On Monday, the PGA Tour board approved multiple changes to qualification and field sizes beginning in 2026.
One of the issues addressed in the changes was the ongoing issue of pace of play.
However, 2022 U.S. Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick doesn't believe the slow play issue was thoroughly addressed with the announced changes. The Englishman took to his X account to express his frustration with the supposed solution to the problem.
He’s so right, pathetic that pace of play is spoke about every year and nothing ever gets done 😴 https://t.co/gvFNCQHHwQ
— Matt Fitzpatrick (@MattFitz94) November 19, 2024
Fitzpatrick post was addressing a quote made by Lucas Glover given to Golfweek, who believed the shrinking of field size had little to do with pace of play.
“And then hiding behind pace of play, I think challenges our intelligence,” Glover said. “They think we’re stupid.”
PGA Tour senior vice president of rules and competition Gary Young disagreed with Glover's assessment when responding to Golfweek.
“Absolutely it will (help fix pace of play). It’s something that we’ve been saying for years that 156-man fields are too many players,” Young said. “It’s basically 78 players in a wave, 13 groups per side and our pace of play is set somewhere around 4 and half hours. You do the math and if they play in time par, which is basically 2 hours and 15 minutes, they make the turn and all of a sudden the group ahead of them is just walking off the tee because there’s 2 hours and 12 minutes of tee times. It becomes a parking lot. There’s nowhere to go.”
Fitzpatrick joins the ranks of Glover and also the LPGA's Charley Hull, who all believe the real issue is not being addressed.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Matt Fitzpatrick Sounds Off on 'Pathetic' Pace-of-Play Issue.
