1803bunker

BUNKER MENTALITY

Golf ’s

Leaders

Lacking

Vision

With participation levels stagnating and media interest on the wane, the game of golf is approaching its day of reckoning, fast approaching a fork in the road, as Mike Wilson writes, what few agree on is what direction to take.

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t’s clear and in plain sight what’s wrong with golf; it takes too long to watch or play, is inconsistent with a contemporary culture of instant gratification and, for the Millennial generation, too expensive, timeconsuming and far from cool.

Like all cultural aspects of society and central to the human condition, life goes in cycles, generational ups-and-downs. But, if club membership figures in traditional golf markets such as the UK and the USA are an accurate benchmark, down on average 7.5% year on year; and pay-TV audience ratings falling at an alarming rate of around 9% per annum, golf has got a significant problem. And one it needs to deal with PDQ. Although those responsible for the broad development and macro-marketing of the game, such as the R&A, the USGA, the European Tour and the PGA TOUR agree that golf take too long to watch and/or play, they appear, like rabbits caught in the headlights, unable to find either individual or collective solutions.

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HK GOLFER・MAR 2018

Most agree that slow play is the curse of modern golf. Professional and therefore recreational too, given we all, especially younger, more impressionable players like to mimic the top pros, pacing out yardages, developing pre-and-post-shot routines, reading the greens to within an inch of their lives.

At a recent PGA TOUR event, the Farmer’s Insurance at Torrey Pines, the leading group’s three-ball final round took six hours, and still could not conclude, carrying forward to a Monday play-off.

Ironically, the winner was the self-acclaimed ‘Snail’ of the PGA TOUR, Jason Day, who, asked about the pace of play by Bunker Mentality recently said, “It doesn't really worry me too much,” adding, “To be honest, I don't really care what people say.”

Slow play serial-offender JB Holmes was once again at the heart of the matter. Taking 4’ 10” to play a single shot from the middle of the fairway into the green, forcing the normally taciturn Luke Donald to take to Twitter to say, “The last group was over a hole behind, we can

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AFP/Getty Images

Slow play serial-offender JB Holmes took 4’ 10” to play a single shot from the middle of the fairway into the green at the recent Farmer’s Insurance at Torrey Pines HK GOLFER・MAR 2018

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AFP/Greg Wood

The European Tour started off on tackling slow play with the Perth Super-6 - three rounds of conventional strokeplay with 24 players qualifying for a Sunday match-play shoot-out

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all blame JB... and yes the player should take responsibility for their pace of play, but if they don’t, that’s why we have Tour officials - they needed to step in a while ago.”

But, like all organisations owned by and run in the best interests of their members, the PGA TOUR did precisely nothing.

The R&A did what the R&A does best, formed a committee, producing a report, The Pace of Play Manual, 76 pages of hypothetical postulations, the focus on the club golfer, when a serious slow play is right there under their noses, on the pro circuits of the world.

A nd, don’t forget t he ted ious, t imeconsuming tangle on the R&A’s own watch, most recently, Jordan Spieth taking 13 minutes to decide how to play the pivotal shot in last year’s Open Championship.

Or the 30-minute delay in play, waiting for a ruling involving Lee Westwood and, yes, you guessed it, JB Holmes, three-year-earlier at St. Andrews all within a three-wood of the organisation’s Rules of Golf office.

By contrast, the annual Bunker Mentality Challenge took place that same Sunday the PGA TOUR’s finest was ploughing through the Farmer’s Insurance schedule. Our three-

ball was for bragging rights only, where the temperature some 20∞C colder than California and were also hitting 40%-50% more shots than the 217 Holmes & Co. accumulated.

The European Tour has taken a somewhat different line to its transatlantic cousin.

Recognizing that slow play is deeply damaging, not only to the broader game of golf but also its development as it’s clear fewer and fewer fans can justify lounging all day Sunday watching other people playing an altogether different form of the game they play but at a funereal pace.

Under the colourful stewardship of CEO Keith Pelley, the European Tour is tackling slow play head-on. With a variation of formats all based around the same theme, speeding things up and making golf more digestible to on-course galleries and TV audiences alike.

The Perth Super-6 started it all off, three rounds of conventional strokeplay with 24 players qualifying for a Sunday match-play shoot-out. Then there was the Golf Sixes, started last year and continuing this, a hybrid of team golf and a short-form format.

Another new event, the Belgian Knockout, hosted by Ryder Cup star Thomas Pieters incorporates a head-to-head st rokeplay

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When golf does get its chance to show its wares on the global stage - the Olympic Games - its conservative default position of 72-holes, strokeplay kicks-in, when the Olympic format, as in tennis, head-to-head knock-out is the logical route to take.

Nathan Homer, Chief Commercial & Marketing Officer of the European Tour, says “GolfSixes combines the camaraderie and intrigue of team golf with the drama and intensity of a shorter format. The players love it, and the fans enjoy the different, more entertaining atmosphere.

“Golf needs a route for younger fans, groups of adults and families to get involved.

We know that GolfSixes appeals to those audiences while still offering something to our die-hard fans. We have to keep innovating in order to grow our appeal, and the statistics suggest GolfSixes can have a powerful presence in the golfing calendar.”

Let’s hope he’s right, but with participation numbers and TV ratings heading south at an alarming rate, perhaps, for golf, far too late to the table with its version of T20 cricket or rugby sevens, the stable door may be being closed long after the proverbial horse has bolted.

Head-to-head knock-out is a logical route to take for golf at the Olympic Games

HK GOLFER・MAR 2018

AFP/Greg Baker

knockout format. With the opening two rounds following the familiar strokeplay format for 36 holes, before the leading 64 players go head-to-head in knockout strokeplay matches contested over nine holes on the weekend to determine the winner.

Then, there is an event that sounds like aversion therapy, a veiled threat, the ‘Shot Clock Masters,’ in Austria in which every player is effectively on-the-clock throughout.

And, finally, there is what the European Tour and its beleaguered half-sister, the Ladies European Tour will be hoping is the game-changer, the European Golf Team Championship at Gleneagles, where men, women and mixed doubles will feature for the first time in the professional game.

A l l of wh ich cou ld be const r ued as, ‘Rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,’ when, in reality, with all the tools and rules available, the solution lies in simply enforcing the rules it already has on its members to wipe out slow play.

It ’s golf ’s equivalent to the football’s perennial problem of players diving in penalty boxes the world over; send the worst miscreants for an early batch for, problem solved.

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