2025 could be the year golf’s slowest snails have their shells ripped off.
Three-time major-winning legend Nick Price hopes so – like many golf fans who are tired of watching tour professionals calculate their way through five-hour rounds.
The perception of some pro golfers is that they take too long to play, and many golf fans feel they are boring to watch. Whether it be waggling the club, taking another glance at a putt or deliberating a club choice, this issue has lingered since you and I first picked up a golf club.
Price, a former World No.1 and icon of the sport, suggested a time par system that would punish slow players with some form of penalty. On the PGA Tour, he suggested each group has a walking scorer with an electronic tablet who after each shot, enter data such as finding the fairway or hitting a green in regulation, as well as many other inputs.
“It’s very easy for those scorers to enter the time that each group finishes the hole in, relative to the time par of that course,” Price said. “As a result, it’s very clear after four or five holes who the slow groups are that include the slow players. The officials can then react by going to advise them that they are out of position (behind the time par) and they must make every effort to catch up with the group in front of them.
“If they don’t, they will get a warning and or a penalty as to how far behind they are.
“It’s a very selfish thing slow play, it really is,” Price added. “A slow player makes everybody else play slowly, whereas a fast player cannot make everyone play fast. Slow players are selfish people and are often not ready to play when it is their turn.
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Nick Price: ‘Slow play at public and private golf courses just should not be tolerated’
“If you have a time par for your course, say Oakmont, which is a long walk, would be considerably longer than a course like Seminole, which is a very easy walk. At Seminole, they have a time par and those who are slow are told to speed up their pace.
“They have a sign near the first tee that says ‘Play Well, Play Fast. Play Poorly. Play Faster’.
“One way of penalising the slow club player or group is if they are playing in the monthly medal and they don’t complete their round in the time par, their round doesn’t count, or some other penalty. “
Price spoke to NCG about pace of play at the start of 2025 before PGA Tour boss Jay Monahan revealed that stroke penalties would begin on the Korn Ferry Tour and the PGA Tour Americas during the 2025 Players Championship. Monahan added, as part of a roll-out in the somewhat minor leagues that feed the PGA Tour, that the tour would start publishing speed-of-play-related statistics later this season.
Also after we chatted with Price, the LPGA Tour announced a new pace of play policy, including lower timing thresholds for stroke penalties, which have now taken effect. If you take 16 or more seconds longer than the time you’re allowed, it means a two-stroke penalty, which, if implemented, is music to many ears.
Price’s grievances mirror the long-voiced frustrations of golf fans and golf professionals alike with slow play, especially when marquee players are involved.
One recent instance that some fans picked up on was at the ANNIKA at the end of the 2024 LPGA Tour season. Carlota Ciganda was reportedly docked $4,000 after multiple slow play warnings. The fear to many, however, is that financial penalties are water off a duck’s back to professional athletes who now earn unprecedented sums.
“Slow on tour is one thing because you irritate not only the other players, but you irritate the TV people and a lot of the galleries too,” he said. “Slow play at public and private golf courses just should not be tolerated. It’s really unnecessary because people on these courses play for fun, and not for their livelihoods.”
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What do you make of the slow play golf debate? Do you think this Nick Price slow play system would work? Could this Nick Price slow play solution be enforced? Tell us on X!
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