HURRY UP: Graeme McDowell Might Suffer A Slow Play Penalty

There has been a ton of talk in recently about the pace of play problem in golf and the PGA TOUR has finally taken steps to fix the problem. One of those changes may result in the first slow-play penalties of the season.

Graeme McDowell was off to a strong start at the Saudi Invitational, finding his name at the top of the leaderboard after round one. Looking to break away from the pack on Friday, McDowell was playing with Phil Mickelson and Rafa Cabrera Bello when he decided that he would take an on-course interview with Sky Sports before his second shot on his 13th hole of the day. That’s when things got interesting…

McDowell was apparently the first to hit his shot but was several yards behind his playing mates when giving the interview. Once McDowell hit his shot, it had taken him 84 seconds from when the clock started. He was only alotted 50 seconds since his group had started being timed a few holes earlier under the new PGA TOUR policy. Because of that, he’s now facing a one-stroke penalty over the weekend for a “bad timing” penalty.

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McDowell said he didn’t even think about the possibility of being called out for a timing penalty. McDowell said that he’s a proponent of the new pace of play rules that have been set out but he’s also a strong supporter of the on-course interviews and plans to keep doing them. He’s just looking for some clarification on how he will be able to take interviews but stick within the time frame.

One possibility to balance this issue is to use a “timeout” which is afforded to each player to be used once during the round. McDowell however, never even thought of that. “If that had been something that was automatic in my brain,” he said. “It’s just the last thing I think of out there. I called a time-out after I hit the shot, but the referee was not really willing to give me any kind of room for error at all. Then that kind of upset my rhythm for a couple holes.”

McDowell is taking the potential one-stroke penalty in stride, saying he won’t challenge it but the next time the PGA TOUR might not get as lucky depending on who gets flagged for slow pace. This situation moving forward will be one to monitor to see if any players do give push back and how the PGA TOUR will respond in the future.

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