Day Opens The Door For New Commish To Attack Slow Play

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New PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan probably took a few aspirin when he saw that world No. 1 Jason Day returned from time off and, unprompted, proudly touted plans to play slower in 2017.

After all, the new Commish has more on his plate than you'd expect given the supposedly great product Saint Finchem left behind. Big picture stuff like trying to fix a confusing schedule, repairing relations with sponsors and keeping FedEx around should be Monahan's first-month priority instead of jumping in on the slow play debate.

But did Day just hand Monahan the perfect opening to attack the slow play problem?

Because of Finchem's many blind spots related to the actual product of PGA Tour golf, none was more perverse and damaging as his desire to see pace of play policies ignored. Finchem prioritized protecting the gentleman's game imagery above the gentlemanly behavior of playing golf at a considerate pace. Finchem never shied from bragging about his players taking hats off and shaking hands for the 18th green cameras.

Slow players? That could be swept under the rug because television wouldn't show someone rudely taking three minutes to play a shot, until they started showing such antics down the stretch because they had no choice. Then a Sean O'Hair or Kevin Na or Jason Day made it apparent how ungentlemanly it is for someone with PGA Tour level talent to take that long to hit a shot, and the Commissioner openly resisted penalty shots.

It is no coincidence that in the nearly 20 years Finchem was in office, the last penalty occurred in his first months on the job and never since. He also worked to undermine the stature of his officials by prolonging contract negotiations and underpaying the unionized force charged with enforcing the rules. And don't think players were oblivious to this neutralization of the referees or the amount of time that has passed since the last penalty (1995).

Even the USGA appeared has bowed to Finchem, implementing its very effective pace of play system at all but the one of its championships. It just happens to be the one where coddled PGA Tour players play: the U.S. Open.

Now that Finchem is retired, the PGA Tour slowpokes' sense of taking as much time as they'd like came flooding out of Day's mouth prior to Kapalua's 2017 season kickoff event. With no fear of being penalized and a rumored $10 million a year from Nike to pay any minor fines, Day made clear he's not going to rush himself.

The full comment:

Imagine a pitcher declaring that he will not throw a pitch until he's ready or a free-throw shooter backing off five times before taking a free shot? The leagues would crack down. 

In an era when no sport can afford to be seen as slowing down, the PGA Tour has shied away from enforcement that might help solve the problem. However, a new commissioner is in town and he's just been given a natural opening to push back.

Monahan shied away from taking a strong stand on slow play in a Q&A at PGATour.com earlier this week, understandably not needing to start his tenure off on a combative foot. Yet Jason Day has uttered comments  far removed from the simple reality that the PGA Tour survives on its entertainment value, not on how it pads Day's bank account. The suggestion he will back off until he's ready made clear Day's entitlement level runs so deep that even his truest believers might not feel sorry to see a PGA Tour rules official stalking him around Kapalua. And Torrey Pines. Or any fairway he pitches his tent upon to indulge himself at the expense of our viewing pleasure.

“I thought the pace of play was horrible"

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Alistair Tait isn't too wild about the Curtis Cup pace.

Put Carol Semple Thompson in charge of golf. The game would get a lot quicker if she was chief executive of the royal & ancient game.

The U.S. Curtis Cup captain was as fed up with the turgid pace of play for the afternoon four-balls as most in the crowd of 5,800.

The last match on the course, the contest that pitted Alison Walshe and Stacy Lewis against Liz Bennett and Florentyna Parker, took five hours and 22 minutes to complete.

By the time the match got to the 18th, the only one of the three four-ball contests to go the distance, most of the crowd had gone home. Semple Thompson might have high-tailed it out of the Auld Grey Toon too if not for her responsibilities as U.S. captain.

“I thought the pace of play was horrible,” Thompson said.

Beth Ann Baldry reports on the U.S. taking the lead in the matches, as does John Huggan, who has issues with the pacing and manners displayed.

One other noticeable feature of the first two days – quite apart from the disgracefully slow pace of play – has been an apparent inability to count, with players on both sides equally culpable. On day one, the Scottish duo of Watson and Michelle Thomson lay five to six feet from the cup on the Road Hole. Their opponents, Stacy Lewis and Alison Walshe, were four feet away after three shots. Clearly, a concession was the obvious course of action for the young Scots. Not a bit of it. Only after Watson had missed did they belatedly abandon a cause the equivalent of that faced by the Light Brigade.

A similar thing happened yesterday at the 9th hole. After three-putting from not very far away for a bogey, Watson and Thomson asked Lewis to putt from three feet when the Americans had two for the hole. And, just to show that the arithmetically challenged can be found on both sides of the Atlantic, Booth managed to lag her putt stiff from no more than four feet on the 16th green when she and partner Breanne Loucks had two to win their foursomes match against Kimberly Kim and Jennie Lee.