Welcome, once again, to Ed’s Therapy Couch!
What’s on my mind this month? Yes, once again, the topic is pace of play.
Much like the debate over distance, the problem with pace of play is nothing new. And, similar to distance, things have reached a breaking point.
Unless something changes, professional golf will soon be played in singles with 20-minute tee time intervals. Field sizes will be reduced to 50 players and fans will need circus acts in between groups to keep them entertained.
As it stands now, playing in threesomes pretty much guarantees a five-hour round. As a result, twosomes have become the standard. For the fans, this means that after waiting 10 to 12 minutes in between groups, viewing is cut by 33%. If baseball took that approach innings would be reduced to two outs per side.
Another problem with the slowdown in golf is the amount of waiting golfers face throughout their rounds. It is not just the amount of time it takes to play a round of golf, it is the flow of the round. You don’t see it on television, but professional golfers (particularly those who play fast) spend an inordinate amount of time leaning on their drivers. As one of golf’s fastest players, Rory McIlroy could have written his memoirs during the time he has spent waiting for the green or fairway to clear.
Despite all of the attention that pace of play has drawn of late, I am amazed how little of the discussion focuses on the biggest problem. If the goal is to move the entire field around the course more quickly, why does pace of play monitoring only occur when a group falls out of position with the group in front?
The theory seems logical enough. What’s the point of timing a group when there is nowhere for them to go? But in practice, this approach encourages the entire field to slow down. I have seen it time and time again. Once the sluggish pace of a typical tournament is established and the course is full of groups teed off in nine-minute intervals, the committee puts away their stop watches. That is usually when you can find rules officials sleeping under a tree with a half-eaten box lunch in their lap.
I have long been an advocate for a putting clock to shorten the amount of time groups spend on the green. The green is where most of the slowdown happens so let’s focus on it. But even with a putting clock, pace of play will not improve until measures are taken to move every group on the course regardless of their position relative to other groups. If every group plays faster, the entire field, from the engine to the caboose will arrive at the station sooner.
While pace of play has become a hot topic of late, not everyone thinks it is a problem. Kevin Kisner for one believes all this gum flapping is much ado about nothing.
“If it takes us four hours and 48 minutes, who cares? I just don't think that's a big deal. Is it really affecting anybody's life?”
Perhaps you agree. But from my perspective, life’s most precious commodity is time. And in golf, one slow player impacts everyone else on the course. If life is about time, slow play in golf is affecting a lot of lives!