{"id":434197,"date":"2025-04-18T22:18:20","date_gmt":"2025-04-19T02:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/?p=434197"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:40:25","slug":"pace-of-play-being-addressed-at-rbc-heritage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/pace-of-play-being-addressed-at-rbc-heritage\/","title":{"rendered":"Pace of Play Being Addressed at RBC Heritage"},"content":{"rendered":"

With the Master Tournament complete for 2025, the pace of play debate has been rekindled.\u00a0 During the tournament, golfer Akshay Bhatia took three minutes to line up a shot.\u00a0 Players and fans were not impressed with this.\u00a0 He still played well, but talking that long to hit the ball is seen as being in poor taste.\u00a0 There has been an announcement that a solution is coming with the RBC Heritage this weekend.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pace Of Play Issues<\/span><\/h2>\n

Pace of play has long been a barrier for golf for as long as the sport has been around.\u00a0 One example in the 90s, Glen Day was so infamous for his slow play that he was nicknamed Glen All Day.\u00a0 The PGA has tried point penalties along with fines, but since 1995, only three penalties have been enforced.\u00a0 In the previously mentioned Master\u2019s Tournament, Rory McIlroy was so distracted by Bhatia\u2019s slow play<\/a> that it almost cost him his lead for the event.\u00a0 Slow play has long been cited as a reason why the sport is \u201cboring\u201d.\u00a0 Players hate it, fans hate it, and it only contributes to dragging out the game.\u00a0 This year, the PGA has been trying to address slow play<\/a>, and now they have another solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

A Solution At RBC Heritage<\/span><\/h2>\n

A solution is finally being implemented that is believed to help.\u00a0 Essentially, at the RBC Heritage, all players will be using rangefinders to help speed up their shots.\u00a0 However, this new method is already getting some criticism.\u00a0 Scottie Scheffler looked at the range finder implementation and was not very impressed.\u00a0 In an interview with The Golf Channel<\/a>, he brought up how golfers have been using these tools for a couple of years now, and he thinks, at best, it will only shave off maybe a few minutes off the overall time.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

For Scheffler, the real issue for the pace of play is the large size of the golf course.\u00a0 It\u2019s the players making their way around the course that drags it out.\u00a0 Sure, the players taking their time to line up their shots is annoying and time-consuming, but the distance is what eats up the most time.\u00a0 Scheffler goes on to criticise the very idea of a pace of play crackdown.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe pace of play debate is funny. I think people want to watch exciting golf. I think that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. Let\u2019s say if we do all these changes and we save 20 minutes off a round of golf. Is somebody going to sit down on the couch on Sunday and go, well, I didn\u2019t have five hours to watch a round of golf, but I\u2019ve got four hours and 40 minutes. Now I\u2019m in.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Will Pace of Play Improve?<\/span><\/h2>\n

Given that players have been using range finders on the PGA Tour for two years now, it feels like a half measure.\u00a0 The PGA already has rules against slow play, and they are so rarely enforced that fans are just infuriated by it.\u00a0 Glen Day, despite being infamous, only had one penalty back in 1995.\u00a0 All the greats have been accused of doing slow play at some point in their career, including Tiger Woods.\u00a0 The pace of play debate may not be ending soon, and the solution being offered here feels marginal at best.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the Master Tournament complete for 2025, the pace of play debate has been rekindled.\u00a0 During the tournament, golfer Akshay Bhatia took three minutes to line up a shot.\u00a0 Players and fans were not impressed with this.\u00a0 He still played well, but talking that long to hit the ball is seen as being in poor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4860,"featured_media":434200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[15,246,19],"tags":[114,154],"class_list":["post-434197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-rbc-heritage","tag-scottie-scheffler"],"modified_by":"yobodev","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4860"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}