One of the game’s most basic of tenets is being ignored at the highest level of the game. Playing through has become nonexistent in professional golf.
When was the last time you saw professional golfers wave the group behind through because they were playing too slow or had got behind the group in front? Can’t recall that happening? Neither can I. That’s because it very rarely happens.
The Barclay’s Singapore Open this past weekend was living proof of a trend in professional golf that has become all too familiar.
Watching the final round was a bit of an endurance test. I’ve seen turtles move around a golf course quicker than the players in the final round.
When I initially turned on the television, Thomas Bjorn was putting out on the ninth hole. He’d already been on the course for 2 hours and 50 minutes. It took Ernie Else four hours to play 12 holes.
You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that we’re talking about 6-hour round pace.
However, the speed of play wasn’t helped by another example of ignoring one of golf’s basic premises.
My rule book states quite clearly that slower players should let faster players play through.
Many club members around the world still practice this custom, although it seems less evident than it once was. Get behind at my club and you’ll soon hear about it. Slower members step aside and let the group behind play through.
Not in the pro game. How often have you seen two, three groups on some tees stacked up like planes over Heathrow Airport? No wonder the 5-hour-plus round has become the norm.
In Singapore, it seemed to take Padraig Harrington almost that long to play the 16th hole after he hit his ball into water behind the green. The cameras panned back to Els sitting by his bag on the fairway while he waited for Padraig to take the correct drop.
Harrington tried to sort the situation out himself with the help of playing companion Charlie Wi, only to call for a referee.
It’s hard to blame the Irishman for calling for an official, given that he was in contention with Jeev Milkha Singh for the title. However, that’s another problem with professional golf and another factor that contributes to slow play.
Players are so paranoid about making a wrong decision and risking the ultimate penalty of disqualification that they won’t even make the simplest of rulings.
Worst on that front was Se Ri Pak during the Women’s British Open at St. Andrews in 2005. The Korean hit her approach into the Swilcan Burn on the first hole. Any club golfer almost anywhere in the world could have made the ruling, yet to her shame Pak waited for an official to turn up and point out the blindingly obvious in about 10 seconds. Problem was it took 10 minutes for the official to turn up, which held up the entire field.
As with Harrington, Pak did not wave the group behind through.
Why couldn’t Harrington have waved to Ernie sitting back on the fairway and called him up, the way club members would do in any monthly medal or club competition? More pertinently, why didn’t the official wave Ernie’s group through, let them play the hole and keep play moving while he dealt with Harrington’s situation?
These are the players who are supposed to be setting the example for the rest of the world to follow. If it isn’t happening at the elite professional level, no wonder it isn’t trickling down to other levels of golf.
Despite repeated promises from governing bodies to do something to speed the game up, the game has just got slower. It’s little wonder that participation levels are down in parts of the world.
Many things need to be done to speed up the game. We need to get back to a culture where four hours is the maximum it should take to play a round of golf. We need to see top players given with one-shot penalties for impersonating snails.
And we need to respect the basic etiquette laid down in the rule book that says slower players should let faster players through.
It’s a simple concept really – all they have to do stand aside.
Posted: 11/18/2008
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