In speed-crazed world, golf is getting slower. Blame self-absorption

Golf-on-TV, a different sport than the one we all play, is at a tipping point. Golf-on-TV, which drives the business of golf in every possible direction, has become so mind-numbingly slow as to be completely out of step with the culture at large, which is built for speed. 

If you own a phone, you know that.

I texted you, like 20 seconds ago. You didn’t respond!

Major League Baseball has done the same in recent years to improve the pace of its games, and the pastime is better for it. The pitcher is on a clock now and that has had a huge impact. But just as big if not bigger is that the batter gets in the batter’s box and stays there. The golfers-on-TV need to have a club in hand while their playing partners are playing. They almost never do.

Golf would be way better and faster and if golfers could read their putts only from behind the ball. It could be a rule.

But more than anything, we want to tip our cap here to Dottie Pepper in her Howard Beale moment the other day. (The fictional anchorman Howard Beale, in the groundbreaking social-commentary movie Network: “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”) Her use of the word respect was perfect.

The desire to make golf a faster-paced game is not only about catering to a world that spins at hyper-speed. It’s about golfers showing a sense of perspective. You’re playing golf, people. You’re not performing open-heart surgery. Players crawling around their putts are actually dissing the game’s fans, broadcasters and traditions. It’s so me-me-me. That’s ultimately why it is painful. Golf is meant to teach respect for others.

This was Pepper’s call-to-action commentary on live TV on Saturday, speaking to another player-turned broadcaster, Frank Nobilo. They both, as players, were part of the solution, not the problem. Dottie said: 

“You know, Frank, I think we’re starting to need a new word to talk about this pace of play issue, and it’s respect. For your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasts, for all of it. It’s just got to get better.”

Let’s spend just a second here considering the source and her medium. Yes, Pepper was a live-wire player in her long LPGA career. But she is also a figure of the golf establishment (former PGA of America board member) working for the ultimate establishment golf network (CBS). And she’s a reporter, not a polemicist. So her plea was unexpected.

At the Farmers Insurance tourney at Torrey Pines, she was covering a threesome that would need close to 5.5 hours to play a round of golf. The golf had no rhythm, the tournament, despite a clogged leaderboard, had no sense of urgency. It was hard to watch and care. Pepper sensed the moment. She didn’t have a tirade. But she had reached her breaking point. 

The week before that, in perfect weather in the California desert at the American Express tournament, the last group needed 5 hours and 39 minutes to play 18 holes.

If you watch clips from the finale, the fans on hand looked to be crystalizing on their walking sticks. 

If there are not revolutionary changes here, these high priests, the men and women who play golf on TV, will lose their high-priest status with us.  

Since Major League Baseball instituted a series of rules changes in 2023, the average time of a game has gone from 3:03 in 2022 to 2:38 in 2024. Baseball! The most hide-bound sport of all-time! But it’s not just the half-hour lopped off the bottom that has made baseball a better game. It’s like all the parties on hand — players, umpires, fans, managers, bench players — are on their toes.

Golf was never meant to be an eat-the-day activity, not playing it, not watching it. But golf-on-TV is an all-day and into-the-night activity. And the kids coming up in the game, watching these high priests, take all their cues from what they see on TV. The affect is suffocating.

Have you played with any good junior golfers recently? They take off their gloves to hit chip shots. You might ask, Why?

If you really think you need to take off your glove to hit a chip shot, no matter who you are, have enough common sense to take it off while you are walking to your ball. Because, and this may shock you: Nobody wants to watch you take off your glove.

It’s another act of total self-absorption that is stealing air from the game and replacing it with goo so heavy it takes you a full minute to lineup and stroke a 40-inch putt.

Some of these golf telecasts have all the pacing of an underwater wheelbarrow race.

Three weeks into the TGL experiment, one thing is obvious: the best golfers in the world can easily play a shot in under 40 seconds if there’s a ticking clock, and peer pressure, to do so. Golf needs a shot clock. It won’t be hard for the players to adjust to it.

When three or four Tour players go out for a round of trash-talk golf at Medalist or Dye Preserve or the Bear’s Club, they play in well under four hours. Guy plays his next shot, next guy goes. Guy plays, next guy goes. They’re the best golfers in the world. They know what they’re doing!

Caddies should be required to walk directly to their player’s ball. Players don’t want to be far from their caddies and their bags. With the caddie at the ball, the player will want to get there faster. Players should have a plan in their heads and a club in their hands before the previous player’s shot comes to rest.

Bobby Jones and Mickey Wright and a hundred other golf legends did not think of a round of golf as an all-day activity. The game was better for it. As is often the case, you look back to look ahead. Supply your movie reference.