Angel Yin, one of the most cheerful souls in professional golf, says she felt like she was asleep, even though the sedative was definitely not her golf, nor the golf course she was playing on.
It was the effort made by other people, whose names she kept hidden, but they could be said to have made observing the blades of grass growing beneath her a more lively game.
“When I first went on tour, I could take a nap,” Yin said. “It was terrible.”
Yes, the topic here is slow play, the name of which tells you almost everything: the game is slow – and that can be frustrating. This was revealed last weekend at the Annika LPGA tournament, where golf bogged down, rounds lasted well over five hours, pros battled the darkness – and Charley Hull, a victim, not an abuser, went viral with some of her thoughts on the subject.
“It was crazy,” she began. “I’m pretty ruthless, but I said, look, if you get three bad timings, – each time it’s a two-shot penalty – if you get three, you lose your tour card instantly; go back to Q-School. I’m sure that would rush a lot of people and they won’t want to lose their tour card.
“It would kill the slow game, but they would never do that.”
When asked if that was a problem, Hull continued.
“It’s ridiculous and I feel sorry for the fans how slow it is,” she said. “We spent five hours and 40 minutes yesterday. We play four-ball at home, on a hard golf course, and we finished in three and a half or four hours.
“It’s pretty crazy.”
Of course, this is nothing new. You’ve heard of this before. It is increased on both the women’s and men’s circuits. There are also fines and penalties for hitting, but here we are. At this point maybe you could just call it SP and people would know what you were inferring. So, you then wonder: How, once again, was this not resolved?
Quite a question.
Ahead of this week’s season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, some of the LPGA’s best and brightest delved into Hull’s thoughts. They were asked if slow play was a problem and how they would fix it if they thought so.
On the opposite subject, the responses were quick.
Is slow play a problem?
“So I have my opinions,” Yin said when asked. So do Nelly Korda, Lexi Thompson, Lydia Ko and others. And clearly, Hull.
We will try to start positively. For Yin, there was some progress, although it was perhaps a low bar to clear. After last week, the memory is also fresh, so you expect the answers to seem more dramatic. Time hasn’t healed the wound, so to speak.
Then again, as noted above, here we are again, and the players weren’t blind to this. Ruoning Yin said the past week had been “quite difficult.” Jeeno Thitikul said last week’s five-and-a-half-hour rounds were “a bit too much.” Thompson said rounds should last no more than four and a half hours — and argued the problem had actually gotten worse.
Korda said if she were a fan, she would be annoyed.
Notably, she’s also one of the fastest players on tour – and this is where we can perhaps find some solutions.
“Jason has to slow me down sometimes,” the world number 1 said of her caddie, Jason McDede. “I don’t know. It’s always like my first instinct is the best. You see it, you hit it.
“Today with Charley – Charley and I played together again today, three rounds in a row, a practice round. She was talking, and it’s like a 5 (iron) or a 6 (iron), like you have two options. It’s either the wind is coming from your right or the wind is coming from your left, the wind is in, the wind is down. You can’t – it’s just people just try to overcomplicate things.
“I always say your first instinct is your best instinct, I would say. Just be ready when it’s your turn.”
And then there is Ko.
One of the most thoughtful minds on the tour, she said the problem was multi-layered.
“Nobody, I mean, even if you’re the biggest golf fan, nobody wants to stay out there as long as possible,” Ko said. “Sometimes, like last week, it was a really tough course with fast greens and undulating greens.
“Even if you play well, but you hit a shot out of position, it’s going to take a lot longer than if you hit it in the middle of the green and two putt. And even two putts around a golf course like Pelican hasn’t been easy.
“Yes, it depends on the situation. The US Women’s Open tends to take longer because we have a larger field of players. It’s definitely one of the toughest tournaments we play all year.
“So it’s on a case-by-case basis.”
Most certainly. But could this be solved?
The last word here goes to Ewing. This week is his last. She is retiring.
What about next year around this time?
“I’m going to jump in a golf cart in my retirement,” she said.
She then continued: “You know, it’s always been a topic of conversation since I’ve been on Tour. I think with certain players it’s a problem. You have your fast players and we all know who they are.
“I don’t have any answers, but it’s really difficult to play with at times, and I’m sure it’s very difficult for the rules makers. Every year, at the end of the year, they wonder, how are we going to make things better?”
“You know, people play for a living, so I understand why people take their time. I think there’s a line we have to draw.”
How do you resolve slow play?
Let’s try. Let’s draw this line.
What do you say, Angel? The floor is yours.
Look at the spacing, Yin said. “Because we get to the tee box and we’re already late and we’re at our morning tee time,” she said. “So how can this fall on one player? And it also comes down to where I think we can improve as a tour, a small problem. I can’t point fingers too much, but I feel like there are certain types of people who should be able to deal with this better.
…
“Nelly got a 10, I think. Stuff like that. It has nothing to do with the player. I’m pretty sure Nelly goes really fast. When you’re taking drops and doing this and that, there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Jeeno?
Thitikul mentioned a clock on each hole.
Lexi? Ruoning?
It appears that Hull was not entirely out of place. “I think Charley is better than me at this,” Yin said.
“Yeah, his comment was a little aggressive,” Thompson said. “I don’t disagree with that. It has to be done. Something has to be done to speed up the game, whether it’s fines or anything. It has to be done because we have to play faster. The fans don’t like being out there for five and a half hours in the heat.”
Nellie?
Penalties, of course. But she wanted to return to her initial thought, about mentality.
“Standing on a putt for two to three minutes is ridiculous,” Korda said. “When a group in front of me is on the green and I’m in the fairway, I’m already preparing. I’m preparing my numbers, I’m talking about the shot, so by the time it’s my turn, I already have my game plan.
“Like I already do it – I punch right after the person who just punched in front of me. I think people just need to be – people overanalyze, one, and I think people just need to be ready quicker.
“People start their process a little too late and wait too long. Again, I think we need more people on the field to monitor the pace of the game. I don’t think we have enough people to monitor it.”
Lydia?
In a word, a certain understanding.
“I honestly think the biggest thing is just the situation,” Ko said. “If it took longer last week, I think there are two factors. The golf course was tough, and the second thing is there were players trying to get their card or work their way into CME.
“So, like all these kinds of situations, I think that plays a role. It doesn’t mean that, oh, yeah, then you should take more time or you shouldn’t be able to take more time. I just think those are the variables that you have to take into account when we have longer rounds than usual.
“I don’t know how long it took exactly, but I was fortunate enough to be able to serve on the LPGA board and be the player director for three years. Before that, I was thinking and saying things. Why would they make that kind of decision? After serving on the board, I realize there is a lot more than what we see.
“I believe everyone is doing their best, and as players we’re always going to do better to try to keep up with the pace of the game. I don’t know if any strategy or method is going to instantly make a round 30 minutes faster.”
So where are we now?
Are things resolved? Are they insoluble? Maybe someone is listening.
There is of course at least one other answer.
A nap.
