– Round long running shot clock of 80*40 seconds = 53 minutes. This is the total amount of time you have from when it is your time to play and you are at the ball for the entire 18 holes. It is a 1 shot penalty for every 1 minute in excess of this time limit. This way, you can slow down and take extra time if you have a weird situation, provided that you are playing quickly from the tee box, fairway etcetera. The pace of play from these guys is just so bad. I had an outburst watching Cantlay take 4 minutes to hit a routine short iron from the middle of the fairway at the TC-- enough is enough.
– No more free relief from grandstands! You can see the grandstand from where you hit your approach or drive— it is not as if you hit your shot and then it magically appears so that you had no way of avoiding it. Players should either have to play the ball as it lies, or take an unplayable lie. It has gotten to the point where on some par 5s that have a wrap-around grandstand, guys will just club up and intentionally fire a fairway wood into the grandstand wall.
2 Likes
A beaten horse at this point but - relief from divots in the fairway
Also yeah the grandstand situation can get insane - 13 at the Dell Matchplay comes to mind as a hole that players abuse the grandstand rules at.
1 Like
I would have a few more proposed rule changes (that will never get implemented)
Mark grandstands as OB. Instant drama on every 18th hole!
No relief from divots and no more lift clean and cheat. Love seeing players deal with bad lies and mudballs!
For several holes, mark the gallery ropes with white ropes and if it goes beyond the gallery ropes it is OB. That reduces the time used to search for golf balls
No relief from cart paths
No free relief from immovable obstructions, just take an unplayable
The pros get enough freebies as is. It’s not a good sign when Happy GIlmore rules make a lot more sense than the actual golf rules
I don’t know if this is a rule change or not, but allow for half-par increments, so that a tournament can set a hole up as a 3.5 or 4.5 and call it that. This would allow the viewing public to have a more accurate picture of where the tournament stands when the leaders tee off on Sunday, and would perhaps encourage more exciting setups (I personally like half par holes that cleave the field in two the most, others may disagree).
Slow play. Just looping back here after watching Patrick Cantlay and Tommy Kim yesterday. Those two guys took about 10 years to hit every shot and I literally could not stand to watch it. Love Tommy and I know he could thrive in a fast play setting, so I am not criticizing him. Patrick I am not so sure about.
1 Like
I think par is fine, it’s good enough for its purpose. I mean if you really want to get into the nitty gritty the only thing that really matters is the live betting odds LOL.
As for the setups well I’ve made many many arguments about setup but at the end of the day the people in control opt for less entertaining setups that result in predictable leaderboards and low scores. That’s just how thing are and I don’t see that changing.
I think everyone in the morning wave from yesterday should be fined 10-50k for playing so slow. A little bit of wind and these guys think it is ok to get around in 6 hours?? Come on!
Yeah they can definitely do a better job enforcing slow play
It makes for bad TV
At the end of the day, pro golf is an entertainment product
New proposal: Everyone in the field gets fined 100k if all the rounds are not completed before it gets dark out (due to nothing but slow play)
This creates the social pressure between players to speed up.
2 Likes
You should make the rules for the PGA Tour