PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. – As part of a wave of new initiatives designed to improve the fan experience, the PGA Tour is poised to crack down on slow play in a major way.
In a preview Wednesday of what the Tour will unveil in March following the completion of its fan survey, an executive group identified four areas of interest – broadcast enhancements, competitive adjustments, player content and profile, and on-site experience – that appear ready for a significant overhaul.
“Everything’s on the table,” PGA Tour chief marketing and communications officer Andy Weitz said Wednesday at Pebble Beach. “So it’s in that spirit that we look at creating the best version of PGA Tour golf.”
Under the most scrutiny is the Tour’s pace of play, a multifaceted issue that has seemingly taken on renewed interest in recent weeks because of 5 ½-hour rounds during the West Coast swing, TGL’s popular introduction of a 40-second shot clock and CBS’ Dottie Pepper’s on-air suggestion that slow play was disrespectful to everyone from spectators to viewers to fellow competitors.
And so the Tour, following a 50,000-fan survey that began last summer and is now being fueled by player input, is set to employ a variety of tools that it hopes will curb the pace-of-play problem.
Already announced last year was the reduction of field sizes that, beginning in 2026, should create better spacing with tee times and fewer logjams on the course. But the Tour soon will utilize a video review center in its new production studios that should expedite rulings. They will begin testing – first at the Korn Ferry Tour level, then the big Tour – the use of distance-measuring devices that could save time when players are off-line. (Rangefinders have been used at the PGA Championship since 2021, but it’s unclear how much of an impact it has made on the pace of play because much of the delay occurs on the greens and caddies typically use it as a supplement to detailed yardage books.) They created a three-player working group that will offer suggestions to the Player Advisory Council.
And, for the first time, the Tour will take a “hard look” at the transparency of its pace-of-play policy, including the possible public reporting of players’ average stroke time, as well as any violations and fines.
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Most encouraging to the Tour: The players themselves are leading the charge.
“I think there’s a real moment now for that all to be looked at,” said Tyler Dennis, the Tour’s chief competitions officer. “I think change is in the air.”
Even the penalties are under review, with the Tour looking into accelerating the current process – out of position, warning, bad time, penalty – to put pressure on the dawdlers. It’s possible the Tour could dock players not just financially and competitively but also statistically, with a potential reduction of FedExCup points for offenders.
“The way that the Tour has been operating with large field sizes has allowed a slower player to hide. They know they’re going to run into a roadblock somewhere,” said Gary Young, the Tour’s senior vice president of rules and competitions. “Now, smaller fields, we can make those tee-time intervals larger, and the slow players can’t hide anymore. They’ll be exposed.”
There are several factors (field sizes, daylight, course difficulty) that result in a pace of play that has largely remained stagnant while other sports make concerted efforts to speed up game play to meet changing viewing habits. MLB introduced a pitch clock in 2023 that has trimmed about 30 minutes off game times, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver suggested this week that the league could reduce quarter times from 12 minutes to 10 to keep the broadcast within a two-hour window. The Tour said, with an eye on the fan experience, it is more interested in improving the “flow” of the round on the course, with fewer slowdowns, than cutting a certain amount of time per round.
The idea of a shot clock has been floated as a possible solution on Tour, especially since there’s been only one 40-second violation through four weeks of the new simulator league TGL. Dennis pointed out that although the Tour already uses an internal shot clock – ShotLink data showing the average shot time – he also wouldn’t rule out any of the more drastic suggestions.
“That’s one of the things that we want this working group of players that’s looking at pace of play to talk about,” Dennis said.
Other fan-forward initiatives that are in varying stages of discussion or implementation include broadcast enhancements such as more player/caddie conversations, a greater variety of shots shown, less intrusive sponsor activations and more emphasis on the cut; loosening of new media regulations to allow for more on-site content creation; and tournament experience upgrades that could resemble the asynchronous experience of Formula 1.
“I think we’re going to look back at 2025 as an inflection point in the evolution of the Tour,” Dennis said.
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