There was plenty of chatter when the PGA Tour announced it would reduce rather than raise the fines for some of its slow-play penalties as part of sweeping changes coming to the PGA Tour that were officially approved on Monday.
These include reducing the fine structure of ‘Bad Times’ from $50,000 to $10,000, in addition to reducing ‘Excessive Shot Times’ fines from $10,000 to $5,000.
In addition, players will no longer be subject to fines solely as a result of ‘Timings,’ ‘Bad Times’ and ‘Excessive Shot Times’ during the majors, with an amendment to the definition of ‘Out Of Position’ to recognize that, if a group is on a par-3 and the group in front is still on the tee of the next hole, they are in good position.
The memo to players made clear that the Rules Committee “continues to evaluate the Pace of Play data,” which has “accurately identified the slowest players following the creation of the new Average Stroke Time (AST) policy.
Unlike the previously mentioned reductions, the fine for ten ASTs jumped from $20,000 to $50,000.
The committee also concluded more needs to be done to provide the slowest players with an “immediate incentive” to play more quickly. As a result, they are instituting the introduction of an ‘Excessive Average Time Stroke Time.’ At the conclusion of a tournament, if a player has an Average Stroke Time of 12 seconds or more above the field average and played in all four rounds, they will be hit with an Excessive Average Stroke Time penalty.
The first two sanctions will not be accompanied by a fine, but the third will punished to the tune of $50,000 followed by $10,000 per subsequent offence.
At first blush, these policy changes felt like a slap on the wrist when even No. 125 on the season-long money list is banking seven figures. The fines most certainly haven’t kept up with purse inflation. But Gary Young, the Tour’s senior vice president of rules and competition, breaks it down and gives his version of why the new rules actually give the Tour’s officials more latitude to identify the slowest players and fine them if they don’t change their routine and take pace of play seriously.
Young dishes on the Tour’s version of a shot clock, the multiplier effect for fines, a possible slow-play sub-committee and the potential for public shaming in this very informative look at the changes coming to pace-of-play rules changes on the Tour. (Spoiler alert: still not going to be giving out strokes.)