A modest proposal on slow play

Golf keeps a million measurements. Swing speed, ball speed, shot curvature, shot trajectory, proximity to the hole, strokes gained this and strokes gained that. One hesitates to suggest another.

But as PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and his team prepare a strategy to address slow play—and in the wake of tougher policy at the LPGA—let’s play what if.

What if there were an actual measurement of how fast every player played? What if, from that measurement, the PGA Tour determined an acceptable rate of play and competitors who played more slowly were penalized in strokes?

Call the new measurement SPS: Seconds-Per-Shot.

We’re not talking here about the time it takes to execute a single swing. SPS would include the walk to the ball, discussion with caddie, calculation of distance, club selection, rehearsal swings and shot execution. It would apply to all shots from tee to tap-in. It would not be about a single shot, but of the average number of seconds consumed per shot over 18 holes.

SPS would not be a group calculation in the way that a group of two or three players can now be “put on the clock.” It would be an individual statistic: Shots divided by time consumed in making them. This statistic, a rate of play, would, after a testing period, then help the tour to set a maximum allowable rate beyond which a player would be penalized—in strokes.

You’re dreaming, you say. How could you ever measure such a thing? Well, given the magic of the way the tour collects data these days, the answer is probably a satellite somewhere, reading chips in players clubs or badges. But a scoring volunteer with each group, given the right computer program, could do it, as well.

Example: Three players arrive on tee. The fairway or green is open. The scorer clicks his iPad on Player A who has honors, and when Player A has hit, clicks off. Then on to Player B. And so on. Players’ walks to the first shot in the fairway or to the green would be shared. If the walk consumed one minute, say, each of three players gets 20 seconds. After each hole play time is sent to scoring center along with the player’s score.

Let’s say, hypothetically, that after measuring players during a test period of a couple of months, it’s determined that the median SPS is 60, with about half of players slower, about half faster. The tour decides that this median, 60 SPS, will become slowest allowable rate. That is, a player may not consume more than 60 seconds per shot on average over 18 holes. Tap-ins, of course, would depress the rate, difficult recovery shots expand it.

At this hypothetical rate of 60 SPS, if three players in a group shot 70, they would consume 210 minutes or 3½ hours to complete their shots. Add another hour of moving from hole to hole, delays for rulings, etc., and you have a reasonable pace of play.

Now add to our what if that penalties for violation of the standard rate are automatic. If a player consumed on average 25 percent more time—in our hypothetical, 75 seconds per shot—he or she would be penalized one shot; 50 percent more time, two shots. (Allowable SPS would be modified for course difficulty or weather conditions, as is done these days with handicaps).

The beauty of this imagined system is that it disciplines individual players, not groups, and applies to a rate over 18 holes, not a given shot or two. And it is automatic. No officials’ judgement. Penalties—in the form of strokes—become part of the game, not some secret discipline of fines assessed behind closed doors. Fans are in on things.

I love Lucas Glover’s suggestions for speeding up play and am especially fond of his plea for fewer carts gumming up the flow of things (because they also ruin the beauty of a broadcast). Ultimately, though, with tons of money and a million measurements to consider, some players will turn a set-look-fire game into a series of unending meetings, pacings and rehearsals. And fans will be left to watch grass grow. If there are fines, we may never know.

Under our what if scenario, a player would be warned early in the round if he was moving at a penalty-incurring pace. He could adjust, cut back on the AimPoint, maybe, and get back on pace. Maybe there’s an indicator on the scoreboard noting that a player is in jeopardy of incurring a penalty. Sort of like knowing that Max Verstappen may be leading the Miami Grand Prix, but he’ll have to sit for 10 seconds the next time he pits because he drove Lewis Hamilton off the track.

When Jonathan Swift wrote his 1729 essay “A Modest Proposal,” he suggested that the starving Irish could solve their hunger problem by selling their children as food to the upper classes. It was satire. This isn’t meant to be. Some may suggest it’s just as preposterous, but we’d argue that until golf gets a measurement like this, it will be very difficult to speed things up for good.