The Waiting Game

Stewart Cink's caddie, Frank Williams, endured a delay at this year's Masters. Photo: Donald Miralle

In truth, it was addressed long ago.

It is there in the Rules of Golf. Rule 6-7. "The Player must play without undue delay and in accordance with any pace of play guidelines that the Committee may establish." Breach of the rule calls for penalty strokes in medal play, loss of hole in match play.

Vagueness cripples this entry; undue delay is irrefutably subjective. That is not to say administrators aren't checking their watches. But USGA officials have become sheepherders pushing players to get "back in position," which is on the heels of the group in front, rather than acting as time cops. In fact only three U.S. Open competitors have been assessed a one-stroke penalty for slow play: Bobby Impaglia in 1978, Sam Randolph in 1987 and Edward Fryatt in 1997.

It's no different on the PGA Tour. A concerted effort is made to maintain flow, yet actual pace goes largely unchecked. The tour's pace-of-play policy entails cumulative fines, starting at $20,000, for players who receive 10 or more bad times in a season. Players aren't timed unless their group lags more than a hole behind the threesome in front of them, in which case they are informed they are on the clock. The first player to hit is allowed 60 seconds, and the others get 40 for each shot. If a warning is issued, it is assessed to all members of the group. A second bad time during a round results in a one-stroke penalty and a $5,000 fine. But that hasn't happened since Dillard Pruitt—who is now, ironically, a tour rules official—got dinged at the 1992 GTE Byron Nelson Golf Classic.

This is odd when you consider what Mike Davis, senior director of rules and competitions for the USGA, says about penalties: They work. "The argument can be made that you start penalizing and players will pick up play," he says. "We've seen that in our amateur championships for stroke play."

Conversely, absent the threat of the penalty hammer being dropped, and with slower players somewhat protected by the group and by the field at large all moving deliberately, a pace of play is established from which there is little deviation from week to week, except when it slows even more. And there has been a notable slowdown in the last decade.

Empirical evidence provided by the PGA Tour indicates that threesomes averaged four hours, 34 minutes on Thursdays and 4:29 on Fridays in 1997. By 2001 those averages had increased 14 minutes, to 4:48 and 4:43, respectively. They have since leveled off, though '06 was a bright spot when threesomes shaved rounds to 4:42.

Not coincidentally, low-speed golf corresponds to advances in equipment, including drivers with larger, titanium heads and golf balls with improved aerodynamics. The upshot was more short par 4s were drivable and more par 5s became reachable in two shots as average driving distance on the PGA Tour exploded. In 1997 12 players averaged 280 or more yards off the tee. By 2000 the number had increased to 29. In 2001, after the introduction of the Titleist Pro V1 and similar multilayer balls, there were 89 players at that distance. This year, through the Crowne Plaza Invitational, 132 players sport an average driving distance of at least 280 yards.

The pushback to this has ­manifested itself in courses being made longer. Consider the evolution of Augusta National GC, arguably the world's most renowned course. It measured 6,925 yards in 1997 and by 2002 it was 7,270 yards. Since 2006 it has played to 7,445 yards. This year's Open at Torrey Pines, reconfigured to par 71, measures 7,643 yards—379 yards longer than any previous Open course.

In lockstep course setups have become more arduous, or, some players might say, tricked up: fairways narrowed, the rough higher, greens firmer and faster, and hole locations inching nearer the edges of ­putting surfaces.

"My whole issue with slow play relates to the golf ball," says Jack Nicklaus, who has been advocating a rollback for years but in the meantime has been forced to preside over continual upgrades to his Muirfield Village GC, in Dublin, Ohio, site of last week's Memorial Tournament. "As you've made the golf ball go farther, you've got to make the golf course longer to fit what the golf ball is doing. When you make the golf course longer, and you also are trying to make it harder to have it be an appropriate test, it takes more time to play it."