PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — Complaints about slow play on the PGA Tour have been around forever, which is about how long it has been since anyone was given a one-stroke penalty for taking too long to hit a shot.
Actually, it was 16 years ago at the Byron Nelson Classic. And the victim of that one-stroke penalty is now a rules official who carries a stop watch.
"It was in Dallas," Dillard Pruitt said Tuesday. "For two bad times in a round, I got a one-stroke penalty, a $1,000 fine and I had to play in the last group the next two weeks as long as it wasn't an invitational. That one stroke cost me $9,600 official money. The fact I can still remember that tells you something."
The policy hasn't changed much over the years.
Once a group falls out of position and is put on the clock, the first player to hit is allowed 60 seconds; the others get 40 seconds. There is no penalty for the first bad time. The second bad time carries a one-stroke penalty, the third offense is a two-stroke penalty, and a fourth bad time is disqualification.
As slow as it can get on the PGA Tour, why has no one been assessed a one-stroke penalty in 16 years?
Or been disqualified?
"We're more intelligent than people think we are," the ever-sarcastic Paul Goydos said.
By that, he means slow players tend to play faster when told they are on the clock. Fulton Allem once compared this to a state trooper who pulls over a motorist for going 100 mph. Instead of writing a ticket, the trooper says he will follow the driver for the next five miles to make sure he doesn't speed.
"You have to be crazy to get two bad times," chief rules official Mark Russell said. "People don't get one bad time."
In the meantime, the tortoise is transforming into a snail.
Tiger Woods was the latest to gripe about the pace of play. Given his stature in golf, his complaint figures to be the loudest.
In his monthly newsletter, Woods talked about his victory in the Accenture Match Play Championship, seeing his new sports drink on grocery shelves and having Van Halen play at his benefit concert this year. Then out of the blue came this.
"Before I go," he wrote, "I would like to talk about slow play. It's been an ongoing problem on the PGA Tour for a long time. I honestly believe the pace of play is faster in Europe and Japan. It has been suggested offenders be penalized with strokes. The problem is, you may get one guy that slows down a group for playing at a snail's pace and gets them all put on the clock, which isn't fair. I know this is a complicated issue. Hopefully, it can be addressed in the near future."
Adam Scott was a little more succinct.
