Irish Writer Karl MacGinty Slams Slow Play

Karl, a great writer and an even better guy, is one of the really nice fellows in the media tent.  He shows there is truth to the old adage “Think Yiddish, Dress British, Act Irish” – meaning have a good head for business, dress tastefully, with classy elegance and style, and be happy and friendly.

Karl slams slow play on the tour in his Independent.ie article.  From the piece:

“Yet Holmes and O’Hair are good enough golfers to make it onto the US Ryder Cup team at Valhalla. Maybe they’re America’s secret weapon….If skipper Paul Azinger also hands Ben Crane and Brian ‘All Day’ Gay two of his four wild cards, his team might be able to bore the Europeans into submission.

Heaven knows, they’ve tried everything else at the Ryder Cup.

Slow play is the bane of golf with too many high-handicap players, not all of them young, enthusiastically embracing the habits, good and bad, of the game’s superstars.

It was interesting to learn late on Sunday, as O’Hair edged into the lead, that his group had been placed on the clock.

It didn’t appear to make much of a difference, the Texan even taking 50-plus seconds to tuck away one three foot putt.”

Look, failing to penalize a player for slow play is just another way ion which the Finchem Administration (there’s an oxymoron), panders and enables athletes.  The LPGA has the common sense and self-preservation instincts to punish Angela Park while she was in hot pursuit of the leaders last week, but igloos in Alaska melt more quickly than tour players assessing the next center-line tee shot.  Sean O’Hair alone takes enough practice swings to regrow the grass on the 7th green at Shinnecock after a Tom Meeks bonfire.  MacGinty correctly cites, “monkey see monkey do,”  when your average 25-handicapper sees a pre-shot routine that intricate or sees a player line up putts from every angle, he tries it himself and causes a NASCAR style pile-up on the course.  Sure, J.B. Holmes may be playing for a million dollars, but now I have to deal with the same mind-boggling thing playing behind Sydney Getzoff and Eli Schnozenbutt as they putt for eight in a nickel-and-dime affair.  Five-and-a-half hours is not a tolerable time for eighteen holes.