Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2020 - 40

BACKSPIN
* BY MARK CRAIG *
What We've Been Waiting For
A tip of the chapeau to Bryson DeChambeau for
triggering pace-of-play fines on the PGA Tour.
T
hank you, Bryson DeChambeau.
Thank you for being so slow the PGA Tour finally
had to move fast. Thank you for creating last year's
social media firestorm, forcing rule changes in 2020. This
should extinguish the kind of slow-play culture that allows
a person more than two minutes to strike an 8-foot putt, as
DeChambeau did at the Northern Trust last August. (He then
missed it by a cup-and-a-half to the low side.)
And thank you, Bryson, for being defiant enough of your
slowpoke status that SportsBettingDime (SBD) has put 50to-1
odds on you being hit with a slow-play penalty after the
Tour's beefed-up pace of play policy kicks in at the RBC Heritage
the week after the Masters.
Yes, an individual Tour player hasn't been
penalized for slow play since Glen " All Day "
Day at the 1995 Honda Classic. But 50-to-1
is tempting. Plus, what better way to tolerate
watching a slow player than the chance of
cashing in at 50-to-1 if the dilly-dallier decides
to take more than three minutes to hit a 70yard
chip? DeChambeau did this, too, at last
year's Northern Trust.
The new pace of play policy utilizes an undisclosed
observation list of players who averaged
45 seconds or longer per shot in their
most recent 10 tournaments. They'll be given
60 seconds to hit every shot throughout the next tournament.
If necessary, they'll be timed by a rules official, warned once
for a violation and then penalized one stroke for each ensuing
violation throughout the tournament.
Hallelujah!
And pick it up, J.B. Holmes, Kevin Na, Jason Day, Patrick
Cantlay, et. al. DeChambeau isn't the only enemy of prompt
play, fellas.
The Tour used 14 million shots collected by ShotLink to
land on the 45-second cutoff for the observation naughty list.
According to ShotLink, that's the average time it takes for the
slowest 10 percent of players on the PGA Tour to hit a shot.
The overall average time is 38 seconds, while the average for the
fastest 10 percent of players is 29 seconds.
40
MINNESOTAGOLFER Spring 2020
But that doesn't mean only the slowest 10 percent will be
monitored. The same new rules will kick in for any individuals
in groups that are deemed out of position.
Fines for slow play will also increase. A second violation in
a single season will cost $50,000. Each one after that will be
$20,000.
The new policy also has fines for " Excessive Shot Times. "
Players who take longer than two minutes to play a shot without
having a valid reason for doing so will be warned one time
in a single season. A second violation will cost $10,000, and
each one after that will be $20,000.
Go ahead and call this clause the DeChambeau Decree.
Videos of his two shots at the Northern Trust
went viral, drawing the ire of fans and fellow
Tour players, including Brooks Koepka, the
world's top-ranked player and outspoken adversary
of slow players.
Two-time European Tour winner Eddie Pepperell
was perhaps the most aggressive voice
on Twitter. Ripping DeChambeau, while sympathizing
with playing partners Tommy Fleetwood
and Justin Thomas, Pepperell tweeted:
" Just look at Tommy and Justin, both lookBRYSON
DeCHAMBEAU
ing
completely bored. Slow players do this to
their playing partners, making the game less
enjoyable. Problem is, the unaffected singleminded
twit in this instance, doesn't care much for others. "
LPGA Tour player Christina Kim also chimed in, taking a
creative jab at DeChambeau's well-documented scientific approach
to the game. She tweeted:
" He must have failed to denote the fact that after two minutes
the earth turned on its axis, and thus had an effect on the
gravitational pull on the slope of the putt. Then he pushed it. "
Eight months later, it's time to move on. Let's all tip our
Hogan hats to the man responsible for the tipping point that
brought about change.
Thank you, Bryson DeChambeau.
Mark Craig is the NFL/Vikings columnist and a golf writer for
the Star Tribune.
mngolf.org
http://www.mngolf.org

Minnesota Golfer - Spring 2020

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