PGA Tour approves experimental use of rangefinders in six spring tournaments

PONTE VEDRA BEACH — Speaking to the media Tuesday at the Players Championship, PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan announced that in an effort to promote greater speed of play, the tour will allow the use of rangefinders in six tournaments. The experimental period will begin at the RBC Heritage just after the Masters, and concluding the week before the PGA Championship at the Truist Championship and the OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic.

The idea behind the move is to test whether distance measuring devices have a positive effect on overall round times and individual speed of play. In that short span, the six tournaments included two smaller-field signature events, the team event at the Zurich Championship, one 156-player full-field event at the Byron Nelson, and two 132-player alternate field events. That will give them a full set of data, and ideally the knowledge needed to know whether to proceed with their use indefinitely or revert to the status quo.

Speaking last week, Gary Young, senior VP of Rules & Competition, noted that they tried a similar test on the Korn Ferry Tour, though the numbers weren't as definitive as he would have liked.

"It didn't really show us any real positive results," Young said, "but it wasn't a negative, and it did seem to help on offline shots outside the ropes. So the more we talked about it, the more we thought with these smaller fields [in signature events], that it would definitely have an impact, because it's harder stay up with the group ahead of you when you're playing in pairs."

The suggestion for this and other changes came from a speed-of-play working group that included Adam Schenk, Sam Burns, and Jhonattan Vegas, along with tour officials. It passed with full support, according to Monahan, at both a recent full board meeting and at a meeting of the Player Advisory Council held last week.

Under the Rules of Golf, distance measuring devices are allowed at all times. The PGA Tour prohibits them using a Model Local Rule. The LPGA Tour allows their use in the majority of its events, as does the PGA of America, which is why they have been allowed for use at the PGA Championship since 2021.

As both Young and Monahan noted, none of this would be possible without player buy-in—the concept of using rangefinders, publishing pace of play data, and stiffening penalties on the Korn Ferry Tour that could trickle upward to the PGA Tour all required approval from players. Young referred to it as the players taking "ownership" of their own product, and Monahan credited the players and his staff for identifying key areas of improvement.

"We're listening to our fans, and we're responding," Monahan said. "I think there's a real commitment from players across the board to make certain that we're doing everything that we possibly can to improve. And these three steps are just a start."