Ernie On Slow Play: "I think you've obviously got to make an example, but you've got to get the right guy."
/Ernie Els was asked at Bay Hill what he'd do about slow play as Commissioner for a day:
ERNIE ELS: Well, I'll get the lasers out, what do you call those things, rangefinders, I'll get that out. I'll make fields a bit smaller. And I'll get the officials to officiate the play instead of us as players. I feel it's kind of uncomfortable to tell your playing partner, hey, you're playing slowly, let's move on. I think the TOUR officials should do that, and fields -- yeah, the fields should get smaller.
What else?
Q. Would you penalize strokes?
ERNIE ELS: They have done that in Europe and they have probably penalized the wrong players. So if you do that, you've got to penalize the right players, the player that's actually playing slowly. I don't know if penalizing a guy will really help.
I think you've obviously got to make an example, but you've got to get the right guy. But that's not a bad idea. (Laughing).
I've changed my mind on rangefinders. They should temporarily allow them so that we can then definitively rule out pacing off yardages as the cause of slow play. Oh, and when the players start using rangefinders with stuff like the logos on an NFL coach's headset and everyone is suitably annoyed, then I think we can move on to real measures to curb slow play.