The PGA Tour’s attempt to rein in pace of play will ramp up this week at the RBC Heritage, where they will begin testing the use of distance-measuring devices to speed up play.
The week’s Signature Event at Harbour Town Golf Links kicks off a six-month testing period that the PGA Tour announced during last month’s Players Championship.
World No. 1 Scottie Scheffler admits he “forgot” the Tour was implementing rangefinders this week. He plans to leave the rangefinder plan up to his caddie Ted Scott, but doesn’t believe this will be what gets guys moving on Tour.
“Is it going to help pace of play? Maybe a few minutes,” Scheffer said on Tuesday at Harbour Town. “Will it be anything significant? No. This tournament, what affects the pace of play is walking the golf course. I think we’re playing twosomes all week, so it will go from a five-hour round to maybe four hours or less. When you see the biggest changes in pace of play, it all comes from going from three guys to two guys in a pairing. It’s just easier to get around the golf course.”
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Players will be able to use the distance-measuring devices only for yardage. All other features — like course mapping and club selection — must be disabled. The penalty for breaching these rules is severe. The first infraction will cost the player two strokes, while the second will result in a disqualification.
Scheffler doesn’t have a strong opinion on using rangefinders, but did note that it could work against players whose caddies normally have an advantage when it comes to getting yardages from abnormal spots when shots go offline.
The pace of play issue on the PGA Tour was put under the microscope early this season when the final round at the Farmers Insurance Open took close to six hours to complete. CBS’ on-course reporter Dottie Pepper called out players for their lack of respect for their fellow competitors, fans, and the broadcast. During the Masters last week, chairman Fred Ridley took time out of his press conference to address golf’s pace issue, including suggesting the club will start monitoring it at the Drive, Chip and Putt contest.
The use of rangefinders is one of three suggestions given by a player-formed committee to help improve pace-of-play. They also suggested changing the penalty structure, with several top players, including Collin Morikawa, asking for the biggest offenders to be docked on their scorecard for infractions. Under this new policy, players will receive a one-stroke penalty for their first bad time instead of getting a warning. The Tour will also release slow-play data and statistics to get players moving.
While the game’s top players have offered varying solutions to the pace-of-play plague, Scheffler, like Rory McIlroy, believes the best way to address the problem is to switch from playing in threesomes to twosomes, which would require going to smaller fields in most tournaments.
But to Scheffler, golf’s time problem isn’t the issue he’s focused on.
“The pace of play debate is funny. I think people want to watch exciting golf,” Scheffler said. “I think that’s what it’s all about. Let’s say if we do all these changes, and we save 20 minutes off of a round of golf. Is somebody going to sit down on the couch on Sunday and go, well, I didn’t have five hours to watch a round of golf, but I’ve got four hours and 40 minutes. Now I’m in.
“I think, if we’re going to spend a lot of time and energy, I think where I would want to spend it is to get more people involved in the game of golf, more people able to come and play. It’s a great game. It’s a great sport. You learn a lot of life lessons playing golf. What’s most important for me as a player, where I want to spend the most time and energy specifically in the game of golf is getting people involved. I’ve met some of my best friends in the whole world playing the game of golf. It’s a really special game that I think more people should want to play.”
The PGA Tour’s rangefinder trial period will last from the RBC Heritage through the Truist Championship and OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic. The Korn Ferry Tour will also test them during three straight events during this period.
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