Pace of play has become a major talking point over the last few years across all of professional golf. Everywhere you look, whether it be the PGA Tour, LPGA Tour or LIV Golf, players are talking about slow play more and more.
Now, the LPGA Tour is ramping up its efforts to regulate it. The women’s tour is cracking down on pace of play violations even more than before, with fines being handed down after a player plays 40 timed holes during a season, per Beth Ann Nichols of GolfWeek.
“Looking at the data, we concluded that if a player had 40 or more holes timed over the season, that player contributed to a slower pace of play,” LPGA Player President Vicki Goetze-Ackerman said in a statement, per Nichols. “We believe that this addition to the policy, along with penalty strokes being issued for plus times of +6 or greater, will increase the number of players who heed the initial warnings, leading to fewer players out of position and therefore timings.”
The revision of the policy and the addition of fines at the end of the season comes on the heels of a new pace of play policy that the LPGA put into play in February, increasing the penalties for clock violations during a tournament.
Under that policy, a player will be fined for going 1-to-5 seconds over the allotted time. A one-stroke penalty will be enforced for going 6-to-15 seconds over the clock and a two-stroke penalty will be given for any violations more egregious than that.
The season-long tracking of timed holes will begin on March 27 at the Ford Championship, where World No. 1 Nelly Korda is the defending champion.
The news comes on the heels of the heated debate spilling onto the men’s tour between players.
Lucas Glover has been extremely vocal about the pace of play issue, even calling for Aim Point putting to be banned. That prompted Collin Morikawa to fire back at the 45-year-old pro.
Even golf influencer Paige Spiranac chimed in, jumping on Glover’s bandwagon.
Golf fans’ and sports fans in general have a shorter attention span. So it would behoove the governing bodies and organizations of the sport to attempt to rectify this issue. It seems like LPGA is taking the lead on that charge.
The PGA Tour should probably take that into consideration.
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