Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida – PGA commissioner Jay Monahan announced on Tuesday that the League will begin to implement new policies of playing rhythm from next month. The change of rule will first be introduced on the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour Americas; It will include the evaluation of stroke penalties for slow gaming violations.
After the Masters, the PGA Tour itself will test a new policy allowing players to use distance measuring devices during six tournaments between the first and second majors of the year, the latter being the PGA championship. The PGA of America currently allows competitors of the PGA championship to use such devices. The PGA Tour also plans to publish specific statistics to the playing pace of players later in the year.
Justin Thomas said that making the publication of these data would be “certainly” effective in helping to brake the problems of playing.
“This is something I have said, if we put (the data) in the locker rooms or the (public) publishing, which would obviously end up, but nobody wants to be known as (a slow player),” he explained. “I am the first to admit that I am slow of the players.
The PGA Tour’s playing pace was criticized during the West Coast Swing when the American Express’s final group took 5 hours, 40 minutes to finish its last lap. A week later at the Open Farmers Insurance, a similar rhythm problem occurred and aroused new criticism.
Potential solutions were presented during the AT&T week Pebble Beach Pro-Am by the PGA Tour, including the use of distance measurement devices, the growing use of the video examination center to accelerate the decisions and the publication of playing data with the responsibility of slow players.
“After talking about some guys, I think you just have to start … Give guys real penalties, whether strokes or Fedexcup,” said Collin Morikawa. “What I have learned is that the monetary fines are useless. We earn so much money, and some guys were frankly gone – I don’t know how much the fines are, but whatever their amount, and I think they are more careful to play the right golf course and make sure they make the series eliminations and make sure they do, 70, 50.
“And I don’t see any problem with that. I think what’s to hide, right? If you are slow, you know you are slow. I mean, if you don’t know, then there is a problem. For me, there is no problem leaving it, no? It will only improve you, or you will be penalized. As it is very simple.”
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Last fall, the PGA Tour chose to adopt radical changes to its membership structure, including the reduction in the workforce in tournament fields. One of the objectives of this decision was to relieve the problem of the rhythm of play on the PGA Tour. Although early yields have been minimal, the league has experienced an improvement in recent weeks thanks to smaller fields and the use of both.
“It is easy to identify the problem,” said Monahan. “It is a little more difficult to find the solution, just given the depth and the extent of everything that goes in the rhythm of the game. But we are committed to finding the right solutions and progressing on this front.”
