the timing didn't start until after spectator incident  and after the caddy had paced off the yardage.

Pete, I don't doubt that the player deserved the penalty, and the younger players coming up today are used to a more deliberate pace. I just find it impossible to believe that no top 50 player seems to have warranted a pace of play penalty in the past 15 years, while somehow these two young players at the Masters and British Open deserved the only penalties that have been assessed.

     I think the reason that no top 50 player on the PGA tour has received a one stroke penalty is because the PGA tour has a series of anonymous fines, rather than using the optional progressive stroke discipline option in Rule 6-7. 

 

[Jon Wiggett]

What are the consequences if Wagner does not sign the card? 

Joel,

one of the tournament committee would sign the card instead.

Jon

[Martin Toal]

Overall, this is a good thing. Is it perfectly fair in its implementation yet? Probably not. Is this player the most deserving case? Maybe not.

But it is good that the R&A will apply the penalty to a player in the mix. There is no point in applying financial penalties after the fact. Other players in contention today now know the same penalty could apply to them. I also respect Wagner's defence of his playing partner. Good for him, and he is right that there are some problems with this, but you have to start somewhere. 

[Padraig Dooley]

According to what I have read on another website the referee doing the timing didn't start until after spectator incident  and after the caddy had paced off the yardage.

Pete, I don't doubt that the player deserved the penalty, and the younger players coming up today are used to a more deliberate pace. I just find it impossible to believe that no top 50 player seems to have warranted a pace of play penalty in the past 15 years, while somehow these two young players at the Masters and British Open deserved the only penalties that have been assessed.

It's not just the two Asian players were penalised. Matteo Manassero was also penalised at the Masters, he missed the cut by a shot. For some reason this penalty was discussed very little in the media.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/apr/12/masters-2013-guan-tianlang-penalty

[JLahrman]

It's not just the two Asian players were penalised. Matteo Manassero was also penalised at the Masters, he missed the cut by a shot. For some reason this penalty was discussed very little in the media.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/apr/12/masters-2013-guan-tianlang-penalty

I did not realize he had been penalized as well. That makes me feel slightly more supportive.

[J Sadowsky]

Looks like the cost of slow play, at least this weekend, was just under $150,000 (not doing an exact calculation because of the change in number of people tied at each place).

[Tom_Doak]

I did not see this incident, or much of The Open, but it seems to me the new vigilance against slow play is getting a little bit out of hand.  All players are going to face a handful of difficult shots where they need to take more than 45 seconds to assess what to do ... the question is whether they have already been "put on the clock".  It does seem they are quicker to put certain guys on the clock than others.

Honestly, I would rather they timed EVERY shot and came up with an average and assessed a penalty at the end of the day, so they were penalizing the turtles and the guys with overly long pre-shot routines, instead of the guys who got in a few bad situations while being watched.  I know it's not going to happen that way, but that would be much more fair.

[Ronald Montesano]

I agree with Tom. It's a case of government getting out of hand, to a degree, but if the circumstance warrants, so be it. Let all contestants know that they will be timed on every shot. Consolidate the numbers and pick a number of model golfers and another number of model turtles. Make their names known to the players first (doubtless there will be a leak to the public) and let them know what is expected and what the repercussions will be. Possible penalties of some magnitude include:

-penalty strokes
-loss of a start in the next tournament (equivalent to the soccer red card)
-demotion on the tournament exemption hierarchy

These true penalties will certainly catch the golfers' attention.

[Howard Riefs]

With the slow play penalty, Hideki Matsuyama finished at +2, tied for 6th. Without the penalty, he would have been tied for 3rd.

Another impact?

Without the penalty, he would have qualified for the Masters, which takes the "first 4 players, including ties, in the previous year's British Open Championship."