"I have a little bit of a problem with criticizing somebody when you're on time."

Steve Elling reports on Sean O'Hair's reaction to Johnny Miller's criticism of slow play and in particular, O'Hair's pace at Bay Hill.

"As far as last week, I actually heard that I was criticized a little bit more than Tampa. The thing I don't understand is that we played the front nine in 1:42. We waited on every single shot on the back nine. So when you're watching the telecast, is he sitting there saying that? No.

"I mean, to me what does it matter if I take two practice swings or eight practice swings? I do what I have to do to play well. Obviously what I'm doing right now is right. But I think it's a little unfair to criticize somebody about their routine and talk about how slow they are when basically you're waiting on every single shot.

"We waited for almost ten minutes on the 16th tee, and I took eight practice swings because obviously we were just standing there not doing anything. If I walked up to the 16th tee and the fairway was clear, I might have taken two or three practice swings. You know, he can say what he wants to say. I can't control that. But I have a little bit of a problem with criticizing somebody when you're on time."

So if you are waiting on schedule you can take over a minute and a half to play a shot? That's just not going to fly. Now, maybe once in a while I can understand a 90 second grind if it's an absurdly difficult shot, but just to go through too many practice swings after not being ready when the green cleared?

Penalty shots really do need to be assessed. O'Hair's thinking speaks to the mentality of too many players better than just about any rationalization I can recall.

Did You Catch Johnny Miller Keeping Tabs...

Of Sean O'Hair's practice swings during the final round at Bay Hill? Worse was O'Hair not being in position to begin his pre-shot preparations when the 17th green finally cleared after a long wait. He apparently hadn't realizes it was his honor, but did not make up for lost time as Johnny noted that he'd take 1:25 to get to the point where he was over the ball and about to pull the trigger. 

Let's hope Johnny keeps up the slow play watch.

"Holmes resembles a preying mantis painstakingly stalking its lunch as he goes through his staccato pre-shout routine."

Karl MacGinty offers the latest slow play rant and it's a beauty. A few highlights:

Okay, O'Hair's not as mind-numbingly slow as JB Holmes, the mega-hitter from Kentucky who pounded Phil Mickelson into submission on the first tie hole at last month's FBR Open.

This guy is utterly infuriating. Holmes resembles a preying mantis painstakingly stalking its lunch as he goes through his staccato pre-shout routine. I lost count of the number of times I ended up screaming "hit it, for God's sake" at the TV screen.

Yet Holmes and O'Hair are good enough golfers to make it onto the US Ryder Cup team at Valhalla. Maybe they're America's secret weapon...

And I didn't see this second line from J.B. Holmes...

There seems little chance of Holmes following suit. "A lot of old habits kick in when you're under pressure," said the Kentucky native recently.

"You're playing for $1m. If someone thinks I'm slow or taking too long, I don't care."

Holmes would care if the same fate befell him as Angela Park when she was docked two shots at last month's SPG in Hawaii. No warning. No appeal.

When it comes to slow play, America's LPGA Tour has balls, while their male counterparts clearly do not!

We have the makings of a trend here: the LPGA is trying to get a grip on slow play and the PGA Tour is not. Note in the recent slow play pieces here, here and here how the focus is on the PGA Tour's refusal to penalize players. 

"Why has no one been assessed a one-stroke penalty in 16 years?"

Doug Ferguson tackles the recent slow play grumblings and offers a few very interesting points:

As slow as it can get on the PGA TOUR, why has no one been assessed a one-stroke penalty in 16 years?
 
Or been disqualified?
 
“We’re more intelligent than people think we are,” the ever-sarcastic Paul Goydos said.
 
By that, he means slow players tend to play faster when told they are on the clock. Fulton Allem once compared this to a state trooper who pulls over a motorist for going 100 mph. Instead of writing a ticket, the trooper says he will follow the driver for the next five miles to make sure he doesn’t speed.
 
“You have to be crazy to get two bad times,” chief rules official Mark Russell said. “People don’t get one bad time.”

And this...

Drug testing starts in July. How will anyone believe the tour will suspend someone for one year and fine him $500,000 for a doping offense when it won’t assess a one-shot penalty for taking too long with a 5-iron to the green?

Slow Play Bandwagon Starts Rolling...

...Adam Scott joins in:

"People play way, way too slow," the Australian said at the Johnnie Walker Classic in India.

"They need to hurry up. They should start penalising people. Just penalise them."

"I know this is a complicated issue. Hopefully it can be addressed in the near future."

Tiger Woods made a little bit of news in his blog/newsletter post this week:

When I was in Tucson last week, I did a little shopping and noticed my new "Gatorade Tiger" in a store. Must admit it was pretty cool and weird; first my own video game, and now a sports drink. A lot of personal time went into the creation of this product and I am proud of all three of the initial flavors we have created, especially Red Drive.

Sorry, copied the wrong part. Here it is:

Before I go, I would like to talk about slow play. It's been an ongoing problem on the PGA Tour for a long time. I honestly believe the pace of play is faster in Europe and Japan. It has been suggested offenders be penalized with strokes. The problem is, you may get one guy that slows down a group for playing at a snails pace and gets them all put on the clock, which isn't fair. I know this is a complicated issue. Hopefully it can be addressed in the near future.

Nice somebody in his position will point it out. And funny, but in the same email he talks about his match with J.B. Holmes. Coincidence? 

Greetings From Los Angeles, Slow Play Edition

Why try to convey just how royally hosed the late/morning tee times were when I can have Phil Mickelson do it for me:

The early/late tee times had a huge advantage this week. A lot of the times, most of the weeks, it doesn't make too much of a difference but every now and then, there will be an advantage on one wave, and we certainly had that. I mean, all of the scores that are any good, 90 percent of them are from the early/late wave. We avoided wind yesterday morning. It died down this afternoon. Just we got very lucky.

The conditions made late/early starter Fred Couples' -2 performance that much more amazing. And speaking of Freddie, John Strege writes that the two-time winner at Riviera plans to keep coming back as long as they'll have him. Judging by the paltry crowds and the huge proportion following Fred, they'll invite him back until he's using a walker.

Okay, now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, let's talk about slow play and the narcissists who apparently think they are the only golfers on the planet. Namely, Ben Crane and Mike Weir.

 

Looking for Weir's ball (click to enlarge)Let's start with Weir, who rudely held back Geoff Ogilvy and Shaun Micheel with all of his twitching and false starts. On the par-5 11th, Weir drives it in the trees and lays up beautifully in the 12-inch kikuyu barranca. He asks the marshal where the ball entered and the volunteer points to where he swore it entered. Well, just as the five minute marked wrapped up, Ogilvy finds the ball about 7 or so yards away. Weir simply turns and scowls at the marshal. Classy touch Mike!

Weir then spends the next 3 minutes considering his options before finally taking an unplayable drop. From that point on the group was a hole behind and eventually put on the clock on No. 13. So Weir picks up the pace right? No, he never seemed to make much of an attempt to speed up as long as I was watching.  He does not ever play ready golf, instead starting his pre-shot research and routine only when it's his turn.

The low point came on No. 15 when Ogilvy asked if he could hit out of turn because Weir was mysteriously lollygagging down the fairway even as they remained on the clock and a hole behind. 
The warm weather brings out the best in L.A. (click to enlarge)

Then there's Ben Crane, paired with two other slow pokes in Trevor Immelman and Sergio Garcia. After holding up everyone behind him and reportedly having already been put on the club 3(!) times in 36-holes even though there are 24 groups spread over 18 holes (kinda hard to fall a hole behind!), Crane was standing in the TV scrum area outside the scoring room. When one of the players in the group behind him entered the hallway, he saw Crane and looked right at him and said, "Hurry the $@%# up!" Crane didn't hear him (of course).

Later on the locker room the f-bombs were flying like it was sailors night out, with Crane's name flying off the walls of Riviera's locker room.

Now, Golf Digest's Tim Rosaforte asks in a blog post if "144 players too many for a West Coast tour stop -- or are these guys just too slow?"

In talking to the rules staff, they say yes, the field needs to be reduced.

However, I responded with two points.

One, the course has been lengthened and the 10th, 11th and 17th are all reachable now, adding many of the logjams or timely walks that never existed. And two, cutting the field means you'll likely cut the spots that go to local qualifiers who add a unique flavor to the event. So before they go calling for a 132 player field, perhaps a stronger pace of play policy should be tried before ending an important local tradition. 

Everybody Hate Raymond's Pre-Shot Routine?

I have really enjoyed the intelligent discussion on slow play under the Links Magazine column by George Peper and was prepared to try and continue the discussion by looking harder at the USGA Pace of Play policy to see how it could be, ugh, "tweaked' to work for the PGA Tour.

But really, how can you even have a slow play debate when you see video such as this one, shot at Lakeside during Golf Digest's recent celebrity get together.

Warning, this uncomforable watch. I clocked it at 18 seconds of his waggles and hitches.

Oh, and is Ray Romano trying to pull off a Stack and Tilt move here? If so, it doesn't bode well for their hopes of helping the average man.

"Now that a sound and defensible system is in place, maybe Tim Finchem will show some courage and business sense."

Outside of some of Darwin's rants on the topic, Links Magazine's George Peper pens the best slow play column I've read in a long time, tackling all of the key points and asking all of the right questions. He explains the USGA's promising new pace of play, something I wrote about for the L.A. Times earlier this year (naturally, it's disappeared from their archives!).

Thankfully George presents it here much better than I did, then takes it a step further and questions why this has not been implemented already.

OK, the system isn’t perfect. So what? Golf isn’t an exact science. In fact, it’s not a science at all, despite the proclivity of some tour players to treat each shot as an exhaustive experiment in physics, geometry, agronomy, meteorology, kinesthetics and psychology. Say the USGA comes down hard on a few players. What’s the downside? A whine or two from the likes of Ben Crane? I suspect they’d be drowned out by the chorus of approval from their peers. Besides, the system has a built-in appeals process, so every accused offender has the opportunity for a postround hearing.

Moreover, when it comes to pace of play, there is no reason for the USGA or R&A to be as fearful as they are of regulating equipment—imposing a limit on time will not bring a billion-dollar lawsuit from Rolex. Nor can they hide behind the other rationale they’ve used on equipment—that most amateur golfers want to keep the status quo. Most amateurs may want to hit the ball longer, but they don’t want to stay on the course longer.

Still the sense is that the USGA is taking the same timid stance as they have on the question of throttling back the golf ball: Let the PGA Tour take the lead.

Fine. Now that a sound and defensible system is in place, maybe Tim Finchem will show some courage and business sense. Seven years ago, the commissioner challenged the game’s movers and shakers to transform golf into America’s No. 1 spectator sport. Instead, television ratings are down and golf participation over the past decade has been flat at best. One big reason: Golf is slow, both playing and watching.

I remain convinced that if the PGA Tour's VP's and players ever paid to go to one of their events and tried to spectate, they would quickly launch an emergency initiative to do something about pace of play.  

"The flags flying in front of the nation's clubhouses are permanently at half-mast in memory of Old Sid, who expired halfway through the Seniors Section Autumn Fur and Feather"

Thanks to reader Patrick for the latest Martin Johnson gem, where this time he takes on the recent article bemoaning older golfers.

Not many of us were even aware of the existence of a magazine called The Golf Club Secretary Newsletter until it recently bemoaned the "leech" effect of increasingly elderly memberships at the nation's clubs. It paints a world of wheezing old Methuselahs, who do not so much require lessons from the club pro on the art of clearing the hips, as a consultation with their GP on the advisability of replacing them.

What we are now seeing on the country's golf courses, however, is merely a reflection of society as a whole, and more particularly, of the apparently limitless desire of a nanny government to make sure that we all live to be at least 150. They do not seem to have twigged that if they continue to issue dire warnings on everything from alcohol to bacon sandwiches, the social security system will eventually collapse under the sheer weight of wizened old fogies, and the reigning monarch will eventually be forced to sell off the royal tiaras in order to pay for all those 100th-birthday telegrams.

Fast forward...

In any event, as we all know, it is not the seniors who cause the most frustration on a golf course, it's the confounded juniors. They have largely taken up the game from watching how the professionals do it on television, which means that they spend several minutes tossing up bits of grass to test the wind, decline to play until they have not only checked their yardage for the 15th time, but also the alignment of Jupiter and Pluto, and when they finally duff one about 10 feet, stand with hands on hips pouting and muttering for another 30 seconds.

The likes of Monty may take a bit longer to get to his golf ball, but when he does, the group behind is in little danger of sprouting a beard before he has hit it. When you are 84, and you have probably only got another 25 years of golf left in you, life is far too short to be hanging around.

It's about time The Golf Club Secretary Newsletter got stuck into the single most irritating genre of players, and we are talking here about all those who utter, about 30 times a round, such irritating inanities as: "Drive for show, putt for dough, I always say."

For these people, there is only one appropriate punishment. Get them to dig a six-foot grave, line them up in front of a firing squad, pull the trigger, and yell out at the top of your voice: "Get in the hole!"

"Four hours should be the limit to play a round in a three-ball - fine everybody that takes over that."

Monty's complaining about an under-5 hour round! I guess he forgot the PGA Tour would kill for a round that speedy on a Thursday or Friday.  Mark Garrod reports:

After an opening 70 in the Quinn Direct British Masters at The Belfry that took only ten minutes under five hours, Montgomerie called for a clampdown on slow play.

"It's a problem every week," he said. "Four hours should be the limit to play a round in a three-ball - fine everybody that takes over that. We're given too long to play the course.

"I was brought up on a three-hour game of golf and the pace of play out here is too slow."

The eight-time European No.1 was delighted to hear that two players - England's Gary Lockerbie and Brazilian Alexandre Rocha - had been fined £4000 for taking too long yesterday. But he will be happier still if others get the message and get a move on. And that includes Ryder Cup team-mate Robert Karlsson and English pair Ross Fisher and Edward Rush, who were the three players immediately in front of him again today.

Montgomerie was paired with South African Richard Sterne and Spain's Santiago Luna and commented: "Richard only took 65 and is very quick, Santiago is another quick player and I'm one of the fastest out here.

"So it felt slow. We had a very fast group behind a very slow one!"

“These Girls Rock You to Sleep"

Peter Dixon's Women's Open post-mortem:

The crowds were not huge – 42,000 in the first three days – and they were quiet and subdued. They had little to shout about. The championship turned into a battle of attrition and birdies and eagles were few and far between.

The biggest issue, however, was the pace of play. The LPGA in the United States promotes its tour with the slogan “These Girls Rock”. More appropriately, it could read: “These Girls Rock You to Sleep”.

On the first two days, rounds were taking more than six hours and there were players still on the course when play was suspended on the first day just after 9.30pm. On the Saturday, television coverage ended with the leaders yet to finish.

Too often players were not ready to play when it was their turn. In one instance, Natalie Gulbis waited for her playing partners to hit approach shots to the green before taking a club. Then, after checking her yardages with her caddie (60 yards), she had a couple of swishes with the club before deciding to change it.

The putting, too, is painful. The average men’s professional three-ball takes about 3min 30sec to clear the green. The women, many of whom seem over-reliant on their caddies to help them, are taking five minutes on average. And that is boring.

Women's Open Championship Round 2 Clippings

Mike Aitken reports on Scotland's Catriona Matthew moving into contention and offers this:

Twice a winner in St Andrews of the St Rule Trophy in 1993 and 1994, Matthew found the memories of those experiences flooding back. "Although it's been a while, it surprised me how quickly I remembered things about where to go and where to miss it," she said.

And on the pace of play...

Pace of play was brisker yesterday and not before time. Six players had to come back to the links at 6.30am to finish their opening rounds. Although no golfer was fined for slow play on Thursday when some took six and a half hours, the Ladies Golf Union, the organisation which runs the event, expressed concern the slowcoaches were damaging the image of the game with their dilatory approach.

With a preponderance of double greens, blind shots and breezy conditions, the Old Course is regarded as the slowest venue on the men's championship rota. Even so, Susan Simpson, the tournament director, conceded: "Six and a half hours for a game of golf is not OK, whether it's women or men, amateur or professional.

That's just not something we would wish to have. For us, anything over five hours is unacceptable."

John Huggan shares a few incredible slow play anecdotes on the Golf For Women blog. On the same site, Dave Allen reports on Michelle Wie's second round 80.

Huggan also wonders why the entry fee is less than a round of golf over the Old Course.

Super Slow At Oakmont?

Now posted is my Los Angeles Times story on the potential for slow play problems at Oakmont.

I'm curious what you all think of the USGA's new slow play policy (reportedly working wonders at its other 12 championships), and what it will take to get it in place at the U.S. Open?

The consensus within the USGA (at least with those I talked to) seems to be that they will have a hard time implementing this policy at the Open without the PGA Tour adopting a similar policy at its events.

Players Pace Of Play

The only place I've seen any discussion of the Players final round pace of play was on golf.com, where Josh Sanburn noted the tepid final day (and check out what the readers think).

But I heard from a few current players that the four hour pace for twosomes was unfathomable just a few years ago. One even relayed this story to put things in perspective: 

Vijay jumped on me at Colonial in 1996 for playing slow. Par time was 3:30 and it was blowing 25 mph, my two-some finished in 3:18. Twelve minutes under par time. I took some heat from Vijay in the locker room after the round, told him to check with our scorer, then take it up with the rules officials, then make sure your scores on your card are accurate, don't be worring about me.