Golf World - February 18, 2013

VOICES

B Y RYAN HERRINGTON

Iwas talking on the phone with a staffer at a regional golf association last fall. We had some business to discuss, but he put it on hold to first tell me about the men’s college tournament he had worked the previous weekend as a rules official. He’s a thirtysomething who played college golf himself but hadn’t been to an event in several years. With bewilderment he described what he witnessed: Despite good weather and a friendly course setup, competitors took more than 5½ hours to play 18 holes. For more than 5½ minutes, he spoke with exasperation until finally, exhausted, he paused and asked a simple question.

“Does this happen all the time?”
Sadly, it does. And at every level of competitive golf that
I’ve covered—colleges, pros, juniors, men and women alike.
Pace of play is a scourge that has, regrettably, developed a
universal following.

It’s why I was happy when USGA president Glen Nager declared at the association’s annual meeting that the governing body was stepping up its efforts to deal with the issue. Likewise, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem announced last month his organization would be launching a year-long review of the subject. Granted, I’d have preferred to have heard both men articulating definitive steps rather than merely outlining additional studies in the works, but I’m hopeful they won’t slow-play us regarding their findings.

With the problem reaching a new threshold in golf’s social conscience, I return to the collegiate game because, frankly, I believe college coaches should start getting nervous. At some point, with all this investigating going on, the game’s collective eyes are going to begin to stare at them and wonder what the

Back to school COACHES AND PLAYERS AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL NEED TO PICK UP THE PACE IN ADDRESSING SLOW PLAY

heck they are actually doing with their players anyway.

To ascribe pro golf’s slow-play dilemma— much less the recreational game’s—on the short-pants set is assigning them too much blame. Still, it doesn’t excuse their culpability. Particularly when you consider the efforts of various junior organizations to lay a foundation for speedy play. Much has been made, and rightfully so, of the AJGA taking overt steps to improve pace of play at its events. The average round for threesomes at all AJGA tournaments in 2011 was 4: 21, down 10 minutes from the previous year. In 2012 it was 4: 23.

Somewhere along the way these good habits are being forgotten or, worse, ignored. There are too many anecdotal stories about never-ending rounds and too few about how quick things are.

There are causes that explain the effects. A lack
of officials enforcing pace of play at regular-
season events prevents any sense of urgency in
competitors’ minds. Without the long arm of the
law present, time ticks away unfettered. Of
course, aren’t we playing a game where we police ourselves?

More problematic is the frequent interaction between coaches and players during a round, the dialogue especially around the greens often bringing things to a crawl. Coaches understandly argue that they’re doing their job, just like their colleagues in football and basketball who work with players throughout their games. Would you ask Nick Saban to stop coaching on the sidelines?

The harm, though, is that the advice is undercutting the notion of self-reliance, something that is trying to be nurtured at the junior level and will be needed when players graduate to the pro game.

Certainly, there are some coaches looking to change the culture. Three years ago Matt Thurmond at Washington developed an “Under Four” campaign and succeeded in getting it adopted at a handful of tournaments. But Thurmond has a program to run in Seattle, not a movement to fuel around the country. This needs to be a collective endeavor.

I’ve asked college coaches about what can be done, and my favorite response came a few years back from Rick LaRose, now retired from overseeing Arizona’s program. His solution? Have a basketball-style shot clock on every hole that would time each player between shots. When the clock hits zero, the entire course would know if somebody wasn’t keeping up.