This week marks the start of the 2021 PGA Tour calendar season, it also marks the start of the Tour’s new policy on pace of play.
Slow play has long been a problem and there are new guidelines for rules officials.
Typically, there’s one player in the group who causes his group to fall behind and officials would put the entire group on the clock. That changes and here’s what begins this week:
The Observation List: Previous focus was on groups being out of position. The Observation List will put additional focus on individuals whom ShotLink data has identified as the most egregiously slow players. Those players will go on and off the list based on a 10-tournament rolling period and will be subject to a 60-second average for all shots. If observed by a Rules Official to exceed this time, that player will be timed individually even if the group is in position.
Of course, being as secretive as it is, the Tour’s “Observation List” will not be made public, but players on the list will be notified that they are on it on a weekly basis. Goal is to help the snails change their habits.
Excessive Shot Times: Anyone in the field who takes more than 120 seconds to play a single shot, absent a good reason for doing so, will be given an Excessive Shot Time.
Additionally, fines and penalties for slow play have been enhanced significantly. Officials will now assess a one-stroke penalty for the second bad time in a tournament, not a round, and for every bad time thereafter in the same tournament. The fines for the second bad time in a season and for 10 cumulative timings in a season have also been raised to $50,000.
The fine for a second bad time in a season currently is $5,000.
The Tour staff will implement the policy in part by using an app to monitor player times.
What will really get the attention of the players is that threat of the one-shot penalty. That will be the “big bite” in this new policy.
Most of these Tour players earn big money and that previous $5,000 fine was not much more than a parking ticket for them. But that 50k fine — now that’s a whopper and it’s something that would get the attention of even the wealthiest Tour players.
One player who they’ll have their eye on is none other than long-driving, rules officials arguing, greens-book studying Bryson DeChambeau.
Bryson is slow and he knows it and everyone else knows it.
New year, new rules. Hopefully the slow play will disappear.
AmEx Changes Format Due To COVID:
What is today’s American Express event used to be the Bob Hope back in the day. Three amateurs were paired with a professional and that format remained long after we lost “Hope.”
The event, held January 21-24, will be played without that traditional multi-day pro-am format. There won’t be an spectators, either. California continues with travel restrictions created by the pandemic.
Only two courses will be used this year — both at PGA West in La Quinta.
“This decision by the PGA Tour to modify the pro-am format due to the current COVID-19 climate locally was made out of an abundance of caution with the full support from American Express and the Mickelson Foundation,” said Tour executive vice president Tyler Dennis. “We are fully committed to continuing the positive impact on local charities to the same degree as past years, if not more, and we are grateful to American Express for their support in doing so.”
3 Comments
baxter cepeda
It’s still a very weird system with just enough interpretation that the fear is it will still be applied once in a while on young Asian amateurs but never on the superstars.
One time my young daughters played a usga 4 ball qualifier. The older girls they played with were super slow.
It did not help we were the first group out in freezing nor cal weather and sipping wet fairways. We were on the clock after one hole.
One of those two young ladies was just slow as heck with her and dad talking every shot at length; and the other was just wild but quick.
My daughters were quite shorter but would get to their balls and hit pretty quick, as they always do. And for the most part we’re close to greens in regulation.
At the end of the day my girls were given a penalty because the older girls not given anything because supposedly the older girls could not prepare for their shots until after the young girls hit from further back.
It made no sense. The pace of play rules for all golf organizations are a joke. But again the fear is they can be used to penalize some players whom do not deserve it while still allowing other players to get away with slow play murder.
Tom Edrington
I hear ‘ya; Once I was walking at Tampa Palms CC, I caught up to two college girls (USF golf team) IN A CART and I was waiting for them until I finally took a short cut and walked in — MOLASSES IN THE WINTER!!
baxter cepeda
It’s never good when rules are left to any interpretation. Guaranteed to be unequal.