Texas Children's Houston Open

Memorial Park Golf Course



The Loop

Is this any way to grow the game?

November 06, 2009

Late in the first round of the WGC-HSBC Champions, Renton Laidlaw of the Golf Channel noted that rounds were approaching the five-hour mark. Five-hour rounds with a 78-player field?

Much has been made about China as golf's next frontier and the importance of the HSBC Champions in Shanghai having been designated a World Golf Championship event, thus enticing the best players in the world to China. All that is true, of course, but interminably slow play is probably not the best way to sell the game to neophyte golfers and golf fans.

-- John Strege