Brutal pace of play at PGA Championship isn’t only on the players

Among several “Official Notices” taped to the wall outside the players’ locker room at Aronomink this week is a pace-of-play chart, which looks pretty much like the pace-of-play charts you’ll find at any other tour stop.

The table lists the allotted time each group of three (or two) golfers has to play each hole — i.e., 16 minutes to play the par-4 1st as a group of three; 13 minutes to play the par-3 5th; 19 minutes to play the par-5 16th, etc. Below those figures, the table lists a total accrued time. Groups of three going off the 1st tee are expected to play the first nine holes in no more than 2 hours and 21 minutes and 18 holes in no more than 4 hours and 44 minutes. A second set of times are also provided for groups going off the 10th tee, as Justin Thomas, Keegan Bradley and Cameron Young did at 8:29 a.m. Friday.

As happens in major championships, the pace has been slow this week — really slow. Fifteen-minute waits on tee boxes. Three groups simultaneously on the same hole. Players seated on the ground, their backs pressed against tee-box signage, as they wait out delays. Not helping matters was the glacial pace at which one of the first groups out reportedly played: 5 hours and 40 minutes. You can fly from Los Angeles to New York in that time.

The causes were many: gusting winds, blazing greens, exacting pins that Scottie Scheffler called “absurd.” The weight and stress of what is at stake. A two-tee start. And, of course, the manner by which many of the world’s finest golfers go about their business: deliberately. If the second round was a wheel, it desperately needed oil.

Policing all of this sluggishness isn’t easy, but tournament officials do try. As those rules by the locker room state, a group is deemed “out of position” if…

…it has completed play of a hole (meaning that the ball of the last player in the group to hole out has been removed from the hole) having exceeded the maximum allowable time for the number of holes played (see attached chart) and:

a. Reaches a par-3 hole that is clear of play and all players in the group in front of them have played their strokes from the teeing area of the next hole. b. Reaches a par-4 or par-5 hole that is clear of play before all players in the group have played their strokes from the teeing area.

Which brings us back to Thomas, Bradley and Young.

On the 4th hole — their 13th of the day — PGA Tour rules official Ken Tackett motored up to them in a cart and issued an official pace warning, which meant they were “on the clock” for the duration of the round. (In general terms, after players have been clocked, a first “bad time” results in a warning; a second bad time earns a one-shot penalty; a third bad time results in a two-stroke penalty; and a fourth bad time is no good at all. Disqualification.)  

Thing is, Thomas and Bradley didn’t think they deserved the wrist slap. As Tackett convened with the golfers, they pushed back, resulting in a brief verbal squabble that was captured by ESPN cameras.

“We just didn’t really agree with it,” Thomas said after his round. “It’s hard because it’s kind of the whole time-par thing. What is time par? How can time par on this course be the same when it’s blowing 25 and the pins are tough than if it’s not? And does time par change every day? There’s just so many factors that go into it.”

Thomas did not dispute that his group was behind but contended that because they weren’t holding up the group behind theirs, the committee should have granted them some grace.  

“The hard part to me with the whole pace-of-play thing,” Thomas continued, “is that there’s so much that goes into golf and there’s so much that goes into hole to hole in terms of, are you hitting it close, are you able to tap it in, or [do] you have to mark it, stuff like that, to where, are you holding the group up or are you not, it’s very hard to make that call.”

Still, the warning did seem to achieve its purpose. Thomas said his group caught up to the group ahead of theirs just a hole later.

Thomas, who birdied the 4th hole, parred the 5th and birdied the 6th on his way to one-under 69, said he refused to let the warning rattle him, noting that on his first shot after being clocked, he backed out of his address. “The last thing I’m going to do is make a mistake because I feel like I’m rushing,” he said. “Just kind of went about my business and just was ready to play when it was my turn like I feel like I do normally.”

Thomas’s point about the uber-difficult course affecting pace was echoed by at least one other player, world No. 10 Chris Gotterup.

“I don’t think it’s unfair by any stretch of the imagination,” Gotterup said of the setup. “But you’re not going to get any four-and-a-half hour rounds out here.”

On Friday, even five hours was asking a lot.