More Eye-Opening Quotes For The Slow Play Files

As only he can do, Doug Ferguson whittles the key components of the slow play debate into an 800-word story, melding Commissioner Optic Obsessed's comments with some player quotes and a fun suggestion from Roger Maltbie for a future Fast Play Open.

We'll fast-forward past the Commish's remarks about experimenting with penalty shots and get to Ferguson's closing point.

The way it has gone for the last 20 years, why hurry when on one else does?

“We know when they drive up and tell us to hurry up, it means nothing,” Geoff Ogilvy said.

“When I first came out and someone told me to hurry up, I got all flustered and was rushing.

Now, it’s a laugh. Yeah, we’ll try. But some guys don’t even try because they don’t do anything.

“I bet if you polled the tour, half the fast players would say, ‘Give me penalties,’ just to scare everyone.”

Or maybe the tour could try a perk instead of a punishment.

“You want to help slow play?” said Roger Maltbie, the NBC Sports analyst and former PGA Tour winner. “Hand them their cards on the first tee and say, ‘If you bring this back to us in less than four hours, you can take a stroke off your score.’ Let’s see how that works.”
It couldn’t hurt.

Bob Harig looks at the possible solutions and once you get past the reduce-field-size argument (and try to ignore the notion that they managed to finish the first two rounds of the LA Open with 144 player fields for decades until the last decade), it still comes back to those dreaded optics.

• Impose stroke-play penalties. "People don't realize how valuable one shot out here is," Woods said, explaining that the difference in prize money would result in a far harsher fine -- and the potential loss of a tournament -- and would be a far greater deterrent.

• Announce fines. The PGA Tour does not disclose discipline, except in the case of a failed drug test for performance enhancers. It won't acknowledge if a player was suspended for using recreational drugs, and it won't say if a player has racked up fines for one bad time or 20.

Perhaps this would help. If it announces who the chronic slow-play offenders are, there is bound to be some backlash. These players would be there for all to see. Media would ask them questions about it. There would be true incentive to improve, at least on a public relations front. Nobody wants to be labeled a slow player -- even though almost all of the players, officials and caddies know who they are.