Would One Rather Watch Grass Grow or Watch Faldo Hit?

The only thing more annoying than waiting forever to hit a golf shot is waiting forever for someone else to hit a golf shot.

We’ve all seen it. Each shot is preceded by nine practice swings, eight waggles, endless feet shuffling, a forward press, an extended freeze and finally a swing.

“Hit the darn ball,” your mind screams as visions of yet another six-hour round clutter your head, confuse your concentration and evaporate your enjoyment of the game.

As bad as that is for weekend golfers, imagine what it’s like to be a PGA Tour official trying to squeeze a round into the allotted TV time and avoid the embarrassment of having the final group on Sunday finish two holes behind the twosome in front of it.

“The last thing we want to do is get someone penalized,” said Mike Shea, the senior director of rules for the PGA Tour. “But we do have to keep play moving.”

And that can be difficult when you are dealing with a deliberate player like Nick Faldo or Jack Nicklaus or Nick Faldo or Bernhard Langer or Nick Faldo.

What compounds the headache for tournament officials is that these guys are always in contention and their slow play is dragged across TV screens virtually every Saturday and Sunday.

And what would happen if the outcome of a tournament was decided by a slow-play penalty on the 17th hole on Sunday? It’s not something you are likely to see, but it is possible.

“I think that whenever you have to give a penalty on something like that it is hard,” Shea said. “A penalty stroke in the first round can decide a tournament as much as one in the final round.”

Nicklaus once won a tournament despite a two-stroke, slow-play penalty, while Marlynn Smith lost an LPGA event by one stroke after a two-stroke penalty for slow play. Both happened in the 1960s.

“If you have to time a group on the final holes of a tournament you certainly hope you don’t have to penalize them,” Shea said. “But if someone is really playing slow and causing us to miss a television time, then something has to be done.”

OK, so when is slow play slow?

“We rate each golf course and give it a time-par and rate each hole in terms of how many minutes a group of three or a group of two should play the hole,” Shea explained.

A threesome in a PGA Tour event is expected to play in 4 hours and 13 minutes to 4:20 and a twosome should get around in 3:40 to 3:48. A group gets in trouble if they are behind the time-par and if there is an open hole in front of them.

At that point, they are put on the clock. They are allowed 40 seconds per stroke, with the first player to hit getting an additional 10 seconds.

Two breeches in the 40-second rule results in a one-stroke penalty and a $1,000 fine. A third bad time results in two more penalty strokes and another $1,000 fine. A fourth infraction leads to disqualification.

If a group gets back on track their slate is wiped clean and the process starts all over again.

“Off the cuff, I think last year we probably had three or four penalties applied,” Shea said. “The players have a tendency to know how to beat the system. They pick up their time and they pick up their pace. I can’t think of anyone who has been penalized more than once.”

But Shea doesn’t have to reach back very far in his memory bank to think of someone who has been warned more than once. Faldo was put on the clock twice at the Mercedes Championships earlier this month, most notably on Sunday when he and Mark O’Meara were paired in the final group.

“Their group was put on the clock for 13, 14 and 15 and then they got back into position,” said Shea, who also said that O’Meara had bad times.

Clearly, deliberate play by one golfer slows the pace of the group. Faldo and Corey Pavin were also timed on Saturday at the Mercedes.

“Faldo and Pavin were three minutes over their time coming off nine and were back to three minutes under going to the 12th tee,” Shea said.

Now you don’t really want everyone playing with the speed--or indifference--of John Daly on a Sunday when he is out of contention and knocks off a three-hour round. But something also has to be done about a Faldo or a Langer, who when he stands over a putt with a grip that looks like he’s checking his blood pressure you wonder if he’s taking a pulse to find out if he’s still alive.

It might be that the only solution is to have a tournament decided by a slow-play penalty late on a Sunday afternoon. It will cause a commotion. But it might get the message across.

Play faster, guys.