Former U.S. Open champion Lucas Glover continues to specific his displeasure with the pending adjustments coming to the PGA Tour.
This proposal, which the PGA Tour Coverage Board will vote to approve on Nov. 18, will diminish area sizes, scale back membership, and get rid of most Monday qualifiers, amongst different issues.
So two weeks after calling this “full crap” on Sirius XM Radio, Glover as soon as once more slammed it in an interview with Adam Schupak of Golfweek.
“I believe it’s horrible,” Glover stated.
“After which hiding behind tempo of play, I believe challenges our intelligence. They suppose we’re silly.”
Glover contends that PGA Tour execs have change into a lot slower these days in comparison with when he first began greater than twenty years in the past. He additionally believes the tour fails to implement sluggish play correctly, an issue that has plagued skilled golf for years.
“The truth that the PGA Tour is hiding behind the blokes who play slowly to alter the sector sizes… that’s full crap,” Glover stated on Sirius XM Radio on Nov. 5.
“How about velocity up play? How about having a greater coverage?”
As a result of so many gamers end their rounds after darkish—or the next morning—the tour has determined to decrease area sizes to attempt to keep away from this concern altogether. However Glover contends that that is slapping a band-aid on the problem and that the tour ought to implement sluggish play insurance policies as an alternative.
“You get a greater tempo of play coverage or implement the one you could have higher,” Glover stated.
“If I’m in a sluggish twosome and an official got here up and stated, ‘You guys are behind, this isn’t a warning, y’all are on the clock, and should you get a foul time, that’s a shot penalty,’ guess who’s working to their ball? That’s what we must be doing.”
But, in accordance with PGA Tour Chief Referee Gary Younger, the answer is just not docking gamers strokes on the course however as an alternative creating better intervals between tee occasions. Extra gaps between tee occasions result in others being eradicated, and due to this fact, gamers are squeezed out, therefore the smaller area sizes.
“We requested ourselves within the [Player Advisory Council] conferences if we had been beginning the Tour from scratch what can be our most area measurement?” Younger stated.
“As we talked it by way of with the gamers on that subcommittee, there was settlement within the room that you’d by no means construct it in order that teams can be turning and ready on the flip. In order that’s the place the entire concept of 144 being our most area measurement, everybody felt that that was the correct quantity, and the arithmetic on it labored. You’ll see that a few of our different fields have been diminished even additional, and that’s because of time constraints.
“So an awesome instance is we play a area measurement of 144 gamers at The Gamers Championship, and there’s not sufficient daylight for 144 gamers. However we all the time positioned an emphasis on begins for members, making an attempt to maximise the variety of begins they might get in a season, and generally, sadly, it was on the detriment of everybody else within the event. Now we checked out it from strictly what number of hours of daylight do we have now, and what’s the right area measurement for every occasion on Tour. So we went straight by dawn and sundown constructing in about three hours between the waves, which is what you want. After which that offers the afternoon wave some room to run, they’re not beginning out proper behind the final group making the flip and backing up. So we predict that we’ve finished a pleasant job constructing the schedule and at last getting all the sector sizes appropriate for the longer term.”
However Glover doesn’t purchase that one bit.
He’s not alone, both. Many different execs, together with Justin Decrease and different journeymen on the skin periphery of stardom, really feel this fashion, too. And but, the PGA Tour is aware of it has to cater to its stars, akin to Scottie Scheffler, Xander Schauffele, and Rory McIlroy, whereas catering to its broadcast companions and sponsors. That’s the most important motive why Signature Occasions got here to be: to get all the highest gamers competing side-by-side. However these proposals for 2026 are being carried out for comparable causes, too.
Jack Milko is a golf workers author for SB Nation’s Taking part in By means of. Remember to take a look at @_PlayingThrough for extra golf protection. You’ll be able to observe him on Twitter @jack_milko as nicely.
