Stop This Clinical Study Now And Save Critical Time! The Promising Shot Clock Masters Early Results

We’ve all heard of those drug studies proving so effective that clinical trials are stopped midway and the most dire cases are allowed to receive the new, revolutionary remedy. 

Pro golf has been on a slow play sick bed for too long.  But after just one round of the Austrian Open/aka Shot Clock Masters, the results speak volumes: as much as 55 minutes faster than the typical European Tour three-ball, rounds 19 minutes faster than the allotted time and no apparent decline in the quality of play. 

The European Tour employed 24 rules officials—the biggest logistical impediment to making shot clocks permanent—who did not hand out a single violation in round one.

Players, as Dylan Dethier notes for Golf.com, are giving positive reviews both on-site or via social media. 

Best of all, while watching there appears to be no sense of gimmickry or a compromise in quality. Just a better flow and a reminder of faster days. 

Video: Why We Can Scratch Keegan Bradley Off The List Of Future Shot Clock Masters Appearances

As they whizzed around the Austrian Open (AKA Shot Clock Masters) first round, we get this video posted last week from Pete Pappas.

Keegan Bradley is on the 17th tee at the 2018 Memorial. There are children watching live under par, when in reality, he takes 41.3 seconds to pull the trigger. Or, 41.3 seconds that we know of. The video starts as he's into his pre-shot routine. 

Keegan Bradley’s pre-shot routine in all its waggle, step-away, start-again, twitch, step-away, start-again, twitch, adjust-my-glove, I’m-here-all-day glory. #keeganbradley #slowplay #golfhumor #thememorial #muirfieldvillage #pgatour #instagolf #muirfield #golf #golfers #thememorial #golfing #golfshot #golfswing #golfaddict #golfaddicts #lovegolf #golfpro #teetime #golflife #golfislife #pgapappas #golfstagram #golfirons #golfclubs #golfdriver #golfequipment #golfball #golfcourse #golfswagger

A post shared by Pete Pappas (@pgapappas) on Jun 5, 2018 at 7:24pm PDT

Time Is Of The Essence: Shot Clock Masters Preview And Primer

The European Tour's Austrian Open is the "shot clock Masters" and it could not come at a better time for golf, as players bog down for reasons both legit (backups due to reachable par-5s) and not so legit (they take forever and don't play ready golf). 

Here are the five things you must know about this event according to the European Tour.

Essentially you need to know this: 50 seconds to hit a shot, 40 if you are the second or third in a group to play. You have two timeouts to call in case you need extra time.  Otherwise, penalty strokes will be flying.

MorningRead.com's Adam Schupak talked to Keith Pelley about the origin of this idea and to some players who are for the Slow Play Masters, and some against it.

So, Pelley canvassed his players with a simple two-question survey. First question: Do you think slow play is a problem on the European Tour?

"If you answered ‘no,’ the survey was over," Pelley said. "But if you answered ‘yes,’ you got one more question."

Do you want the European Tour to act seriously on curbing this challenge?

Within two days, 70 percent of the membership had responded in favor of taking action.

"We need to try and modernize our game," Pelley said. "The millennials have an attention span of 12 seconds. The Gen Z have an attention span of eight seconds. We're living in a society that is completely different, and I think every game and every sport and every business is looking to modernize themselves, and if you don't, then you run the risk of falling behind."

Matt Adams and I discussed on this week's Alternate Shot:

Slow Play Stat Reminder: So Much Time Waiting And Walking, So Little Time Hitting Shots

Rex Hoggard takes the much-talked about Patrick Cantlay display from the 2018 Memorial for a state-of-slow-play piece.

As painful as Cantlay's 13 looks at the green appeared to be, it's still a fraction of the time spent walking to back tees and waiting for all of the par-5 greens to clear. Hmmm...what do those things have in common? 

Even the Tour’s own statistics prove this point. The circuit average for a player to hit a shot is 38 seconds, although that number varies for specific shots (42 seconds to hit a tee shot, 32 seconds for a putt). Based on that information and on Sunday’s scoring average at the Memorial (71.2), the total amount of time in which a player is actually executing shots during a round is about 45 minutes.

Slow Play Files: Cantlay’s Pace Earns Rav(ing) Reviews

Golf.com's Josh Berhow does a nice job rounding up the social outrage from Saturday's 2018 Memorial, when Patrick Cantlay took as much as 40 seconds over the ball, not including the pre-shot prep time. 

The PGA Tour resists penalties or doing anything to speed up play, but the fans are pretty clear: this is not acceptable.

CANTLAY w/ 13 looks at the pin at address.

no wonder the shot had bad luck. pic.twitter.com/TYSN41nCBF

— Matthew Wiley (@wiley77) June 3, 2018

Everett Pulls NCAA Upset, Team Match Play Draw Not Full Of Many Surprises

The 152nd ranked player who'd never won a college event birdied the first hole of sudden death to win the NCAA men's individual golf title. Broc Everett of Augusta's upset win over Auburn's Brandon Manchedo comes in contrast to the final 8 teams headed to match play, where Duke's fine play surprised.

Kevin Casey of Golfweek on Everett's improbable win. He's a senior playing in his last event and picked a nice time to finally win. 

As Ryan Lavner notes for GolfChannel.com, the win is also a huge boost to Augusta, a program that has fallen on hard times since it's glory days the last time the NCAA's were at Karsten Creek.

Everett broke down the day on Golf Central:

Team Match Play begins with quarterfinal action on Golf Channel from 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m. ET, followed by semi-finals from 4-8 pm ET.

Team Match Play Quarterfinal Matchups:

Oklahoma State vs. Texas A&M
Duke vs. Texas
Texas Tech vs. Alabama
Oklahoma vs. Auburn

Texas made the most valiant effort to get to match play and with two seniors making clutch birdies on the last hole--both Walker Cuppers--they should prove formidable, writes Golfweek's Brentley Romine.

The Golfweek boys have very different views on who will win the match play portion.

Lavner isn't happy that this year's first and second ranked teams are playing in the quarters (OSU v. A&M), arguing in a GolfChannel.com column that once again the national rankings and season-long efforts count for nothing in match play.  

If you were wondering why play seemed slight faster than last week's women's championship--key word seemed--turns out they handed out some slow play penalties in this year's event. Though players in some cases were never warned and as Lance Ringler writes for Golfweek, the NCAA Championship time par system differs from regular season policies.

One thought for the next coaches meeting: using a coach as a rangefinder target for a par-5 layup shot on national TV isn't the best look. Especially on a playoff hole taking 30 minutes to play:

"Tyrrell Hatton reveals rules official left him "raging" over Mickelson incident"

Tyrell Hatton joins Andrew Coltart and Josh Antmann on the Sky Sports podcast and expresses his displeasure at perceived preferential slow play treatment for Phil Mickelson (thanks reader SE for sending).

Michael McEwan summarizes the beef Hatton had with an official for putting everyone in the WGC Mexico City final round grouping but eventual winner Phil Mickelson.

A rules official approached Mickelson, Hatton and the third member of their three-ball, Shubhankar Sharma, after they had hit their tee shots at the 15th hole. Hatton and Sharma were informed by the official that they were on the clock – but Mickelson was not.

Hatton explained: “Sharma wasn’t that slow, to be honest. He was fine. But I feel like Phil was taking quite a lot of time on certain things. We’d had a warning earlier on in the round to speed up and we kind of did but not massively.

“I’d just birdied 14 to tie with Phil and, you know, you’ve got four holes to go and it’s kind of crunch time. We had all hit good tee shots up 15 when one of the officials charged over and said, ‘Phil, you’re exempt but Tyrrell and Sharma, I’m going to start timing you.’

“Phil goes, ‘Oh, he obviously likes me’. I was raging.

Na Pushes Back At Heckling Cricketer, Tells A Magnificent Lie To Bolster His Case

The embarrassingly slow Kevin Na, who should be put on the clock daily, given penalty shots regularly and run off of the PGA Tour until he makes an effort to speed up, scored a few points in countering cricketer Kevin Pietersen's heckling. Yes, the "tap-in" was three feet on a Sunday where big money was at stake.

But in this Instagram post, screen captured just in case he decides to edit out the hilarious lie, suggests that Na's group was "on pace all day" and "waited, if anything," and therefore his antics were unfairly criticized.

Naturally, as someone who was at the Genesis Open, I and approximately 30,000 witnesses can attest to the Na group falling a hole behind by the 7th tee only to briefly catch up thanks to a 10th tee back up. They again fell behind by the time I saw them again at the 14th tee, if not earlier. 

Ogilvy: "The things taking the fun out of golf"

Geoff Ogilvy covers most of the things you'd expect someone of his character and wisdom to not care for in the modern game. Still, he offers his usual honesty and strong takes that makes this piece for Golf Australia worth your time.

On slow play, he describes something I once again saw multiple times at last week's Genesis Open, including from one player when his group was a par-5 behind the next group.

Penalty strokes would, of course, fix this...

If you do all the little things between shots quickly, you can almost take as long as you want over a shot and not fall behind.

On Tour, the most frustrating aspect of slow play is being ready to hit, then looking over to see the guy with the honour just about to start his pre-shot routine. In other words, he has been doing something else entirely at a time when he should have been working out his yardage and figuring what club he needs to use. It is just so thoughtless and selfish. And it drives me nuts.

I get that some players can have trouble taking the club away from the ball – Kevin Na, Sergio Garcia and Ben Crane spring to mind. And I have sympathy with such a problem. But still. It is relatively easy to get to that point quickly – even if you then struggle to start the backswing.

Na, We Don't Have A Problem: Retired Cricketer Mocks PGA Tour Slow Play

H/T to Alex Myers for spotting the latest gem for the slow play files: a cricketer mocking last weekend's Genesis Open slow play and in particular, prime culprit Kevin Na. As we know, the PGA Tour embraces slow play and seems to think that as every other sport on the planet tries to speed up, apparently this kind of nonsense will fly.

Retired English cricketeer Kevin Pietersen is my kind of guy, he’s trying to save the rhinos and he’s openly mocking Kevin Na taking over a minute to hit a tap in putt last week at Riviera. Do I need to point out that it’s not a good look for golf when athletes in other sports are openly mocking golfers for taking too long? Or, in the case of the former cricketeer with 3.6 million followers, filming a follow up how-to video?

SERIOUSLY, Kevin Na?!?!

That Is A Tap In, MATE! pic.twitter.com/YMmNT6m5H7

— Kevin Pietersen (@KP24) February 18, 2018

And his follow-up how-to for Na:

Hey, Kevin Na - THIS IS HOW LONG A TAP IN SHOULD TAKE! 😂😂

Helluva setting here at @TrumpGolfDubai! pic.twitter.com/YvL2yqmxrp

— Kevin Pietersen (@KP24) February 21, 2018

PGA Tour Going Against The (Sports) Grain On Pace Of Play

The European Tour introduces a shot clock tournament this year in response to a growing sense the pro game takes too long. And while we have not seen the slow play "personal war" predicted by Chief Executive Keith Pelley when he took the job in 2015, the European Tour continues to suggest that it sees where the world is headed: toward shorter, tighter windows for sporting events.

Major League Baseball is working desperately to shorten games. Bold proposals will be floated at the upcoming owners meetings, even to the point of experimenting with radical plans for extra innings. This comes after the first wave of pace initiatives did not go far enough.

The NBA has already limited timeouts at the end of games and cut TV timeouts. The end of a game moves better.

The NFL attempted to address fan concerns about their long games but only made a half-hearted attempt at picking up the pace. At least they tried.

Even professional tennis is experimenting with a much faster product for the "NextGen".

The PGA Tour avoids enforcing its pace of play rules and, as we saw at Sunday's 6-hour Farmers Insurance Open that was tainted by J.B. Holmes, this is a tour rallying around a player who openly defied (paying) fans, his playing partners and common sense. He knew he could not be penalized so why rush?

We could blame the PGA Tour's slow-play apathy to now-retired Commissioner Tim Finchem's disdain for penalty strokes and his obsession with vanity optics (such as players taking off their caps to shake hands). Those concerns of the Commissioner's office about a player's brand taking hit made enforcement impossible for the tour's referees, who also face pressures in moving fields around from faster greens and distance-driven log-jams on half-par holes.

There was hope new Commissioner Jay Monahan would follow the progressive lead of colleagues like Adam Silver (NBA) or Rob Manfred (MLB) and realize that younger fans are far more interested in action sports that take less of their time. But forget the kids. Who can watch a sport that takes over five hours and featuring players who have no regard for anyone else but themselves? Imagine paying $55 to watch a guy not play ready golf and playing only when he absolutely feels ready.

By signaling this week he sympathized with the supposed plight of Holmes, Monahan confirmed he will not use the power of the Commissionership to speed up play. All Monahan had to do was suggest that with high winds and pressure, it was a tough spot but the fans were right to believe this was a less-than-ideal look for the sport, particularly at a time millions of non-golf fans had tuned in for the Grammy's.

Instead, Monahan made it hard to believe his tour is interested in gaining new fans or in addressing the concerns of longtime fans that some of today's players are just too slow to watch. The Holmes incident captured on camera what paying fans all-too-often see during a PGA Tour event: a player taking much longer than their allotted 40 seconds.

Meanwhile, the European Tour is forging ahead with pace-related initiatives on multiple fronts designed to draw in new fans and intrigue those bored with the sport. While some of the measures are extreme and a middle ground with the PGA Tour position is the ideal, at least the European Tour is building off of the prevailing view after golf's 2016 return to the Olympic Games: the professional sport is woefully ill-equipped to compete in the global sports marketplace at its current pace, scale and preferred format. The pro game will fade into irrelevance if it does not adapt in a world that loves sport more than ever, just in smaller doses.

Justin Thomas, Commissioner Jay Monahan Have J.B. Holmes' Slow-Playing Back

It's hardly a shocker that someone who speeds up a shot in hopes of taking advantage of a backstopping ball on the green has no problem with J.B. Holmes pitching a tent, even when at the expense of his playing partner and the PGA Tour product.

But that's Justin Thomas' view of last Sunday's debacle.

Brentley Romine, writing for Golfweek from the Waste Management Open, includes this from the current PGA Champion and Player Of The Year:

“I have J.B.’s back all day on that situation,” Thomas said Wednesday at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. “It bothered me and I hate it for him. I went up to him (Tuesday) and told him … it was a great tournament for him, but I have a hard time saying I wouldn’t do anything differently than he did.

Again, nothing bad times and a penalty stroke now and then wouldn't fix. Or a "spirit of the rules" class.

Sadly, Commissioner Jay Monahan missed an opportunity to address speed of play, essentially confirming he will continue the do-nothing approach of his predecessor Tim Finchem.

From The Forecaddie's report from TPC Scottsdale where Monahan played the Wednesday pro-am and made excuses for Holmes taking over 4 minutes to play a shot:

“As it relates to J.B. … He was in the heat of the moment. It’s really hard to win out here. You’re trying to think through how you can get on the green in two with that amount of wind. I think he thought it would subside quickly, and it subsided and picked back up, and I think he said what he needed to say.”

There you go boys, take all the time you need until you get the wind you like.

Chubby On The Rebound: European Tour Challenge Tournament With Par Putting Banned!

John Huggan of Golf World talks to beleaguered 10-percenter Chubby Chandler as the ink dries on his divorce from longtime pal Lee Westwood and other players (Willett, Fox) who left the ISM stable.

While Chandler likens the Westwood split to a divorce--with confidentiality agreements in place to ensure we never know why--Chandler is moving forward and one of his passion projects involves a European Challenge Tour event where par putting is not tolerated.

By way of example, next year’s European Challenge Tour is expected to feature an event that Chandler has a hand in in which par will be every player’s “friend.” In a bid to finally win the seemingly never-ending battle with slow play, every competitor will be banned from putting for par. As soon as a birdie has not been achieved, it will be ball-in-pocket and on to the next hole.

“It won’t just be that par doesn’t count. The players will be banned from putting out once they haven’t made a birdie,” Chandler says. “That way they will all be round in three hours. We will have two points for a birdie, five for an eagle and eight for an albatross. That’s been done before. But no putting for par, which counts as zero. So you can’t knock it out of a bunker to four-feet and putt for par. Not allowed. And that’s where things will speed up.”

Players will also get double points if they hole-out from off the green, and all points will double on the last three holes. “Everybody is in with a chance right to the end,” Chandler says. “That might all turn out wrong. But it could also be really exciting. We’ll see. We’re not changing the game that much. We’re just making it quicker and getting rid of the dull bits. No one really gives a bleep about eight-footers for par.”

 And yet, that's semingly all we ever see. So bring it on!

Player Reactions Suggest Shot Clock Golf Might Get Ugly

I was fascinated reading the different takes to next year's Shot Clock Masters on the European Tour if nothing else because they were so far apart in assessing pace.

Josh Berhow at Golf.com included this quote from Dustin Johnson, asked if more tournaments should have a shot clock.

"Yeah, absolutely," he said on Wednesday, prior to the WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai, when asked if he would like to see a shot clock on the PGA Tour. "I think it would be very interesting. You'd see a lot of guys getting penalties on our Tour. Yeah, that would be quite fun, actually. I'd have plenty of time but there's a lot of guys that wouldn't. They would be getting a penalty on every hole."

And then there is Henrik Stenson, who plays at a very nice clip when he's on, but can be shockingly slow when he is game is off. Ready golf is not his thing when he's struggling, so if he plays in the Shot Clock Masters he might be in for a rude awakening. A penalty-a-hole awakening:

"I think you can tell that on any golf course around the world on a Saturday morning game, if you have players that are ready to play and hitting and when it's their turn, it can be very quick," Stenson said. "But if you have a foursome where the other three are standing around waiting, while one player is doing his hole preparation and execution, then it's going to be a very slow game. It's certainly enough time, as long as you are preparing while the others are hitting and getting ready."

This Will Actually Be A European Tour Event Title: The Shot Clock Masters

We knew next June's Austrian Open was going to take slow play seriously with shot clocks and penalties and referrees. But this? The Shot Clock Masters...near Vienna. Psychoanalysis free of charge.

Alistair Tait fleshes out some of the details for Golfweek.com but does not reveal what the winner's jacket might look like. A track suit jacket perhaps?

Every player will be timed on every shot in Austria. The other big difference from GolfSixes is that the event will use the Tour’s official timing policy. Each player in the 120-man field will have 50 seconds for the first player in a group, with 40 seconds for subsequent players. A one-shot penalty will be handed out to players going over the time limit, and a red card will appear beside their name on the leaderboard.