I Love Charley Hull Now and Agree With Her Completely

[jxdama]

Its way past time both tours  have  major  penalties for  slow  play. I  hate  it when they say" This group is  on the  clock". Big damn deal. Issue  penalties. Maybe Hull is a  bit too harsh but  its time a slew  of  2 stroke  penalties start  being  issued.

 

 

Charley Hull is fed up with slow play on the LPGA, so she offered a ‘ruthless’ solution

“I’m quite ruthless, but I said, ‘Listen, if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a tee shot penalty; if you have three of them, you lose your Tour card instantly.’ I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up, and they won’t want to lose their Tour card. That would kill the slow play, but they would never do that.”

Who knows if that will work. But if it does not, maybe the PGA Tour should adopt Hull’s idea. The LPGA should, too, or at least assess penalty strokes for slow play. Five-hour rounds for a final group on Sunday is unacceptable and a quick way to lose interest and engagement from fans.

Edited November 18 by jxdama

[dennyjones]

I believe that losing a tour card is too extreme but definitely agree that more needs to be done to prevent slow play.

[jxdama]

47 minutes ago, dennyjones said:

I believe that losing a tour card is too extreme but definitely agree that more needs to be done to prevent slow play.

TV ratings  continue to drop. Stop the endless wiggles and waggles.

[bkuehn1952]

I agree with @dennyjones, a suspension of some meaningful duration would be better than getting bounced from the Tour. They might consider experimenting each week. It might generate a bit of interest. I like the idea of a visible shot clock. If a player and their caddy can’t decide on a strategy and pull the trigger in XX seconds (30? 45? 60?), one stroke penalty. Give each player 2 resets a round. The clock starts when the last player to hit’s ball stops moving.

Other pace ideas could be used every couple events until a consensus is reached to adopt or ditch an idea.

[jxdama]

7 hours ago, bkuehn1952 said:

I agree with @dennyjones, a suspension of some meaningful duration would be better than getting bounced from the Tour. They might consider experimenting each week. It might generate a bit of interest. I like the idea of a visible shot clock. If a player and their caddy can’t decide on a strategy and pull the trigger in XX seconds (30? 45? 60?), one stroke penalty. Give each player 2 resets a round. The clock starts when the last player to hit’s ball stops moving.

Other pace ideas could be used every couple events until a consensus is reached to adopt or ditch an idea.

They need to do something to speed  up play. They could randomly  time  players. One  idea would  be  if a group gets  out  of  position they are disqualified. If its a group of  3 and  its  1 player playing like  molasses i can imagine an exciting interaction, lol

[p1n9183]

Just add new stats of speed of play to the tour.

• Average time to hit a shot
• Number of shots per round the player took more than 40 seconds to play a shot
• Number of times under the clock
• Numbers of warnings per round for slow play
• Number of penalty strokes per round for slow play 
• Number of times the player took a WC break.
• Time spend on the WC 
• Number of times the player don't know basic rules and have to call for a rules official 
• Walking average speed
• Time spend reading yardage books
• Time spend arguing with the caddie about hitting an impossible shot. 
• Average time looking for a ball beyond 3 minutes. 
• Average time looking for balls on the hazards despite been in the middle of the fairway

An a lot more that can give the committee enough information to award penalties after a round, tournament or even a season.
Imagine a ruling were a player is awarded to play all April with 1 shot penalty each round because of slow play in March, should be a shit show I would love to see. 

[ChetlovesMer]

In truth, while watching the tournament the slow play doesn't bother me. I'm usually dipping in and out anyway. I'm working on other things. It's sort of on in the background. So it only affects the time at which the whole thing ends. Having typed that, I am totally on board with making severe penalties for slow play. 

While slow play on TV doesn't bother me directly. I know that time is valuable for everyone. What I'd be more worried about is ratings: If we look at baseball for example. As the time per game grew the ratings plummeted. In the 70's and early 80's baseball World Series would get close to a 30 share and the games would be just over 2 hours. In the mid 2010's, games were 4 hours and the World Series share was often below a 6. Obviously there are other factors in play, but slowing the game down has to be considered. To Baseball's credit, they've recognized it as an issue and have been steadily shortening the length of games over the last couple of years. 

The other thing that I worry about is the folks I see at the local muni who basically imitate what they see on the tour. ... Ugh...

[colin007]

Probably the only thing I'll ever agree with her on

[jxdama]

7 hours ago, p1n9183 said:

Just add new stats of speed of play to the tour.

• Average time to hit a shot
• Number of shots per round the player took more than 40 seconds to play a shot
• Number of times under the clock
• Numbers of warnings per round for slow play
• Number of penalty strokes per round for slow play 
• Number of times the player took a WC break.
• Time spend on the WC 
• Number of times the player don't know basic rules and have to call for a rules official 
• Walking average speed
• Time spend reading yardage books
• Time spend arguing with the caddie about hitting an impossible shot. 
• Average time looking for a ball beyond 3 minutes. 
• Average time looking for balls on the hazards despite been in the middle of the fairway

An a lot more that can give the committee enough information to award penalties after a round, tournament or even a season.
Imagine a ruling were a player is awarded to play all April with 1 shot penalty each round because of slow play in March, should be a shit show I would love to see. 

Very good

[jxdama]

MSN

Glover expressed his dissatisfaction with what he termed as 'cool kid meetings' between Jordan Spieth, Patrick Cantlay, Tiger Woods and other high-profile golfers. "I think it's terrible," he stated. "And then hiding behind pace of play, I think, challenges our intelligence. They think we're stupid.

 

 

"Don't cut fields because it's a pace of play issue. Tell us to play faster, or just say you're trying to appease six guys and make them happy so they don't go somewhere else and play golf."

Fitzpatrick joined the conversation on X (formerly Twitter), with the 30-year-old echoing Glover's sentiments regarding the PGA Tour changes. "He's so right," Fitzpatrick posted. "Pathetic that pace of play is spoken about every year and nothing ever gets done."

 

 

I agree. Instead of  penalizing  players for  turtle  play they appease the  slow jerks  by  cutting the  fields. They will play even slower  knowing they will NEVER be  penalized.

[iacas]

2 hours ago, jxdama said:

I agree. Instead of  penalizing  players for  turtle  play they appease the  slow jerks  by  cutting the  fields. They will play even slower  knowing they will NEVER be  penalized.

And yet, for those watching on TV, pace of play doesn't matter too much.

If the players want the pace of play to be faster, they'll do it. They're the ones who create the policies for pace of play, and the rules officials aren't the bosses - the players effectively are.

[jxdama]

14 hours ago, iacas said:

And yet, for those watching on TV, pace of play doesn't matter too much.

If the players want the pace of play to be faster, they'll do it. They're the ones who create the policies for pace of play, and the rules officials aren't the bosses - the players effectively are.

Those who watch seem to be fewer and fewer

 

Masters ratings plunge 51 percent, lowest since '57 - Sports Media Watch

---

Facing NFL competition for the first time, the final round of the Masters plunged to new lows in ratings and viewership.

The ratings  plunge  is across the  board

[iacas]

19 minutes ago, jxdama said:

The ratings  plunge  is across the  board

It'd be absolute folly to attribute even small majority of this to pace of play.

[bkuehn1952]

1 hour ago, jxdama said:

Those who watch seem to be fewer and fewer

 

Masters ratings plunge 51 percent, lowest since '57 - Sports Media Watch

---

Facing NFL competition for the first time, the final round of the Masters plunged to new lows in ratings and viewership.

The ratings  plunge  is across the  board

Wait a second. That is a bit misleading to drag a 4 year old headline about the ratings when the Masters was delayed during the pandemic. The 2024 ratings were down but not to the extent that this headline would imply.

Also, @iacas is correct. Any ratings drop has very little, or perhaps, nothing to do with pace of play.

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, bkuehn1952 said:

Wait a second. That is a bit misleading to drag a 4 year old headline…

Ha, I didn't even notice that "NFL competition" part… I just dismissed it on face because pause has very little if any role in TV ratings.

[ChetlovesMer]

4 hours ago, jxdama said:

Those who watch seem to be fewer and fewer

 

Masters ratings plunge 51 percent, lowest since '57 - Sports Media Watch

---

Facing NFL competition for the first time, the final round of the Masters plunged to new lows in ratings and viewership.

The ratings  plunge  is across the  board

This isn't the same thing. 
This is entirely a time of year thing. Not a trend. 

This is the COVID year. 

2 hours ago, bkuehn1952 said:

Wait a second. That is a bit misleading to drag a 4 year old headline about the ratings when the Masters was delayed during the pandemic. The 2024 ratings were down but not to the extent that this headline would imply.

Also, @iacas is correct. Any ratings drop has very little, or perhaps, nothing to do with pace of play.

There are many who think the Masters viewership was actually way up. The 2024 ratings being down is only for CBS televisions. It doesn't include anyone (including me) who watched it online. 

[Elmer]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

It'd be absolute folly to attribute even small majority of this to pace of play.

I don't think the viewer at home can pick up on pace of play, unless the announcers mention something.

The telecast has the luxury of bouncing from player to player, which ensures we the viewer always have something to watch. 

I think we would notice pace of play if the camera just followed one golfer for an entire round.
Or 
You were actually golfing behind the slow group
Or 
The slow group is the last to only group left to finish the tournament. 

I like the idea of having a person carrying a digital clock, following each golfer. When the golfer gets to the ball and the group in front of them has cleared they have 60 seconds or they get a penalty stroke.
Maybe a second violation is a 2 stroke penalty. 

Or as I have said before, every golfer wears a shock collar!!!!!
at 1 min 1 second that golfer if going to drop. It will take them a good 30 second to recover, leaving them with another 30 seconds to hit the shot.
The course would be littered with golfers just convulsing on fair way from an endless cycle of shocks because they cant seem to hit their ball and keep pace of play. 

[iacas]

17 minutes ago, Elmer said:

I don't think the viewer at home can pick up on pace of play, unless the announcers mention something.

I agree in general. The one way in which the viewer will notice the pace of play is just that "it's been an hour and Nelly Korda or Scottie Scheffler have only played four holes." Or if for some reason they show a lot of shots of players just standing around when they could be showing golf shots.

But I think Andy Johnson said it most recently/best, playing fast is a skill, too. I would love for pro golfers to play faster. You'd see the players you want to see hit more shots in the same time than they do now.

So I don't disagree with the pace of play stuff, and hope they can find ways to do it. Heck, the LPGA should leap at the chance to differentiate itself in this way, IMO.

So:

• I stand by what I said in that the TV viewer really doesn't notice much about pace of play. It's rare when they do.
• I support increasing the pace of play wholeheartedly. But my top five reasons don't include TV ratings or viewership.