One of the highlights of the year is Golf.com‘s anonymous PGA Tour survey, which will be released later this week and, as a little teaser, we now know who the players do and don’t want to be paired with.
In some recent quizzing at the Safeway Open 52 players, made up of tour and major winners and Ryder Cup players, went through a total of 46 questions and the player that they really don’t want to see their name next to on the start sheet wasn’t a huge surprise.
Top of the shop, with 26% of the vote, was “anyone who plays slowly” and next on the list was Bryson DeChambeau, who will surely dominate this category in the years to come, and another old favourite in Rory Sabbatini. The pair took 21% of the vote with Martin Laird, who must be slow, polling an impressive 8% of the answers.
Given the pace of DeChambeau’s play his inclusion isn’t a big surprise with his fellow pros now happy to give him a verbal kicking on how he goes about his golf and, with Twitter the way that it is, he’ll need to either improve or continue to be followed around with a collection of phones recording his every move.
As for Sabbatini he’s long been disliked by all and sundry for his various outbursts and general behaviour. To his credit the South African-turned-Slovakian is still getting it done with his clubs and he finished the 2019 season in a very impressive 36th spot on the money list.
As for the less titillating topic of who the players would like to tee it up with then Kevin Kisner (9%), Charles Howell III (7%) and Harold Varner III (7%) led the way. Varner’s inclusion is a welcome one given that he comes across so well while everyone on the planet seems to love ‘Kis’ and his laid-back manner.
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To square the slow-play circle another common refrain was “Anyone who plays quickly” which also received 7% of the vote.
The remainder of the votes are in at the end of the week and we’re promised some hot takes on Tiger Woods, Donald Trump, driver testing, backstopping, Tour venues and much more.
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