I blame it on the pros. Have you noticed, in
those old tournament
newsreels and reruns of Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf,
All-Star Golf,
etc., how swiftly the pros of the ’50s and ’60s played? Gene
Sarazen
could hit a drive, pluck his tee from the ground, hand the club to his
caddie and get several yards down the fairway before his ball came to
rest.
Then things changed. The popular equation is “Arnold Palmer + TV + Dwight
Eisenhower = Golf Boom.” Here’s another: “Jack Nicklaus + TV + Big
Money = Slow
Play.” Jack in his prime played not just slowly but
painfully slowly, and a
couple of generations of pros and amateurs
copied him. Today, with millions of
dollars on the line, tour players
have become a conclave of posturing,
pussy-footing prima donnas.
In their semi-defense, it’s human nature to be
greedy, to take as
much time, money and advantage as we can. We therefore need
to be
disciplined and guided, whether by the 10 Commandments, the Articles of
the Constitution or the Rules of Golf.
While Moses and the Founding
Fathers may have done their jobs, the
USGA and R&A have not. Oh, they’ve
restricted us to 14 clubs,
regulated our handicaps and capped our distance
potential. But they’ve
done nothing about slow play.
Until recently. A year
ago, very quietly, the USGA unveiled a new
program at its 10 amateur events. It
calls for four pace-of-play
checkpoints, at the 4th, 9th, 13th, and 18th holes.
On the 1st tee,
each group is given a set of target times by which they are
expected to
complete the designated holes. If they fail to hit those times—and
if
they also fall out of position with the group in front—action is taken. Miss
one time, and the group is warned. Miss the second checkpoint and each
player in
the group is given a one-stroke penalty. Miss the third
checkpoint and it’s an
additional two strokes for everyone, and miss
four checkpoints and the entire
group is disqualified.
It worked. At the U.S. Amateur, 12 one-stroke
penalties were imposed
during the two qualifying rounds, during which the
average pace of play
was reduced by 45 minutes. Similar results were gained at
the other
championships.
Which begs the question: Why doesn’t the USGA roll
it out to the big
event, the U.S. Open?
“We want to get it to a place where
we are comfortable with it,”
says USGA Director of Rules and Competitions Mike
Davis. “I don’t think
we are ready for the U.S. Open yet, but there may be a
time when there
are several years of proven results that might persuade us to
take it
to the next level.”
In other words, the USGA is moving, uh,
slowly.
Sorry, but “several years” is not good enough. After all, it’s not
as if the USGA invented this system. It was developed by the Vancouver
Golf
Association and has been used by regional golf associations as
well as the
American Junior Golf Association—all with great success.
