Global Golf Post - February 20, 2012

Apparently, we struck a nerve. Nothing in the history of The Post has generated as much reader response as our columns on slow play on the PGA Tour. We heard from all over the U.S., as well as Ireland, Australia and Finland. Here is a selection of some of the e-mails we received.

READ THEM ALL – CLICK HERE

golf on all courses, which is the worst thing about it. I occasionally play with a co-worker who waits until it’s his turn to putt, and then, in typical “pro” fashion, lines his putt up from both sides. I tease him about reading Moby Dick faster than he reads putts, but it’s his routine and it obviously comes highly recommended.

Jim Fowler

Roanoke, Va.

USGA, NCAA, individual colleges and the Northern California Golf Association. In Northern California, we use checkpoint pace of play and it is very effective.

I don’t see anything meaningful happening to correct this awful trend since it is a player-run Tour. Anybody who cracks down and penalizes players will be chased away, and the rules officials know it. That being said, if they simply implemented the checkpoint-pace-of-play policy and gave penalty strokes for breaches, the problem would very quickly correct itself.

or her “expert” opinion. I’m sure you didn’t have the patience to read this far, but if you have, congratulations, maybe you should have as much patience with people who’ve paid the same money to play the same course as you.

Ryan Van Culin

average Joe will not, either. They try to emulate what Tour players do.

Pat Elliott

Pat Elliott Golf Academy Highland Village, Tex.

I have a solution for the PGA Tour that I’d like to see the media push for to test in at the very least one event in the near future (even if it’s a Nationwide event). Install a shot clock on every hole. Each pro has 45 seconds to play each shot not on the putting green and a minute to play each shot on the putting green. First offense – one stroke; second offense – two strokes; for subsequent offense – disqualification.

Mike Sweeney

Director, Rules and Competitions Southern California Golf Association Industry City, Calif.

At my home course, a golfer is penalised one shot for each 15 minutes he is over the time limit of 3 hours, 45 minutes for 18 holes singles competition. It does not happen very often.

Michael Neary

Co. Wicklow, Ireland

Jim Moriarity

San Francisco
I walked off the course four times
last year due to slow play. One time was
when the high school tryouts were on.

I work on the LPGA event in Portland, and the LPGA has issues with slow play as well. But, they have the guts to give penalty strokes to those who violate the rule after warnings. Jack Nicklaus started this awful trend and it has just gotten worse. To engage the next generation for golf, we have to make the game more exciting. A five-and-a-half-hour round is not going to do that.

Reid Hutchins

Portland, Ore.

We all know that hitting on a driving range is very different from being on the course, and we all know there are no “practice courses” (they are for real play) so practice is for the range.

Among people who have played many years, there is almost an arrogance or reluctance (unless it is your son’s or grandson’s first round) to have the patience to slow things down, so a new player can translate the learned skills of the range onto the practical skills needed on the real field of play. Rushing begets errors.

Slow play is indeed a scourge and it’s getting worse. I strongly believe the Tour players should be setting a good example to the rest of us, so a tighten-ing-up of the rules is badly needed. The players, not just the watching public, are extremely frustrated by the slow play of a few individuals who seem to be completely oblivious to the discomfort they cause to fellow competitors.

Paul Byrne

In the early 1950s, I was 14 and joined my first club. It was a given that 18 holes was to be completed in three hours or less. Slow play was simply not tolerated and the game was better for it.

Perhaps the early rot set in with distance markers. We all used our eye and perhaps a return to this approach is an essential for the amateur game.

Richard Launder

Australia
The Golf Channel Am Tour has come
to our facility and taken as long as six-
and-a-half hours to play a round. Much
hell was raised because club manage-
ment put them out ahead of mem-
bers. That will not happen again. Their
administration neither offered help nor
expressed any concern. l

Larry Knight

Dade City, Fla.

This is what will really hurt them. We DVR the golf due to slow play. We skip the commercials and time between shots, except for The Masters.

Don Koser

Schaumburg, Ill.

David Glasser

In my opinion, the slow play they
exhibit is, by example, extended to all
I am disgusted with the pace of play
in professional golf. I work collegiate and
amateur events as a rules official for
Can you imagine their attention level
ramping up if one of them is in con-
tention and is assessed a one-stroke
penalty? I hate slow play and have
been known to yell at the television
when these guys pull that nonsense. If
the Tour doesn’t pick up the pace, the E-MAIL THE POST

I noticed that in your most recent two-page rant on slow play, you pointed out that only one person didn’t care about slow play. I just didn’t care to take the time to write an e-mail to you, because you’ll blow it off like every other golf snob who picks up a pen or sits in front of a microphone to assert his