Top Players Living on Borrowed Time

So, that’s just fine Jason, take as long as you like, whilst those you disparagingly refer to as ‘Average Joe’s,’ cough-up their hard-earned cash to pay their TV subscription and ticket prices, buy those US$90 Nike AreoReact (now that sounds quick) Polo Shirts you have taken to wearing and help pay for the top-end sponsored Lexus you drive and the US$8m prize money you earned last year, with the same again earned in appearance fees and sponsors’ bonuses.

Except it’s not OK, Jason, and the rest of the ‘Go-slow brigade,’ the constipated pre-shot procedures of Kevin Na, Ben Crane, Keegan Bradley, Bernhard Langer, even Tiger Woods who could control the pace of an entire tournament through his own pace of play.

Why? Because it’s breaking the Rules of Golf, specifically Rule 6, The Player, 6-7 Undue Delay; Slow Play, which states, “The player must play without undue delay and in accordance with any pace of play guidelines that the committee may establish,” the penalty for breach of Rule 6-7, “Match play – Loss of hole; Stroke play – Two strokes.”

It’s there in black and white, it’s using an unfair advantage, a.k.a. ‘Cheating.’

At the start of last season, the European Tour trumpeted its new, ‘Pace of Play,’ policy, the R&A unveiling a 76-page, ‘Pace of Play,’ manual, which claims to, “Take a holistic approach to pace of play,” to be, “Gender neutral,” complete with, ‘Data Collection Templates,’ and, ‘Pace of Play Spread sheets.’

A vision is emerging of an interlinked network of underground bunkers in St. Andrews, Wentworth, New Jersey, Ponte Vedra Beach, dozens of frustrated boffins algorithm mathematicians and scientific statisticians wearing white coats and furrowed brows, number-crunching and data-processing ‘til their hearts are content, solving one of the mysteries of the universe, slow-play in golf and coming up with a veritable sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut.

The fundamental problems are twofold; first, the enforcing bodies, the professional circuits are owned by and organised for the players, a classic conflict of interests, and, second, with fewer of us playing golf, it’s not a major issue for what Day calls, “The recreational game,” played by us, “Average Joes.”