[Jud_T]

Howard,

Not only that.  If Phil hadn't run away and hid at the end it was a real possibility that he could have missed a playoff by a stroke. 

[JLahrman]

Joel - to be fair, it's pretty hard to get penalised. You really need to be taking the piss - the top 50 players are too smart to push it to the lengths the likes of this guy and Guan did.

I don't doubt that the more experienced players know how to work the system better. But when guys like Crane, Na, and Byrd never get a penalty, something might be wrong with the system.

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.

Instead of timing every shot, give players maybe three exemptions per round where they can take longer. I take longer for a hard shot even when I'm not even keeping score. It's not unreasonable to take longer a few times a round when a player has a particularly difficult shot. The player shouldn't have to announce it or anything like that; just don't count the x longest times.

I'm not sure how many times they track. They measure the length of the putts that the players face down to the inch, so it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to collect data on their speed of play.

[Jim Hoak]

I know that Tom's suggestion would be better, but I'm just happy that they are beginning to take some action--finally!  Most of us have been critical of slow play for years, so let's not be micro-managing how exactly they go about policing it.  I have no sympathy for the offenders--or supporters like Wagner.  I just say, "It's about time!"

[Jim Nugent]

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."

Maybe.  That's assuming nothing else would have changed after the penalty.  The butterfly effect suggests that may not be so. 

[Pete_Pittock]

The simplest way to avoid getting timed is to stay in position relative to the group in front of you. You can be as deliberate as you want as long as you are in position.    The most important timing issue at The Open was not the penalty that was assessed but putting the final game on the clock on the front nine on a Saturday of a major.

As for timing every shot, that is possible in the opens with every group having an assigned referee. Timing a player is inherently more difficult than measuring distance. The PGA tour staff would have to grow at least six fold. Lord help us if a volunteer reports a bad time and has to get tangentially involved with a penalty assessment. That will be the last time he volunteers.

If you try to put timing quidelines into the rule book it usually backfires and slows things down. 

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