"Slow For Everyone"

[Tom_Doak]

This was a very well-written article on the topic of the slow final round of The Masters, and Patrick Cantlay's response to taking a lot of the heat for it.  I urge you to all read it in full:


https://golf.com/news/patrick-cantlay-responds-masters-pace-play-critiques/


It is tempting to joke that it is slow for everyone who's behind Patrick Cantlay, but the gist of the article is that Cantlay and Hovland, too, got to the second tee at Augusta and had to wait, because of course these guys have to wait for the greens on the par-5 holes to clear before they can hit their second shots . . . and while it's exciting to watch them tackle reachable par-5 holes, it also means a lot of waiting around to do it.  It's the same for drivable par-4's [though Augusta only has one where anyone might ever wait], and it's the same for having to line up every putt on very scary slopey greens.


It was blindingly obvious on Sunday that Kopeka takes like five seconds to line up and fire when he has become impatient, and that Cantlay is going to take his own sweet time to assess his next move.  But is there a functional difference if they are both going to have to wait nine minutes on the next tee?


I also noticed that Hovland was straddling the line of his putts to judge the slope with his feet, like we talked about in another recent thread, but he seemed very quick about it.


So, is it for real that championship golf is just doomed to be slow for the rest of time [and will appear to take up the majority of that time]?  Is it possible that 54 guys playing in twosomes is TOO MANY PLAYERS ON THE COURSE?  Are the shotgun starts of LIV [ironically, with the same 54 guys, but in threesomes] more suited to someone as impatient as Brooks, and in fact training him to be less patient in the majors that matter so much more to him?


It certainly sends an awful message to anyone else who competes at golf, but of course that is nothing new.

[Steve_ Shaffer]

Baseball has done very well in trying to speed up the game. The PGAT & The Masters not so well:


 [size=78%]New baseball rules for 2023 FAQ (mlb.com)[/size]

[Max Prokopy]

To top it off, I believe the tee times were a whopping 12 minutes apart and the greens were holding.

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

It certainly doesn't help pace-of-play for the professionals, when you have a reachable in two par 5 (2nd), a drivable par 4 (3rd), followed by a par 3. That combination is bound to compress the groupings.


Is that something that today's architects would think about and try to avoid?

[Thomas Dai]

Come the revolution, ie 1/1/26, it'll be interesting to see if there's as much waiting on par-5's coz it's an issue in the amateur game these days too.
atb

[Ally Mcintosh]

It certainly doesn't help pace-of-play for the professionals, when you have a reachable in two par 5 (2nd), a drivable par 4 (3rd), followed by a par 3. That combination is bound to compress the groupings.


Is that something that today's architects would think about and try to avoid?

Yes, you always have to consider flow and how it affects pace of play. Bill Yates did a lot of work on this. I can’t recall many of his findings but one that always stuck out for me was that golfers do not mind a long round of golf so long as it doesn’t come with waiting for shots: They don’t notice a 4 hr 45 round if they are always moving. They get very annoyed by a 4 hr 15 round when they are waiting on every second shot.


In theory your example above is slow. In reality, it could actually help to spread out the field. The key is suitable tee spacings for the course in question.

[Niall C]

Tom


I read the article in full and seems to me that Cantlay's defence was basically it's like this every week, what's the big deal ? To me, all that defence says is that slow play isn't just a phenomenon at the Masters. However what happened at the Masters was that you had a couple of no-nonsense ready to play players in Rahm and Koepka playing behind Cantlay, renowned as one of the slowest players on tour, as the last two pairings on the final day of a major. That's always going to put the issue in the spotlight.


Not that I think Cantlay was the worst BTW, the young amateur was just brutal.   


Niall

[JohnVDB]

To top it off, I believe the tee times were a whopping 12 minutes apart and the greens were holding.

For Round 4, they were alternating between 9 and 10 minute intervals.  Round 3 had 12 minute intervals because they were in groups of 3.

The weather obviously played a huge factor in the weekend's tee time arrangements as it forced the use of a two-tee start.  The problem with two-tee starts is that no matter how fast your first group plays, they can't make the turn before the final group off the other side has played their second shots on their first hole and they will then be held up by those players the rest of the way around.

The Masters Committee chose to play in groups of 2 for the final round off of two tees.  They put 14 groups off the front and 13 off the back, although the final group off the back was a single. The first tee time was 12:30 and the last one of the front was 2:33.  The last one off the back was 2:24. If we give the player in the 12:24 group 8 minutes to tee off, get to his ball and wait for the 10th green to clear before playing his second shot and clearing the landing zone, the first group of the front couldn't have teed off on #10 until 2:32 or 2 hours and 2 minutes after they started their round.  Obviously there is no incentive to play any faster than that.
When the Masters has been able to go with a traditional one tee start in the third and fourth rounds, I believe they usually use 10 minute intervals. Going with the 9/10 minute intervals saved them 7 minutes in tee times over the 14 groups, but it generally means every other group is going to get to the second tee a little closer behind the group in front than usual.  As that hole will have waits for groups going for the green in 2, by the time you get to the 14th group you're going to be backed up.
As Ally pointed out Bill Yates studied this and one of the main things he found was that putting tee times too close together results in slower play do to more waiting and leads to more frustration.
Had the Committee chosen to stay with groups of 3 and 12 minute intervals for the fourth round, they would have started the final group at 2:06 or 27 minutes earlier.  Of course, with groups of 3, play would have been slower for each group, but it would have felt much more normal for the players than a crowded course with groups too close together.  Doing this might have jeopardized the chances of finishing on Sunday because of the slower time for groups of 3, but the players would definitely have had lesser waits. Obviously it was very important to the Committee to finish on Sunday rather than drag over to a Monday finish.  They were able to do that so I guess from their point of view it was a success, albeit one that came at a price of upset players and a media that doesn't understand the tradeoffs that had to occur.

[Dan_Callahan]

The "that's just the way it is and there's nothing we can do about it" excuse used to be a conversation stopper ... until MLB this season. The Red Sox just played a game that barely crept past 2 hours. At this rate, fans will start complaining the games are going too fast and they don't even have time to get buzzed before they have to leave the park.


If professional golf wanted to fix this problem, they could. Overnight. Assign a walking timer to each group. Figure out parameters for when the clock starts ticking and how long players have to hit their shots, and go with it. The slow players will freak out, but to hell with them. In my opinion, slow play is a FAR more egregious problem than the distance pros are hitting it. And it has a far simpler solution.

[Tim Gavrich]

Slow play is systemic. It might be slightly unfair to lay the blame at Cantlay's (perpetually shuffling and reshuffling and reshuffling) feet, but "Better things aren't possible" is not a persuasive counterargument.


JohnVDB's explanation makes sense; the compression of the field dictated by the dual-tee start, itself forced by the weather delays, hopefully made this a one-year issue. I don't have the data, but it feels like most normally-scheduled Masters final rounds go at least a little more smoothly.


Of course, as has been suggested already, the ever-lengthening golf courses are partly to blame, too. The new tee on ANGC #13 is a perfect example, where every player now had to add a 75-yard tee-box walkback round-trip to the round that they didn't have previously. It doesn't sound like a lot, but given the herd of people - players, caddies, walking scorer, etc. - traveling through that narrow space, the time adds up.


At the end of the day, Cantlay and other sluggish players are just operating as they're allowed to within a system that gives no incentive to play any faster than. If there was an incentive to play faster in the form of penalties for slow play, they would speed up. But they won't do it of their own free will.

[Max Prokopy]

To top it off, I believe the tee times were a whopping 12 minutes apart and the greens were holding.

For Round 4, they were alternating between 9 and 10 minute intervals.  Round 3 had 12 minute intervals because they were in groups of 3.

Thank you for the correction.

[Colin Sheehan]

This past weekend was the Princeton Invitational at Springdale Golf Club. Yale nearly reeled in Harvard on the last day.
https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=25659


But the problem with the pace of play occurred on the reachable par-fours (holes 6 & 18) and reachable par fives (holes 4, 12 & 17) along with the longer/trickier par three holes.


Slow players and slow groups would never get too far behind until they caught up the one of these holes where there was a back up, especially 18.


The simple solution was to wave up groups. It was a waste of time for the groups to wait for the 18th green to clear and then have to play the entire hole before the next group hit. The moment groups started hitting up, the back up on the tee vanished.

[Dan_Callahan]

It also doesn't help when the commentators praise the "discipline" of golfers who are able to "slow down" under the pressure of the final round. All of this built on the super-human mythology that built up around Tiger in his prime, and his talk of making sure he did everything slowly during the last round, all the way down to his breathing.

I'm sure there is some sports psychology out there that shows this is good practice, but my god ... some of these guys do everything slow. Sure, the courses have been lengthened, but it would have little effect on playing time if they f'ing put their asses in gear in between shots.


There is zero doubt in my mind that Phil's strategy at Kiawah was to slow play Koepka do death, knowing that dude plays fast and has zero patience. Some of that is on Brooks and being able to control his emotions, but there is an element of poor sportsmanship to this that a shot clock would eliminate. Just play your shot and stop trying to get under the skin of your competitor. I know Seve is lauded for his antics, but he's lucky no one ever punched him in the ear. And honestly, I would take someone coughing in my backswing over a pro who can't get around a golf course in less than 5 hours.

[Tim Martin]

It gets repeated over and over that if you let them do it they are going to play slow and it’s not just at the professional level. The Connecticut State Amateur was at a club in the town where I live in 2021 and I went over to watch the final match. After two holes and an elapsed time of forty minutes I walked in. So two contestants playing a thirty six hole match play final starting at 7:00 a.m. didn’t finish until 5:00 p.m. with a lunch break and I’m not talking about the Muirfield lunch with jacket and tie either. One player was a reinstated amateur and the other a D1 college player both with ridiculously slow playing habits. The game deserves better.

[Peter Flory]

Cantlay definitely has a point that it doesn't matter if he's slow if he's waiting anyway. 


Just think that back in the 1920s, tournament rounds took between 2.5 and 3 hours.  Those guys were also playing for their livelihoods.  But in their minds, playing slower would have killed their rhythm. 

[Carl Johnson]

If I recall correctly, the slow play issue has come up before.  It's not that nothing can be done, it's that no one at the top really cares enough to adopt pace of play rules and enforce them.  I know there are hole length and sequence problems?  What's the perfect sequence of pars to facilitate pace of play (all other issues being equal)?  What's the solution to the issue identified as the "reachable par 5"?  Just call it a par four, or shorten it a bit and call it a par four?  No par fives at all?  Anecdotally, yesterday another geezer and I (he rode, I walked) played behind two pros; one walked and the other rode with his coach.  Given the coaching, we had to wait on occasion, but not long, and our rounds took 3 hr. and 15 min.  Although no longer a baseball fan, I applaud the major leaguers for trying to address their slow play issue.  I understand baseball decided that the slow play hurt the popularity of the game for fans.  Has that issue affected pro golf?  The shame is how recreational players take cues from the pros.

[archie_struthers]

 
Slow play sucks
 

[Pat Burke]

Slow play, the topic without solution on the pga tour, largely because they dont seem to want to punish guys.


Time players and stop putting groups on the clock, put individual players on the clock until back in position.
No fines, shots.
Multiple penalties and suspension for an event(s).


But they won’t  they’re just going to talk about it more

[Paul OConnor]

Shot clock please.  Put it on the players bag so everyone can see it.

[Kyle Harris]

When you’re out hunting there’s no shot clock.


How does MLB even begin to be a reasonable comparison to golf? They’re completely different pursuits.


Really the only way to make something work is to have three tee times for each group: 1st tee, 6th tee, 12th tee.


With similar penalties for failing to reach each tee as are currently on the books for the 1st tee.

[Dan_Callahan]

How does MLB even begin to be a reasonable comparison to golf? They’re completely different pursuits.

The comparison is that MLB recognized that slow play was a huge problem and they actually did something about it. And the pitch clock they put in place is actually working. And their fans are much, much happier.


The solution for golf would need to be different, obviously, but this annual white flag that "there's nothing we can do" is total crap.


Funny how change tends to only come about when there is crisis. "Our winners purses can't get any bigger. There's not enough money." Then LIV comes along and suddenly ... wow ... where did all that money come from where purses are now doubled? Huh. Weird how that happens.


It would be great if the Tour for once would address an obvious issue BEFORE it becomes a crisis.

[Kyle Harris]

How does MLB even begin to be a reasonable comparison to golf? They’re completely different pursuits.

The comparison is that MLB recognized that slow play was a huge problem and they actually did something about it. And the pitch clock they put in place is actually working. And their fans are much, much happier.


The solution for golf would need to be different, obviously, but this annual white flag that "there's nothing we can do" is total crap.


Funny how change tends to only come about when there is crisis. "Our winners purses can't get any bigger. There's not enough money." Then LIV comes along and suddenly ... wow ... where did all that money come from where purses are now doubled? Huh. Weird how that happens.


It would be great if the Tour for once would address an obvious issue BEFORE it becomes a crisis.

Every MLB game starts under the exact same circumstances.

The same cannot be said for golf and the variables begin the moment the first shot is struck. A shot clock simply won't work because every situation is unique.

It is reasonable to say an entire round of golf should be completed in X time. It is completely unreasonable to say that every shot should take Y time to get there.

Did MLB address a perceived problem? Yes. Did they create other problems in doing so? Remains to be seen.

For the record, I don't mind the pitch clock. But it did alter the nature of the game. And has added an element that until this season made baseball unique amongst the major spectator games.

[Buck Wolter]

How does MLB even begin to be a reasonable comparison to golf? They’re completely different pursuits.

The comparison is that MLB recognized that slow play was a huge problem and they actually did something about it. And the pitch clock they put in place is actually working. And their fans are much, much happier.


The solution for golf would need to be different, obviously, but this annual white flag that "there's nothing we can do" is total crap.


Funny how change tends to only come about when there is crisis. "Our winners purses can't get any bigger. There's not enough money." Then LIV comes along and suddenly ... wow ... where did all that money come from where purses are now doubled? Huh. Weird how that happens.


It would be great if the Tour for once would address an obvious issue BEFORE it becomes a crisis.

Every MLB game starts under the exact same circumstances.

The same cannot be said for golf and the variables begin the moment the first shot is struck. A shot clock simply won't work because every situation is unique.

It is reasonable to say an entire round of golf should be completed in X time. It is completely unreasonable to say that every shot should take Y time to get there.

Did MLB address a perceived problem? Yes. Did they create other problems in doing so? Remains to be seen.

For the record, I don't mind the pitch clock. But it did alter the nature of the game. And has added an element that until this season made baseball unique amongst the major spectator games.

I heard a good interview with Theo Epstein (Ryen Rusillo Pod).
Theo is now in charge with making baseball 'better' for the MLB but the irony isn't lost on him that much of the data stuff he brought along caused the game to slow down (shifts, more pitcher changes, etc.) but to make a better product they have to improve the game for the fan.


I fail to see why a shot clock wouldn't work for golf outside of a rules situation -- part of a sport is processing data faster than others, I was really reading the lie well today and the game slowed down for me --said no golfer ever.

[Kyle Harris]

Buck Wolter,

For starters: The rules situation suddenly becomes "I need more time to process this unique event, please make a ruling."

It's a lot easier to say "Your group must reach the 6th tee by 11:23AM and the 12th tee by 12:53PM" and also much more enforceable especially if the penalties are the same for getting to the first tee on time.

Also, the time and the hole reached can change based on the course and daily circumstances. Some days are just going to take longer than others.

[Charlie Goerges]

When you’re out hunting there’s no shot clock.

I like this old-fashioned definition of sport and how golf fits into it. Hunting is a reasonable analogue in many senses. But I think even hunting would add a shot clock or other time limit if it were being done as a competition. I'm not sure what my opinion is, but I wonder if a shot clock, only in competition golf, might work?