The Loop
Slow play is no laughing matter to Paula Creamer
By Alex Myers
NEW YORK -- As part of the USGA's new campaign to fight slow play in golf, Paula Creamer appeared in a commercial with Butch Harmon in which she learns how to imitate Rodney Dangerfield saying, "While we're young!" -- collar tug and all -- in an effort to speed up those around her. In New York as part of a media tour in advance of the Ricoh Women's British Open, Creamer said she had a great time shooting the ad, but that lengthy rounds are nothing to joke about.
"It's just not the way golf is meant to be played. It's getting out of control. As a player, you have to tell each other. That's what it comes down to. You need to be like, 'Hey, we need to pick it up,'" Creamer said. "When it's someone else's turn, do something."
#iframe:|||
Creamer said the problem comes mainly from players not thinking about their next shot until it's their turn. She said the LPGA is doing a lot to combat the problem through warnings, penalties and fines, but that there is a group of veteran players who simply won't change.
"There's a group of girls that you know are just slower players. So you know that when you see you're going to be playing with them, you're like 'man, this is going to be a nightmare,'" she said. "You know you're not going to be playing your game. And that's not fair."
Creamer's commercial, along with ones involving Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer and Clint Eastwood, all came out within the same month as both the U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Open -- two events with reputations as being toughest tests in golf. With no men breaking par at Merion and just two women in red figures at Sebonack, the pace of play was as slow as ever at the game's highest level, but that doesn't mean the message can't be effective.
"I think it's coming around," said Creamer, who has a 10-year-old cousin that came to see her play, but isn't interested in picking up the game because 'it takes too long.' "That whole service announcement might not have had the best timing, but now that the two hardest venues are out of the way. Who knows?"
With strong opinions on topics such as this and the LPGA's continued need for its stars to spend time interacting with sponsors and fans, could it possibly be Commissioner Creamer in the future?
"I've actually never thought about that -- it's never entered my mind," Creamer said.
Not while she's young, that is.