IF (a big if) the Tour were to ever enforce a shot clock, I am undecided on whether or not scoring would go lower or suffer a bit. I know in some cases the player who walks 50 yards to the green and back to see the contours is probably in a better position. There also might be other instances when just having to pick a club and commit would probably help scoring. Overall I figure scoring might be a touch worse, but not nearly as much as to make players and the game suffer.
Thoughts?
IF (a big if) the Tour were to ever enforce a shot clock, I am undecided on whether or not scoring would go lower or suffer a bit. I know in some cases the player who walks 50 yards to the green and back to see the contours is probably in a better position. There also might be other instances when just having to pick a club and commit would probably help scoring. Overall I figure scoring might be a touch worse, but not nearly as much as to make players and the game suffer.
Thoughts?
And when the pros whine about it all, throw them a bone and legalize range finders. LIV guys have them.
IF (a big if) the Tour were to ever enforce a shot clock, I am undecided on whether or not scoring would go lower or suffer a bit. I know in some cases the player who walks 50 yards to the green and back to see the contours is probably in a better position. There also might be other instances when just having to pick a club and commit would probably help scoring. Overall I figure scoring might be a touch worse, but not nearly as much as to make players and the game suffer.
Thoughts?
And when the pros whine about it all, throw them a bone and legalize range finders. LIV guys have them.
IF (a big if) the Tour were to ever enforce a shot clock, I am undecided on whether or not scoring would go lower or suffer a bit. I know in some cases the player who walks 50 yards to the green and back to see the contours is probably in a better position. There also might be other instances when just having to pick a club and commit would probably help scoring. Overall I figure scoring might be a touch worse, but not nearly as much as to make players and the game suffer.
Thoughts?
Because the “LIV guys have them” is the logic behind letting PGA Tour players use rangefinders? Why not allow a modicum of human error to remain in the calculation?
My response would be does it matter?
IF (a big if) the Tour were to ever enforce a shot clock, I am undecided on whether or not scoring would go lower or suffer a bit. I know in some cases the player who walks 50 yards to the green and back to see the contours is probably in a better position. There also might be other instances when just having to pick a club and commit would probably help scoring. Overall I figure scoring might be a touch worse, but not nearly as much as to make players and the game suffer.
Thoughts?
Snails might suffer.
The rest might play better.
At the moment they are all forced to be snails.
Let's let the snails be uncomfortable for a change.....
You would think that the players would self police the issue. Make the slow guys feel uncomfortable. Get in their face a little. Only way things will change.
How can two guys play in 5 hours? Almost seems impossible to me.
Imagine if an MLB pitcher took 60+ seconds for each pitch.Pitchers many not have taken 60 second for every pitch, but it was not uncommon for the time between two pitches during the same at bat to take longer than 60 seconds. Here's an interesting video showing the how different 110 seconds can look with the pitch clock and without. (https://youtu.be/FqOJSwBjH6k) In one instance half an inning of baseball is played, in the other one pitch is thrown.
These things DO NOT happen because executing in a defined time period is PART of the sport and players have adapted to adhere to simple rules.
You would think that the players would self police the issue. Make the slow guys feel uncomfortable. Get in their face a little. Only way things will change.
How can two guys play in 5 hours? Almost seems impossible to me.
Competitive golf is hard.
Confronting others when trying to compete at the highest level would be a game wrecking distraction for most.
Heck, half the people on this board are defending slow play (on tour/TV) so it would be an uphill battle while IN battle, especially is they aren't violating any current pace of play rules.(which are pretty hard to actually break enough to be penalized)
Handling pace, and "out of position" also requires real experience and judgement-for example, I arrived at the second tee yesterday in an event to three groups on the tee(driveable par 4-I laid up to shorten the wait :) ) then we spent the rest of the next 4 holes trying to catch up, only to wait 10 minutes on the 6th tee, a long par 3.(so the minute we hit our tee shot on #2, we were "behind pace" and (almost) out of position.
The waits on those two tees is time we will never get back, yet goes into the total time, so total time can be tricky too, and that can be compounded by a player who used his full allotment of time EVERY shot, walks slow and/or is playing poorly(more shots, lost balls/rulings)
Then all of a sudden you're running to catch up, and he............isn't, but is merely playing in the prescribed time.
Sure that puts your group on the clock if you're behind time AND out of position, but frankly doesn't really help a whole lot as some players simply play worse on the clock, and play even worse, which takes more time, even if adhering to times.
As it turns out, we never waited again as the early delays really spread the groups out, and with three fast players(minimal processes) in our group and the group ahead moving nicely, we were able to make up the time lost on those two holes very comfortably and finish ahead of time pace, as did the rest of the field(which to be fair was only 60 players or so off one tee).
IF (a big if) the Tour were to ever enforce a shot clock, I am undecided on whether or not scoring would go lower or suffer a bit. I know in some cases the player who walks 50 yards to the green and back to see the contours is probably in a better position. There also might be other instances when just having to pick a club and commit would probably help scoring. Overall I figure scoring might be a touch worse, but not nearly as much as to make players and the game suffer.
Thoughts?
A shot clock, in the same respect as the shot clock in the NBA or the play clock in football would not be appropriate for the PGA tour.
Shots in golf are not congruent in the amount of time they take, so if you were to average the amount of time for play and make that the shot clock time a noticeable number of all shots would naturally take more time than the average.
For example, lets say a player is facing a difficult 15' putt for birdie late on Sunday that could give them a share of the lead. If the shot clock is 40 seconds, we would anticipate that if they make the putt the shot would take less than 40 seconds, if they miss the putt and tap in, the pair of shots would take less than 80 seconds.
If the player takes 60 seconds to properly read the putt and hole it for birdie, they were 20 seconds over the shot clock, but 20 seconds under the expected 2 putt par. In this case, wouldn't taking the addition 20 seconds to hole the first putt actually speed up play? If he happen to miss the first putt, walks up and taps in the par putt in less than 20 seconds, keeping the whole sequence to under 80 seconds, wouldn't he still be on time, even though he violated the shot clock in the first shot?
(https://golf.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/ShotlinkHowLong-1024x571.jpg)
This chart was created based on data through the 2019 season, while a few years old it's probably still fairly accurate. Presumably you could create an expected total play time based upon these numbers for any given course and develop a total expected play time limit for the field. Rather than apply the time as a single per shot clock, apply it like a chess clock.
At the start of a round, each player could be given X minutes to play, Once its there turn to play for a given shot during the round the clock starts and it stops again once the ball is struck. If a group arrives on the tee of a hole and the fairway is not clear, the clock would not start for any player. It would only be active if the next shot is clear for play. This could be potentially managed by the walking scorer of the group and always be available to the player to be known.
Using a chess clock type timing systems would allow a player to take more time when they feel is necessary on particular shots, allowing them to make up time on simpler shots. Tap in putts and holes where the drive is straightforward, for example. It doesn't disrupt a players overall playing process, but encourages them to speed up their process on the whole.
If the clock strikes zero and the player is still on the course, they could be penalized accordingly. Potentially something like 1 shot will be added to the score of each remaining hole yet to be completed. So if the player runs out of time on the 16th fairway, a 1 shot penalty would be assessed to the 16th, 17th, and 18th holes.
Using the tour average above and current tour average statistics, for a common par 72 I'd estimate the expected time to play would be ~47 minutes. For the Slowest 10% player, their expected time to play would be ~58 minutes. Which would put them more than 3 holes behind the pace of the average player. Getting a 4 shot penalty each round for playing slow would quickly force those players to pick up the pace, or risk missing the cut every week of the year, bouncing them out of the tour at the end of the season.
Add Scheffler to the turtle brigade. ::) Dead to me and virtually unwatchable.