Rickochet
Understood and appreciated. I always respect your usually fair-and-balanced perspective.
I just think, at the same time, we need to understand that the habitually slow players on tour are not gonna be looked favorably upon when it takes them nearly 5 minutes to execute a fairly routine shot. If Jordan Spieth was in that same situation - he would also be getting grilled. And Jordan's not exactly the fastest player on the planet.
And I know these guys are playing for a lot of money. And I certainly don't discount that. And other than his slow-pokedness - I'm a fan of J.B. Holmes. The guy seems to be a genuinely good guy with a great heart. And in the scheme of things - that's really all that matters, outside of golf.
But as it pertains to televised golf? Dude is slow. He's part of the problem. This was the Farmer's... not the Masters, the US Open, the British or the PGA... but the Farmers.
My goodness! How much time should we allot these guys to execute a fairly routine shot, in situations that don't require the need of a ruling official? I think it's high time that these guys, all of them, be held to a higher standard. They're playing in twosomes and threesomes, for crying out loud. There is simply no excuse for 3 players to need 5-and-a-half hours to complete a round of golf. Regardless of who it is or how much money they're playing for.
If the PGA Tour is serious about making their televised product more appealing to viewers, if they're interest in developing a more quality broadcast - they need to address this.
Otherwise - deal with the consequences... not only as it relates to a lack of interest in the viewership, but also a lack of interest for sponsors willing to dole out several million dollars to a product that (more and more) fewer people care to tune in for.
Lots of things add to the disinterested viewership, for sure... but nothing kills telecasted viewer ratings quicker than boredom. And the ass-scratching and 4-minute deliberating of the moon, the tides, and the center of gravity over every last shot on a Sunday afternoon doesn't exactly help their cause.
Not to mention the really poor example it sets, which is often times replicated by the weekend golfer at the grass roots level. And again - don't get me wrong... I don't really blame J.B. as much as I blame the Tour brass for letting this type of slow play to continue to exist.
But to say that players like him are not part of the problem would be extremely short sided.