{"id":437400,"date":"2025-11-15T02:58:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:58:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/?p=437400"},"modified":"2025-11-15T02:58:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T02:58:27","slug":"the-state-of-pace-of-play-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/the-state-of-pace-of-play-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"The State Of Pace-Of-Play In 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the 2025 season for the PGA began, there was a change in policy that would directly affect the players.\u00a0 It was the new pace-of-play rules<\/a>, or the slow play crackdown, depending on the perspective.\u00a0 Now that the PGA regular season is over, fans and players can look back and see how it was handled during the tournaments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Initial Slow Play Crackdown Reaction<\/span><\/h2>\n

Players had mixed reactions to this new policy.\u00a0 There was plenty of support, due to the games getting noticeably longer, but there was also some doubt about whether it would be effective.\u00a0 Scottie Scheffler doubted whether it would bring down the times.\u00a0 He believed that it would maybe shave off twenty minutes at most.\u00a0 He pointed to the field size as the biggest problem at times.\u00a0 Both with player count and the size of the field itself.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

First Penalty<\/span><\/h2>\n

The first run of enforcement against slow-play came in the form of penalties<\/a>.\u00a0 Shots are being added to a player’s score.\u00a0 There were penalties already in place, but it was rarely ever enforced.\u00a0 The first penalty came from the PGA Tour Americas during the Peru Open.\u00a0 It was one of four that were handed out since the early 90s.\u00a0 This was big for the Tour, given that it has been so rare, and the player in question took it in stride.\u00a0 He accepted his fate and didn\u2019t let it get to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tools At The RBC Heritage<\/span><\/h2>\n

Another way the PGA tried to encourage better pace-of-play was by giving players range finders<\/a>\u00a0during the RBC Heritage.\u00a0 This way, players can line up their shots faster.\u00a0 This one saw some success as it worked out as planned for the players.\u00a0 With the tools given, the players who used them went noticeably faster as the information they were given was quick.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Slow-Play Scoreboard Of Shame<\/span><\/h2>\n

A recurring tool used by the event organizers has been a shot clock mixed with a leaderboard of the slowest players.\u00a0 This was an attempt to shame players into playing faster.\u00a0 It has seen mixed results.\u00a0 During the BMW Championship, Patrick Cantlay found himself on the receiving end<\/a> of these new tools.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t really care about it too much.\u00a0 In fact, he didn\u2019t speed up at all.\u00a0 He didn\u2019t receive a penalty either, just found himself on the board.\u00a0 This showed that many players who regularly experience this issue require more than just a place on the leaderboard.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Is The Pace-Of-Play Policy Working?<\/span><\/h2>\n

The most important question is whether it is working at all.\u00a0 After all that has been done, have the events gotten any shorter?\u00a0 The answer is, it depends.\u00a0 The rangefinders were a big help with gathering data.\u00a0 The leaderboards of shame only work for a few players.\u00a0 Then, enforcement is spotty.\u00a0 For 2026, the Tour is taking Scheffler’s words to heart by reducing Tour Card memberships.\u00a0 Which will help by how math works alone, but has its own critics.\u00a0 The main criticism of the new policies is that they aren\u2019t being enforced where needed.<\/a>\u00a0 Hopefully, the Tour has been taking notes for the season, and the 2026 season will see times go down across the board.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Main Photo Credit:\u00a0 \u00a9 Corey Perrine\/Florida Times-Union \/ USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the 2025 season for the PGA began, there was a change in policy that would directly affect the players.\u00a0 It was the new pace-of-play rules, or the slow play crackdown, depending on the perspective.\u00a0 Now that the PGA regular season is over, fans and players can look back and see how it was handled […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5429,"featured_media":437261,"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":[8160,153,114,154],"class_list":["post-437400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-golf","category-golf-news","category-pga","tag-bmw-championship","tag-patrick-cantlay","tag-rbc-heritage","tag-scottie-scheffler"],"modified_by":"Taylor Craig","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437400","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=437400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437401,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437400\/revisions\/437401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}