On Par...PGA Notebook

By Andrew Both
CHARLOTTE, North Carolina (Ticker) - If you only ever watch professional golf on television, you probably do not realize what a huge problem slow play is. On television, the director usually cuts to the player just as he is about the pull the trigger on a shot. You don't see the previous minute or so when the player has an extended conversation with his caddie, throws up some grass to gauge the wind and takes half a dozen practice swings, before deciding to change clubs and start the routine all over again. As anyone who has attended a tournament lately will attest, it is almost painful watching a professional tournament on site. OK, so many women don't mind watching Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia, whatever they do, be it throw grass into the air, crouch down to read a putt or consult with their caddies over a yardage. But that's another story. Rules officials don't need a stopwatch to time many slower players. To use an old joke, a sundial would do the trick nicely. Slow play was the major item discussed at last week's PGA Tour players' meeting, but it's not as though it has suddenly become a problem. It is ruining the game at all levels. At the professional level, it is unfair to the quicker players and detracts from the entertainment package. At the recreational level, players who can't break 90 often imitate the pros, worrying about exact yardages and reading their putts from four different angles. Some might remember that back in 1993, the tour announced it was clamping down on slow play, and for a few weeks at least it did. Before long, however, rounds crept back up their old levels. And things haven't become any better in the 15 years since. At last week's Wachovia Championship, the final threesomes took more than five hours to finish on Thursday and Friday, while the final twosomes took more than four hours on Saturday and Sunday. The scary thing is that that is not even considered slow by modern standards. Mathew Goggin, a journeyman who is 66th on this year's money list, says slow players negatively affect quick players, who are put off their routines. "It's brutal," Goggin said. "Slow players can affect fast players but fast players don't affect slow players. Fast players just have to deal with it. "Slow players can torture everyone in the group by not letting anyone get into a rhythm, either their playing partners or the three or four groups behind them. We're all sick of slow players, we all know who they are." There have been several suggestions as to how to speed up play, including smaller fields and easier hole locations, but the biggest problem may be that the penalty for slow play on tour is so small. "They don't ever assess (stroke) penalties and the fining thing, it takes four or five months before you get one 20 grand fine," Goggin said.

TRIVIA QUESTION: Who are some of the players regarded as painfully slow on the PGA Tour?

PLAYERS UNHAPPY WITH TV ANCHOR: The other issue that was discussed at length at the players' meeting was Kelly Tilghman's tenure as anchorwoman of The Golf Channel's tour telecasts. Several players told Finchem that they do not think she does a very good job, and asked the commissioner whether there was anything he could do about it. Finchem, a skilled lawyer/politician, diplomatically told the players that while he consults with the network regularly, he does not have any direct say in whom it uses on the air. He pointed out that Tilghman is always co-operative with the tour, happy to read its promotional blurbs, and that Thursday-Friday ratings on The Golf Channel are higher than they used to be on ESPN. The players who voiced their opinions were not necessarily upset with anything specific that Tilghman has said in her 16 months in the job, including the famous remark in January that players wanting to beat Tiger Woods should "lynch him in a back alley." Rather, they seem to think that she does not have the gravitas or broadcasting expertise to elevate a telecast in the way that Jim Nantz, for example, does on CBS. The Golf Channel has often been accused of being too soft on the tour, especially on its so-called nightly news program, Golf Central, but last time we checked, the tour does not own or operate the network. Long may it stay that way.

WOODS 64, NEXT BEST SIX: No prizes for guessing which player aged under 35 has the most victories on the PGA Tour. That would, of course, be Woods, with 64 wins, but who is running second? It says a lot of Woods' dominance that nobody else has posted more than the six official victories recorded by Scott and Garcia. To be fair, Scott has won eight other times on other tours, some of them against very good fields, while Garcia has 10 international victories, although he has not won anywhere in the world in nearly three years. While Scott and Garcia are regular, if not prolific winners, it's almost frightening how few tour events some other highly rated players have won. Luke Donald, for example, has only won twice, while Justin Rose is still seeking his breakthrough.

TRIVIA ANSWER: There are too many slow players to name them all, but among the tortoises are Ben Crane, Sean O'Hair, Jim Furyk, Stuart Appleby, J.B. Holmes and Trevor Immelman.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: "If I had won last year, my practicing would have gone down to even less, and there wasn't much to go down." - Anthony Kim, after winning the Wachovia Championship on Sunday at the age of 22.