"Tweet during rounds?"

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Jeff Rude raises another fine point about the absurdity of on-course tweeting.

LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens wants her players to be able to “tweet” their thoughts during rounds on Twitter.com. I’m not sure I’ve heard anything that nuts since I watched the Cuckoo’s Nest movie.

Tweet during rounds?

The competition must be held sacred. And concentration and focus are at the heart of the competition.

And isn’t the pace of play already slow enough?

"The tortoise backed off a chip so often you felt your life flashing before you"

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Don't miss Derek Lawrenson's entertaining European Open game story on Christian Cevaer's painfully slow win on an even painfully worse setup.

What a curious event this was, where the seven-under par winning score was exactly the same as the leading figure on day one, despite the fact the last three rounds were played out in glorious sunshine; where the winner returned a score of 74 and had one birdie on his card.

Why? With the fairways narrowed, they became just too hard and bouncy for anyone to hold in the testing breeze, with the consequence that the day’s proceedings became something of a lottery.

"Most time is lost on the greens."

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Watching the tepid pace of play during round 1 of The Players, I wondered if rangefinders would help. After all they were billed as a savior of the game a few years ago but have not made it to regulation PGA Tour play (they can be used in practice rounds).

Then I read Paul Kenyon's story on the Rhode Island Golf Association allowing them for use in competition. Their executive director, Bob Ward, about nailed the crux of the problem:

"I didn’t keep track, but I would estimate that at least 50 percent of the field (178 players) either had the devices or asked about them,’’ Ward said. ``I feel the only thing that will change is that the pace of play will speed up a little. I’m still not sure how much because I believe that most time is lost on the greens. It is putting that slows the pace of play. But if this helps with the pace of play, then it’s good.’’

Has anyone heard of any studies or stories documenting actual improvements in pace of play thanks to distance measuring devices?

"My 10-year-old Griffin now plumb-bobs. I go, 'Dude, what are you doing?'"

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Cameron Morfit conducts an entertaining Q&A with Steve Flesch, covering all sorts of good stuff.

Let's talk Tour policy. You've slammed course setups. What's your beef?

It's the same every week. Having every par-3 at 230 yards is boring, as is having the rough at five inches. The greens don't always have to be 12 on the Stimpmeter. They water the fairways and around the greens, forcing you to hit a high spinny shot in. We've gotten away from the fact that golf can be played more than one way.

But that's exactly how Tiger and Phil and most of the top players like to hit the ball. Maybe the rest of you guys should learn to live with it.

But let's not set up every course so it's like a major. The public wants to see us make birdies, so let's set up the courses so we can display our skills and show everybody how good we are.

Seems the boys really are in love with the Memorial these days.

Jack Nicklaus upset the pros when he toughened Muirfield Village for The Memorial and furrowed the bunkers. Who's going to call up Jack and say, "Enough!"?

It's hard. Jack should have his input, but is it really in the best interest to play the course like that? That was eight-inch rough that obviously hadn't been topped off the day before the tournament, as Jack indicated in the papers.

Are you calling Jack Nicklaus a liar?

No, I'm not, but it was eight inches on Monday and it wasn't touched the whole week. Whether it's the tournament director or whatever, don't tell us it's four-and-a-half-inch rough. I can put my foot in it and see it's over my shoes. It's the same at Arnold's event. That rye-grass rough is sticky and it's five inches long. Muirfield is one of my favorite courses, but from the first time I played it in '98 to 2008, it's gotten harder, not better. The greens are 14 on the Stimpmeter and they're not big; do you need ruts in the bunkers, too?

This may be the first time someone dared to note the issue for Phil Mickelson and his joint instructors Butch Harmon and Dave Pelz.

Your fellow lefty Mickelson had a quiet 2008. What's wrong with him?

Phil Mickelson is fantastic. I have learned so much from watching him play. He knows I respect his game, and I don't want to say anything that would upset him, but right now I think he's got two different kinds of coaches. I worked with Butch Harmon for five years, and his way of thinking about the game is a lot different than how Dave Pelz is. Dave's very analytical, very scientific, and everybody respects that. Phil is trying to find a balance between two methods that seem to pull him in different directions.

And of course, slow play...

What else is on the PAC's radar?

Pace of play. There are a dozen guys out here who are habitually slow. It's not that our fine structure isn't strong enough — it's that our officials should be more assertive. We all know who's slow and who's not, and while half of the slow guys say they want to get faster, the other half say, "I don't care if I'm slow or not." Well you know what? You've got 144 guys out there that week and most of them feel you're disrespecting them by taking that attitude. You have 40 seconds to hit the shot, and if you can't do it, you're not playing out here.

Is this why weekend golfers seem to think a glacial pace is okay?

My 10-year-old Griffin now plumb-bobs. I go, "Dude, what are you doing?" He goes, "I don't know, I see you guys doing it on TV." That's exactly why it's wrong for us to be playing that slowly. 

"any Swede"

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The March issue of Golf Digest features an anonymous PGA Tour player survey and includes some pretty fun questions. My two favs:

WHO'S THE SLOWEST PLAYER ON TOUR?
Ben Crane: 43%
J.B. Holmes: 32%
Glen Day: 11%
OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES: Michael Allen, Jason Allred, Tiger Woods, "any Swede"

What is it about the Swedes, anyway?

NAME ONE GOLF ANNOUNCER YOU COULD LIVE WITHOUT
Kelly Tilghman: 30%
Nick Faldo: 17%
Peter Kostis: 13%
Johnny Miller: 9%
OTHERS RECEIVING VOTES: Curt Byrum, Bobby Clampett, Brian Hammons, John Hawkins, Renton Laidlaw, Dave Marr III, Gary McCord, Mark Rolfing

Congrats Peter!

"Play is conducted at a funereal pace."

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Alistair Tait gets us in the mood to not watch the Dunhill Cup, once a great event.

The Pro-Am format of the Alfred Dunhill is something that has never actually caught the imagination of Scottish golf fans. While the PGA Tour’s AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am is well supported, Scottish golf fans haven’t exactly welcomed the St. Andrews equivalent with open arms.

I put it down to three reasons. The first is painfully obvious. Play is conducted at a funereal pace. Six-hour rounds are the norm. Play at St. Andrews is usually slow given that everyone who plays there wants to experience every last second on the Old Course. However, pace of play in the Alfred Dunhill would make snails seem quick.

Then there is the time of year. October is hardly balmy weather in Scotland, so the chance to actually recognize a celebrity let alone watch one is almost impossible. Movie actress Ines Sastre was in the field the year I covered the tournament. As far as ogling went, it wasn’t easy to appreciate her full beauty when she was wrapped in waterproofs and a bobble hat.

Besides, many of the celebrities fall into the B-list category anyway.

However, the bottom line is that Scottish golf fans have no interest in watching celebrities, A-list or otherwise, hack their way around the sacred turf of St. Andrews. The year I went I counted just 29 people in the grandstand behind the Old Course’s 18th green as former soccer great Sir Bobby Charlton played his approach.

Slow Play Files: It's Getting Ugly!

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The Seattle Times' Sonia Krishnan reports that a 33-year-old man was booked into King County Jail after he struck a fellow golfer on the head with a six-iron. The Auburn Golf Course fight erupted over slow play.

According to police, Compton, his two stepsons and a friend complained to the golf course marshall because the group of golfers ahead of them was playing too slowly, court records show. Shampine was part of that group.

A heated argument then escalated between the two groups of men, and Shampine's brother and Compton got into a shoving match, according to court documents.

Shampine "snapped" and "charged at Compton to protect his brother," records show. He swung his 6-iron at Compton's head, "striking him hard." Officers noted that the club's shaft was bent, documents show.
Guess that's better than getting hit by a maple bat.

The fight ended immediately after Compton fell to the ground, and Shampine was arrested at the scene, said Sgt. Scott Near, spokesman for the Auburn Police Department.

Compton's wife told police her husband had suffered a broken cheekbone, skull fracture and had blood in the brain, according to court documents. His family declined to comment when reached today at Harborview.

Employees of the municipal golf course said they were still reeling from the incident.

"I've been in the golf business 30 years; I've never seen anything like this," said Chris Morris, the course's golf professional. "Occasionally on a hot day you'll get some yelling, but it never leads to violence. This was extremely shocking."

"Our rules officials have finally realized that — duh! — course setup has a lot to do with pace of play."

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As always I enjoyed the pre-Open Championship insights from SI's anonymous tour pro (thought it would be nice if he'd actually seen Birkdale!), including this on the relationship between PGA Tour course setup and slow play.

No doubt I'm wasting my time talking about slow play. One veteran told me that we had the same discussions 25 years ago. The Tour is trying to identify the slower players and work with them to get faster, but in the end we're probably only talking about picking up 15 minutes a round. Is that a big deal? Probably not.
Yes it is!
One thing I like is that the Tour is going to use ShotLink to tell us how long we take for each shot. Certain players who are slow and don't know the average time spent on a particular shot need to be made aware. Our rules officials have finally realized that — duh! — course setup has a lot to do with pace of play. It's not only the players who are slow. When you play a 510-yard par-4 with a semi-island green, you're going to take a while. It seems obvious, but apparently our officials didn't think of it. At some tournaments, like the Memorial, the setups are getting out of control. Guys don't want to play a U.S. Open-style course two weeks before the Open. What Jack Nicklaus had this year at the Memorial was way worse than Torrey Pines. Jack and Arnold Palmer, who's growing serious rough at Bay Hill, may want to have major-championship conditions, but they're in danger of winding up with bad fields. Six-inch rough, furrowed bunkers, greens running at 14 — some guys are going to think twice before coming back.

Good.

Reader Greg noted there was one problem with another the mystery pro's comments.

The Tour thinks that putting San Antonio in Atlanta's spot was a terrific swap because Valero is a great sponsor and that we might have a Texas swing: the Nelson, Colonial and San Antonio in successive weeks. The problem is that LaCantera, the Texas Open venue, is awful. None of the top players would tee it up there in the fall, and they won't play there in May, either. Anytime you can see a roller coaster and a Ferris wheel from a tee box — you can actually hear the people on the rides screaming in the background — that's a red flag. Has any great course ever been built next to an amusement park? Until the new TPC San Antonio is finished [in 2010], I don't see top players remembering the Alamo.

Technically, Pine Valley's next door neighbor is an amusement park too. But we understand his point.

"The officials can only do so much"

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Gerry Dulac files a slow play rant after watching some high level amateur slugs play in the West Penn Amateur. Thanks to reader Kevin for this.
This is what happened to me Friday afternoon at a public course in Western Pennsylvania I won't mention. Was the glacial pace acceptable? Absolutely not. Was it understandable? Of course, because too many players don't understand the first thing about etiquette and pace of play.

But, someone needs to explain to me how a threesome of talented young golfers, none older than 29, can take nearly three hours to play nine holes and five hours to play 18 holes on a perfectly sunny day? And in a tournament staged by an organization whose purpose, among other things, is to enforce the rules?

That, though, is what happened Tuesday in the final round of the West Penn Amateur, the oldest tournament in Western Pennsylvania that was celebrating its 108th year. But, after the final group started at 9:13 a.m. and finished at 2:15 p.m. at the wonderfully restored Bedford Springs Resort, the tournament felt as though it had morphed into year No. 109.

"The officials can only do so much," said Jeff Rivard, executive director of the Western Pennsylvania Golf Association. "The players need to say, hey, we need to pick it up."