Meanwhile, the USGA and the R&A talk a good game, but, whilst insisting that all players are equal under the Rules of golf, some players, e.g. Tiger Woods are more equal than others, such as China's teenage star Guan Tianlang, made an example of with a penalty stroke at the 2013 Masters.
Since, ‘Getting tough on slow play,’ in January 2016, the European Tour must be putting the fear of death into its players; for example, at the 2016 Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, Jordan Spieth, paid a reported US$500,000 just to turn up was issued with a, ‘Monitoring Notice,’ for slow play during the opening round and issues with the threat of a US$3,000 fine for a second offence that week.
That must have truly scared the living daylights out of the former world number-one, once the heir apparent to Tiger Woods.
Professional golf is already shedding TV viewers, some 20% since the halcyon days of Woods at his imperious best and its audience is aging as the Millennials sponsors are so keen to, ‘Join the conversation,’ prefer short, fast clips on YouTube or movies on Netflix.
And golf, as a sports entertainment is in a hotly-contested environment, in direct opposition to high-octane sports such as Mixed Marshall Arts (MMA) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and that stalwart of the US media, Basketball.
Just imagine if LeBron James were to say something like, “I know the rules state that I’ve got 30-seconds to shoot the hoop, but, you know, if it takes longer to make sure I score a basket and be my best, I’ll take as long as I want.”
But, in golf, there is only one thing slower than the likes of Jason Day, and that’s the dawdling procrastination of officialdom in getting to grips with the issue, a two-stroke penalty as per the rules.
Otherwise, the professional game is going to grind to a halt, literally and figuratively, which is why multi-millionaire players like Jason Day just don’t get it and are, as a result, living on borrowed time.
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