BY everett munez
Imagine this. You just saved par on the first green with a brilliant long putt. As your group finishes the hole, you look toward the second tee, where the group in front of you has yet to tee off. You move on, but wait five, 10 or 15 minutes before you can play. It’s going to be a long day.
“You don’t want to be there anymore,” said Katie Li, a sophomore on Duke University’s women’s golf team. “I just want to keep moving.”
It’s common for competitive rounds of college and professional golf to approach five and even six hours. This is far from Li’s ideal round of four and a half hours at the most.
“I think the current pace of play is abysmal,” said Matt Thurmond, head coach of the Arizona State men’s golf team. “It’s an existential issue for the game of golf.”
To some, the slow play in college and professional golf is baffling, especially since the American Junior Golf Association, the circuit upon which most top U.S. juniors compete, provides a model for well-paced competitive golf. Since 2016, the average round of AJGA golf has been less than four and a half hours.
So why do college and professional golf take so much longer when so many of these players have played AJGA events?
“While that may not be great, it’s pretty darn good when you start comparing it to college, professional or other events,” said Stephen Hamblin, the AJGA’s executive director.
Its mission statement says the AJGA is dedicated to the overall growth and development of young golfers who want to earn college scholarships.
“Playing at a good, quick pace is part of that development,” Hamblin said.
The AJGA uses a checkpoint system to track pace of play, designating six holes as checkpoint holes. If a group finishes a checkpoint hole more than 14 minutes behind the group in front of them, they are considered out of position. If the group also finishes the checkpoint hole above time par, the time the AJGA determines it should take for a group to finish each hole, they receive a red card.
If a red-carded group reaches the next checkpoint without getting back into position or under time par, they receive a double red card and everyone in the group receives a one-stroke penalty. Double red card penalties can be rescinded after the round if the group adequately speeds up.
Penalizing players for a group’s slow play may not be popular for some, but others appreciate the strategy.
“I think AJGA does a pretty good job cracking down on slow golf,” Li said.
Despite the praise, Li says she still got annoyed when she received a red card, especially when she didn’t think the group’s slow play was her fault.
“There were obviously some rules officials who called you out for being five seconds behind,” Li said. “You get a little mad but you have to get over it.”
So why do college and professional golf take so much longer when so many of these players have played AJGA events? Some might argue players take longer because the stakes are higher. Hamblin disagrees.
“These (AJGA) kids are playing for scholarships,” Hamblin said. “They’re certainly playing for something.”
ASU coach Matt Thurmond agrees ... that a single organization running college golf tournaments could be helpful.
Instead, Hamblin points to the lack of enforcement in college. Different groups with varying pace-of-play standards administer each tournament. Stroke penalties are rarely assessed.
“I think college golf is a little bit handcuffed by not having an AJGA-type organization running their events,” Hamblin said. “Every golfer will play as slow as you allow them to play.”
ASU coach Thurmond agrees with Hamblin that a single organization running college golf tournaments could be helpful.
“It’s tough to clamp down on something when you don’t have a national system that governs it all,” Thurmond said.
While college tournaments may be run locally, they have wider effects. Players are competing for World Amateur Golf Ranking and PGA Tour University points. Therefore, Thurmond says it wouldn’t be fair if every tournament organizer didn’t penalize slow play in the same way.
As a college coach, Thurmond says pace of play is more of a background thought than a priority. If a player is too slow, he’ll encourage them to play a little faster. However, it’s difficult to truly emphasize pace of play if everyone else doesn’t do it.
“It’s hard to go 90 mph down a freeway when everyone else is going 65,” Thurmond said. “You go with the flow of traffic.”
Li believes college golf could adapt an AJGA-style card system giving out stroke penalties. She says slow play in her group affects her own play, as she gets more in rhythm when she plays faster.
“I think red cards are annoying but there’s definitely a reason for them,” Li said. “I feel like there should be some semblance of a red card.”
Hamblin would like to see college golf and the PGA Tour adapt a system similar to the AJGA’s to combat slow play. He believes it would be interesting to see it tested out on the developmental Korn Ferry Tour, similar to how Major League Baseball tested its pitch clock in the minor leagues before adopting it in 2023. Ultimately, he says players need to be incentivized to play faster for anything to change.
“Nothing is going to change until they start giving (penalty) shots out,” Hamblin said.