{"id":435893,"date":"2025-07-20T02:27:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T02:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=435893"},"modified":"2025-07-20T02:27:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T02:27:21","slug":"pace-of-play-debate-sparked-at-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/pace-of-play-debate-sparked-at-the-open\/","title":{"rendered":"Pace Of Play Debate Sparked At The Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Open Championship, the ever topical subject of pace of play has come up once again.\u00a0 Speeding up the game has been the PGA\u2019s goal throughout the year ever since they introduced the new rules to encourage speed.<\/a>\u00a0 However, it hasn\u2019t always played out as intended.\u00a0 At the Master’s, fans thought there could have been a penalty enforced, but in Peru, there was a penalty leveled<\/a> against a player.\u00a0 This weekend, though, two players feel like things have been going very slowly.\u00a0 Matt Fitzpatrick and Justin Thomas both have their theories as to what happened during their times on the field.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Matt Fitzpatrick On Pace of Play<\/span><\/h2>\n

Fitzpatrick believes that the pace of play can be addressed on two fronts.\u00a0 With the rules officials, but also with the players.\u00a0 Fitzpatrick is also one of the faster players on the field, so he has a hard time comprehending how bad the issue has become as the rounds have extended to six hours during the major.\u00a0 He has called the issue ridiculous, but tries his best not to let it bother him.\u00a0 When asked what he would do to solve slow play, he initially said it was \u201cimpossible to answer,\u201d but he did land on a player-side solution.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think it is a difficult one. But I think players probably speeding up a little bit probably will help the situation, but yeah.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Not much to it really.\u00a0 Just simply have the players speed up to fix the pace of play.\u00a0 In that same interview, he did suggest that course sizes were a bit too much.\u00a0 Landing on a similar issue that Scottie Scheffler had, with the real problem coming from the large courses that players need to walk across after each swing.<\/span><\/p>\n

Justin Thomas On Pace Of Play<\/span><\/h2>\n

After the first round of The Open, Justin Thomas was completely worn out after a six-hour-long match.\u00a0 Thomas highlighted a lot of issues with weather conditions, making it difficult to shoot a straight line across the field.\u00a0 However, Thomas also pointed out the issue of the number of players.\u00a0 Specifically, there were just so many.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, it\u2019s a lot of people in a golf tournament, and that\u2019s going to create \u2014 I mean, a city that has a lot more population. Traffic is going to be a lot worse than it is in Pikeville, Kentucky; that\u2019s just the way it is. Then you add the elements and add everything, it\u2019s just going to be a long day.\u201c<\/span><\/p>\n

Others Weigh In<\/span><\/h2>\n

Justin Thomas and Matt Fitzpatrick were far from alone.\u00a0 Many more players were just as frustrated<\/a> with the pace of play during The Open.\u00a0 The other players often cited the same things as part of the issue.\u00a0 The weather, the number of players, and traveling across the field, a regular pattern was developing.\u00a0 The PGA did have a solution for the player count by just reducing the number of Tour Cards out there<\/a>.\u00a0 A move that has proven to be controversial.\u00a0 It wouldn\u2019t apply much to a major like the open, though, with players coming in from multiple leagues.\u00a0 To solve slow play in a major like this, the solution needs to either be a joint effort from the leagues involved or come from the governing bodies.\u00a0 Until then, only the players can help mitigate the issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Mike Frey-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the Open Championship, the ever topical subject of pace of play has come up once again.\u00a0 Speeding up the game has been the PGA\u2019s goal throughout the year ever since they introduced the new rules to encourage speed.\u00a0 However, it hasn\u2019t always played out as intended.\u00a0 At the Master’s, fans thought there could have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":435894,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[50,180,83],"class_list":["post-435893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-justin-thomas","tag-matt-fitzpatrick","tag-the-open-championship"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435893","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\/5429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":435895,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435893\/revisions\/435895"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}