The Waiting Game

By Dave Shedloski
Illustration By J.T. Morrow June 6, 2008

The date of capitulation was June 13, 2002. THAT'S when the purists at the USGA had to submit to the reality that 15 sunlit hours per day in mid-June in North America were insufficient for accommodating 156 of the world's finest golfers competing in the national championship.

Until then, every U.S. Open participant had begun his round on the first hole. For 101 years, no matter the time zone or the golf course, 15 hours provided enough daylight, barring weather delays, for an entire field, playing in threesomes, to tee off on No. 1 and hole out on No. 18. But in 2002, at Bethpage State Park's Black Course in Farmingdale, N.Y., the USGA opted for a two-tee start for the opening two rounds. One year earlier, at Atlanta Athletic Club, the PGA of America had abandoned a one-tee system in its PGA Championship.

"The last two or three groups were finishing, almost literally, in the dark the last couple of years, which we felt was unfair," says Tom Meeks, then senior director of rules and competitions for the USGA. "They had been using the two-tee start on the PGA Tour for years. Guys were used to it. It filled up the golf course faster and saved us about two hours, and we had some wiggle room if there was bad weather."

Left unsaid but implicit was the fact that the competitors' methodical pace had become, for lack of a better term, a bogeyman, casting a pall over the competitive landscape at the game's highest level. And there it remains. As the 108th U.S. Open at Torrey Pines GC's South Course in La Jolla, Calif., approaches, dialogue on the subject proliferates yet the problem persists.

"Pace of play has always been a problem; moreso in the eyes of some than others," says PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. "At the professional level, it has always been a challenge to maintain a system that's fair to the competitors and tries to maintain etiquette in the game. You owe your fellow competitor the courtesy of maintaining a reasonable pace. … It has come to a point where we are going to have to really analyze all of it and ask ourselves: Is there a better way to do it, whether it relates to a slow player, whether it relates to the setup of the golf course, whether it relates to field sizes and the rest, and we are committed to doing that."

At the behest of Peter Dawson, executive director of the R&A, the topic of slow play was added to the agenda at the World Golf Foundation meeting in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., following the Players. "It certainly needs something done about it, not just for the running of these events but for the effect it has on grass-roots play," insists Dawson, who referred to slow play as "a cancer in golf." It is one that has continued to metastasize, as evidenced by the pace at the Masters, where the final twosome of Brandt Snedeker and eventual winner Trevor Immelman needed five hours, 10 minutes to traverse Augusta National GC.

Ty Votaw, PGA Tour executive vice president of communications and international affairs, says that discussion centered on how the pro game may impact pace at the amateur level. No decisions were made, except to begin gathering more data in earnest. "The people around the table, the board members of the World Golf Foundation—whether they represent the PGA Tour, the LPGA, the R&A, USGA—need to have input. The mission of the World Golf Foundation is to bring the world of golf together, promote it and grow the game, and to lead it, so the subject of pace of play is a pertinent one."

Dawson is the lead voice in fretting over potential trickle-down effect from the tour pros, but Finchem was not sure there was a correlation between professional and amateur pace of play. Among the pros, some are more concerned about the issue than others.

"I don't see slow play as being that big an issue," Phil Mickelson says. "Thursday and Friday it will be because we have a lot of players, and it's just a fact of life. I don't see it as a problem."

Rory Sabbatini, who has been vociferous and demonstrative in opposition to slow play, disagreees. "We all know there is a problem. This isn't a new subject," he said. "There is a policy in place, and the answer is that we simply should enforce the policy. I don't know if anyone is really prepared to do that."

Tiger Woods hasn't played since the Masters, but he chimed in recently on the subject via his website. "I know this is a complicated issue. Hopefully, it can be addressed in the near future."