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04-11-2025, 08:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 04-11-2025, 08:38 PM by
Mick.)
Today was the second round of the Masters. Stanford's Maverick McNealy (+1) made the cut by a stroke.
Play was interminable. Even with a limited field of less than 100 players and benign weather on Thursday, many rounds took nearly six hours. Until this year, the process for speeding up play was:
1. 50 seconds per shot for the first to play in a group, then forty seconds for others.
2. A warning.
3. Formal timing of a shot.
4. A "freebie" (another warning)
5. After all that, a one-stroke penalty.
The new policy eliminates the "freebie." Incidentally, Regulation 5a states that the second breach is a two-shot penalty and the third breach is tournament disqualification.
After all that...when was the last time the PGA Tour handed out a slow-play penalty in a regular, individual stroke play event? (stroke play is the format for most tournaments).
Audaces fortuna iuvat