Slow Play Wars: Molinari Posts Bad Time And Fines, GMac Says It's Old News
/
Edoardo Molinari, former US Amateur champion, European Tour golfer and brother of The Open champion, has taken taken the slow play debate up a few notches while helping us figure out who should not play the Slow Play Masters.
He first posted this after his 5:30 minute round in the Trophy Hussan in Morocco:
Encouraged by his Twitter followers, he posted these “bad times” and the (very few) fines that ensued. These are European Tour times but obviously included the Masters given the names that popped up.
When asked about the effort, Graeme McDowell reiterated what most players and tour officials tend to say about slow play discussions: old news, we play for a lot of money, deal with it.
From Brentley Romine’s GolfChannel.com report:
“It’s not a dead horse, but it’s pretty dead. What do you want to do? We can’t get around there much quicker. Is 20 minutes going to change his life? Listen, I like Edoardo, nice kid, but I think he’s just frustrated.”
McDowell pointed out that he feels like the pace-of-play policy on the European Tour is more stringent than the PGA Tour’s policy, though he said even that is “getting tougher and tougher.”
“Listen, golf courses are long, golf courses are hard, we’re playing for a lot of money, it’s a big business, it is what it is,” McDowell said. “There’s just no way to speed the game up really. You can try these small percentiles, but at the end of the day it’s very hard to get around a 7,600-yard golf course with tucked pins with a three-ball in less than 4:45, 5 hours. You can’t do it.”
He is correct that getting around such a big course at modern speeds is becoming all but impossible, particularly given the back-ups on par-5s and drivable par-4s.
Of course, there could be remedies to this…
