Players: You want faster rounds? Let up on the setups

CHARLOTTE, N.C.—The logic sounds irrefutable, really.

Big numbers on the scorecard and stopwatch go hand in hand.

What started as a predictable discussion about slow play at a mandatory PGA Tour players meeting this week at the Wachovia Championship became a spirited gripe session about the tough setups on tour lately and its impact on the pace of play.

Since the Florida Swing began in early March, the winning scores have been in single digits under par four times in two months, including at the Masters and last week's Byron Nelson Championship. Players pointedly noted that one of the reasons play has grown slower is that tour officials keep tightening the screws on pins, tee boxes and the like.

In real time, it takes longer to make bogeys than pars.

"The issue came up this time about golf course setup, and why does it have to be so difficult?" said David Toms, a member of the PGA Tour Policy Board, the governing body of the circuit. "I mean, golf-course setup is why you see pro golfers, the best in the world, a guy shoot 67 and then another guy shoot 79, is because there is such a fine line there.

"You get on the wrong side, and it just takes a while (time-wise). So I think we can do a combination of things. Obviously if you ask the field staff, they would tell you there are way too many people playing, and you can't get them around that fast."

Au contraire, Toms said.

"Golf course setup, I think, is a big deal," said Toms, the early first-round leader at the Wachovia Championship. "If you saw pins in the middle of the greens like you do for the pro am, I think we'd get along a lot quicker. All of it goes hand in hand, and we'll see.

"I think they looked at last week. J.J. Henry made the comment, 'Listen, I worked on that golf course, and you guys didn't use the multiple tees that we built to make holes play different, and it doesn't always have to be all the way back on every hole and the pins, two, three, four (yards) from the edge on a day when it's blowing 25 or 30 mph.' So all those things might help."

Henry was a player consultant on the revamped Nelson course in Dallas. Was it coincidence, then, that players noted a slightly less toothy Quail Hollow setup in the first round?

The testy course's two toughest par-3 holes were softened considerably Thursday, a welcome development for players. The tee on the sixth hole was moved from 250 up to 236 yards and the markers on the brutal, water-choked 17th were moved from 217 to 175.

"I think guys are tired of using the same tee box for all four rounds," veteran Tag Ridings said. "Especially on the par-3s. They obviously made a quick change on that already."

The need to protect the sanctity of par is something many players don't quite understand. Another welcome move Thursday was the news that no pins were placed closer than four yards from the edge of the green. In many instances, flagsticks are routinely placed three steps from the edge.

"I mean, one of our tour officials said he was under the directive of the board, a policy that was put in place 15 or 20 years ago, that golf courses should be as difficult as you can make them but still be fair," Toms said. "Who knows, maybe the board will pass something new and we'll have some different verbiage in there.

"But I don't know, guys are talking a lot about it, so you might see something I know they moved some tees up today on a couple of the holes. So maybe we'll see some multiple tees and pin locations and give it a little more excitement to the game."

If not a little more movement, pace-wise, too.

Provider:
CBSSports.com - USA