[PHOTO: Jed Jacobsohn]
The PGA Tour’s slow-play debate never really dies, it just gets reheated over, and over, and over again. This week it is again at the top of everyone’s mind after Tom Kim was flamed for his pace on the final day at Pebble Beach, both online and on the broadcast. The morning after, 20-year tour veteran Charley Hoffman addressed the problem in a memo to his fellow players, stating they all need to make a concerted effort to speed it up.
A week earlier, it was Dottie Pepper who called out the final group during the telecast of the fourth round of the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines. The longtime on-course CBS analyst said that players need to have some “respect” for their fellow competitors, the fans and the broadcast. Days later, on his SiriusXM PGA Tour radio show, 2009 US Open champion Lucas Glover listed a number of ways he believes the issue could be fixed. One of his suggestions, banning the controversial AimPoint putting method, is currently making the rounds on social media:
Wow. Strong words from Lucas Glover.
He wants Aimpoint banned from the Tour! Why?
1. It’s slow
2. Stomping around the flag is rude
3. The data shows it doesn’t help anyway
Do you agree? I know it’s annoying to watch, regardless of these factors. pic.twitter.com/AYEF3vMmst
— Rick Golfs (@Top100Rick) February 4, 2025
“AimPoint, statistically, hasn’t helped anybody make more putts since its inception on the PGA Tour,” he said. “Statistics have beared that out. It’s also kind of rude to be up near the hole stomping around where the break is in your feet. It needs to be banned. It takes forever.”
For those who watch golf from the couch, this take is music to their ears. As for those who employ the AimPoint system (not naming names), it’ll be interesting to see their interactions with Glover in the future, should they get paired together.
Banning the popular green-reading system is just one of nine – yes, nine! – ways Glover believes pace of play could improve dramatically. Among the other suggestions Glover stated were yardages on every sprinkler head so that caddies aren’t taking extra time to hunt down distances.
“Every sprinkler head should be marked, not by a tour caddie that’s walking the course on Monday. This should be up to the tour or the tournament,” he said.
In the next breath, Glover mentioned that lasers (a.k.a. rangefinders) would be a big help, too. Not long after that suggestion from Glover, the PGA Tour announced that it plans to test out distance-measuring devices for select events in 2025. That’s a start.
“Alright, here we go, these get a little weird,” Glover continued. “Every group needs a [bunker] raker. Just like the Open Championship. Proper caddies take a lot of time [raking] and do an unbelievable job, as they should. But it can cause back-ups.
“The tour’s not going to like this, but, honorary observers, they get in the way. They don’t know where to walk off the green, they don’t know where to stand. Lot of times the group behind is waiting on them.”
Glover had a similar take for sign-bearers, which are usually kids that get to experience a day inside the ropes on the PGA Tour. Give those same kids a tutorial on raking bunkers, Glover says, and they can be the “rakers” instead.
Glover also took aim at golf carts – there are too many on the course and they often cause players to back off shots when they drive by. And finally, drop circles near every obstruction so players have a designated area to quickly drop the ball if they are up against an obstruction, as opposed to calling over a rules official and wasting precious time coming to a conclusion.
All of these seem like well-thought out and readily enforceable ideas from a guy who has seen anything and everything on the PGA Tour. As always, whether or not any of them are actually implemented remains to be seen.
