Jason Day Spits at Pace of Play, Vows to Slow Down

[kpaulhus]

When I play a 5 hour round it really feels like a grind and I have no rhythm. I dont understand Jason Day's logic. Standing over the ball or behind it isnt going to help the 1 second swing. The worst is when him and Speith do all that 45 second pre shot BS and still block it out right into the crowd. 

[NCGolfer]

Years back, in one of my US Am qualifiers (pipe dream, I know) I played with one of the Wake Forest golfers and we talked about Bill Haas - he had turned pro a couple years prior.  The guy told me Haas struggled with pace of play on tour, was frustrated and had to actually slow down.  Now this is all second-hand, but if it is true then it's a pretty sad indication of how things are on tour even compared to high-level amateur golf.

[DaveP043]

1 minute ago, NCGolfer said:

Years back, in one of my US Am qualifiers (pipe dream, I know) I played with one of the Wake Forest golfers and we talked about Bill Haas - he had turned pro a couple years prior.  The guy told me Haas struggled with pace of play on tour, was frustrated and had to actually slow down.  Now this is all second-hand, but if it is true then it's a pretty sad indication of how things are on tour even compared to high-level amateur golf.

There are many fewer "stars" to offend in even the highest levels of amateur golf.  The players own the PGA tour, and apparently there are enough of them that like the current pace of play.

[Ks golf]

If Day thinks this'll make him play better then I can understand why he'll do this. At his level, you aren't going to think too much about what other people think. 

If I was in his shoes and this is what I think will make me better, I'd do the same. 

[DaveP043]

6 minutes ago, Ks golf said:

If Day thinks this'll make him play better then I can understand why he'll do this. At his level, you aren't going to think too much about what other people think. 

If I was in his shoes and this is what I think will make me better, I'd do the same. 

I'd do the same, until I was assessed a penalty stroke.  The PGA fines players for slow times, for being put on the clock too often.  But those fines are inconsequential compared to the prize money available.  Take a stroke away, cost someone the difference between winning and T2, and they'll decide to change.  But Day knows that he won't be penalized, and he'll gladly pay the small fines.

[Wanzo]

1 hour ago, saevel25 said:

I can see the PGA Tour getting slammed if they enforce the pace of play rule on a player in contention on Sunday. They are not in a good position to enforce it. 

I hear your sentiment but If they make sure the rule is clear, and actually enforce it like they should all the time and not arbitrarily, I don't see how anyone could complain. 

41 minutes ago, kpaulhus said:

When I play a 5 hour round it really feels like a grind and I have no rhythm. I dont understand Jason Day's logic. Standing over the ball or behind it isnt going to help the 1 second swing. The worst is when him and Speith do all that 45 second pre shot BS and still block it out right into the crowd. 

Right, problem is people, especially kids, watching these guys stand behind the ball daydreaming with their eyes closed about seeing the shot go in the hole and going through their 15 step (literally Jason says his routine is 15 steps), are now going to emulate the pro.. 

[colin007]

this is brutal.  thats enough for me to root against him, and i liked him before. hit him with a penalty stroke on his first nine of the year. theyll learn.

[bkuehn1952]

The below describes the current time standards on Tour.  At times when I play a casual round I have watched a player, whom I consider to be slow, prepare to hit a shot on a par 3 (or 2nd shot on a par 4, etc...).  I mentally count one... two... three...Rarely do I ever reach 30.  60 seconds is an immense amount of time, especially when you have someone telling you yardage, wind, etc... instead of checking it yourself.  Even 40 seconds is an age when one considers that one is probably prepping for one's own shot while the other player is taking their 40-60 seconds to hit.

 

Under the guidelines for Rule 6-7, a player is permitted 40 seconds to play a stroke. This 40-second time limit includes the first to play from the teeing ground, from the fairway and from around and on the putting green.

The PGA TOUR rules for pace of play includes the 40-second time limit, but also allows an extra 20 seconds (for a total of 60 seconds) under the following circumstances:
> The first player to play a stroke on a par-3 hole
> The first player to play a second stroke on a par-4 or par-5 hole
> The first player to play a third stroke on a par-5 hole
> The first player to play around the putting green
> The first player to play on a putting green

Under both sets of guidelines, the timing of a stroke on the putting green begins after a player has been allowed a reasonable amount of time to mark, lift, clean and replace his ball, repair his ball mark and other ball marks on his line of putt and remove loose impediments on his line of putt.

[saevel25]

47 minutes ago, Wanzo said:

I hear your sentiment but If they make sure the rule is clear, and actually enforce it like they should all the time and not arbitrarily, I don't see how anyone could complain. 

You are taking the logical route. When has social media, and regular sports media, ever shown to be 100% logical. 

In the end people who don't play golf regularly, or don't find it troublesome that players take so long over a shot, will complain the rule it self is unfair. Not that it's being applied unfairly to just a select few players. 

[DaveP043]

5 minutes ago, saevel25 said:

You are taking the logical route. When has social media, and regular sports media, ever shown to be 100% logical. 

In the end people who don't play golf regularly, or don't find it troublesome that players take so long over a shot, will complain the rule it self is unfair. Not that it's being applied unfairly to just a select few players. 

Heck, I bet there would even be people here, regular golfers, who will suggest that pace of play rules will prevent some players from performing their best, that pace of play has nothing to do with golfing ability, and so those rules should be eliminated.  Of course, I'm extrapolating from discussions in other threads, so I could be wrong.

[Hacker James]

12 hours ago, roamin said:

Not always. My regular foursome was behind a cute, older couple once. Playing from the 2nd of 5 tees, we watched them hit "easy-going" drives up the middle of the fairway on 1, and then similar shots to the green...and we never saw them again until we hit the turn and they were already in the clubhouse having lunch after their nine. We all agreed not to talk about that day.

but, they were a twosome, right? ( I guess, I should have stipulated that all groups were the same in number).

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, Ks golf said:

If Day thinks this'll make him play better then I can understand why he'll do this. At his level, you aren't going to think too much about what other people think. 

If I was in his shoes and this is what I think will make me better, I'd do the same. 

Yup.  It's annoying to the rest of us for all of the reasons all previously mentioned - and I pretty much agree with all of them - but this makes perfect sense to me from Days point of view.  He thinks he rushed things last year and, consequently, didn't play as well as he did the previous season when he was more deliberate.  I mean, why wouldn't he slow down then?

Most people here, myself included, prefer to play faster.  And, in fact, many, if not most, of us play better when we play faster.  But, if I told you that you could knock X amount of strokes off your handicap if you slowed down a bit, wouldn't you consider it?

[DaveP043]

2 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

Most people here, myself included, prefer to play faster.  And, in fact, many, if not most, of us play better when we play faster.  But, if I told you that you could knock X amount of strokes off your handicap if you slowed down a bit, wouldn't you consider it?

And in Day's case, knocking those strokes off could mean a couple of million in prize money.  He'll play as slow as he thinks is best for him, until it costs him strokes, which in turn will cost him lots of prize money.

[Golfingdad]

Just now, DaveP043 said:

And in Day's case, knocking those strokes off could mean a couple of million in prize money.  He'll play as slow as he thinks is best for him, until it costs him strokes, which in turn will cost him lots of prize money.

Right.  Completely agree with you and @saevel25 on this as well.  He's doing this to score better and, thus, win more.  If they start penalizing, then that would negate the scoring improvement.

Perhaps this kind of talk becomes to catalyst to the Tour finally taking POP seriously and it's a blessing in disguise.

[b101]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

This was my point about him and Spieth last year. That is ridiculously slow. A foursome of average golfers is expected to play 18 in 4 hours.

It's hard to imagine. I played a 4hr30 round for a fourball at Woburn behind a group of four playing off the tips with handicaps that must have been way north of 20 and that was painful. The thought of 2 balls making it round in 5 hours staggers me.

To put this more in perspective, this works out as a shot (assuming they shoot level par and make 27 putts) every 4 minutes, or every 7 minutes if we exclude putts. If I'm in a two-ball, I'm hoping to play a hole in under that time. And we don't hit fairways and greens that often...

[Wanzo]

7 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

9 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

And in Day's case, knocking those strokes off could mean a couple of million in prize money.  He'll play as slow as he thinks is best for him, until it costs him strokes, which in turn will cost him lots of prize money.

Right.  Completely agree with you and @saevel25 on this as well.  He's doing this to score better and, thus, win more

But how will he know if it's playing slower, his new swing, or his new Nike shirt he's wearing?????

 

 

 

 

[b101]

23 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

And, in fact, many, if not most, of us play better when we play faster. 

Definitely concur with this. The amount of times I feel I've lost a good round when I've had to call a single through... Definitely more of a 'me' thing, but shows how important individual tempo is. Which, I guess, is another justification for Jason Day doing what he's doing. Sad...

[nevets88]

There's a happy medium though, no? Tennis, you have a certain amount of time to prepare to serve before you're penalized, abuse or ignorance of the rule notwithstanding.