Pepper On Slow Play: "I think the PGA Tour is burying their head in the sand."

Steve DiMeglio files a lengthy and excellent USA Today story on slow play and does a nice job pointing out the biggest flaw in Tim Finchem's flaccid argument against doing something by linking tepid pacing with the struggles of the everyday game.

And it's all best summed up by this from Dottie Pepper, who says the problem has become "terrible" and has written something in an upcoming SI Golf Plus about the topic:

"I think the PGA Tour is burying their head in the sand," she told USA TODAY Sports. "The PGA Tour has more potential to change the pace of play because they have more eyeballs on them day in, day out than any of the other organizations, and they are the ones that can take the lead on this.

"Nobody wins when play is slow."

Meanwhile Rex Hoggard has talked to sources who say the PGA ShotLink program has detailed stats on pace of play.

According to multiple Tour players the circuit tracks with surprising detail each player’s pace of play on every shot, even sending out periodic individual updates that list that player’s time per shot compared to the Tour average but not the times of other players.

In the most-recent update, for example, the Tour average for all shots is 38 seconds, while the circuit’s fastest player averages 24 seconds per shot and the slowest 53 seconds.

For some background on this, Doug Ferguson's 2010 story explains how it works and there was also my Golf World column proposing that the tour monetize these stats by getting a sponsor to put up money for a bonus pool to reward the top 10 fastest players each year.