ST. SIMONS ISLAND (Ga.) – The pace of play – or lack thereof – was a hot-button topic earlier this season. The PGA Tour, however, has listened to the criticism and made subtle changes in the way that players are penalized when they take too long.
The Tour informed its players on Tuesday of the changes that would be implemented for the 2024 Season. These changes were approved by the Tour Policy Board at their meeting held a day before in Ponte Vedra Beach.
The Tour will replace its “Observation List” which was introduced in 2021, with a focus on changing individual habits of slowest players.
The Tour informed its players that “The Observation list has been very effective and has also been a useful tool for the Rules Committee in working with individuals to improve pace habits.” As we continue to improve the list, it became apparent that there were inequitable differences in the weekly averages of players due to course difficulty and weather. This could artificially distort the 10-tournament average stroke rate of the player, resulting in an unfair assessment.
The PAC subsequently supported the concept that the Observation List should be replaced by the Average Stroke Time infraction as described below.
- Average Stroke (AST) Infraction: At the end of a tournament, a player’s stroke time average is compared to the average field. If a player’s average stroke time is 7.0 seconds above the average field time for a tournament, he will be charged with an AST violation. The season is used to accumulate AST infractions. $20,000 will be applied when you reach the 10 th, $5,000 for each subsequent AST between 11-14 th and $10,000 for every infraction over 15. Players accumulating less than 10 AST infractions but have a ratio of AST infractions/tournaments played of 50 percent or above, will be fined $2,000 per infraction at the end of the season (with a minimum of five tournaments played). AST infractions from the PGA Tour and Korn Ferry Tour will be combined to determine the total number of AST violations in a given season. The fines will be calculated based on how many occurrences there were on each tour.
According to Tour’s updated on the changes to rules and regulations, PAC supported another four small adjustments to its policy in order to keep it “impactful but fairly.”
- Official warnings: The financial penalty for accumulating Official Warnings is removed from your policy.
- Excessive shot times – This policy is being amended to reduce time allowed for players in the second or third position to play, from 120 seconds to only 100 seconds. First to play remains at 120 seconds. This is a fair reduction to the normal timing policy, which gives 50 seconds for first to play followed by 40 seconds after.
- Number of timings: To reflect the return to a calendar-based season, the number of times allowed before a penalty is applied has been reduced from 12 down to 10. This was an annual change to reflect the increase in events during 2022/23 Super-season.
- Timings Financial Excemption Threshold In 2022, in order to acknowledge the differences in playing standards across the membership, a financial exemption threshold was introduced, based on the player’s stroke average over 10 tournaments. The threshold was set to 5 seconds over the Tour Average in order to comply with the warnings policies. A player who accumulates 10 timings within a single season will face a financial penalty.
Davis Love III, a veteran professional, said that slow play problems on Tour have always been the exact same. They try very, very hard. In a board meeting, an old rules official said: “The best we can do is speed up by 15 minutes ,’…but it has to be fair to everyone.”
Jay Monahan, Tim Finchem’s successor as Tour Commissioner after his 22-year tenure, has also been adamant about the rule. John Catlin, the last player to receive a penalty due to slow play in the first round of 2021 PGA Championship – a tournament that is controlled by PGA of America – was assessed a fine.
Rory Sabbatini, a critic of slow-play, once told a reporter that fines for slow-play “don’t have any effect on people speeding up.” A fine for slow-play is not going to be a concern for anyone given that we are playing for money. “Until they introduce penalty strokes or disqualifications, things will not change.”
