Perhaps Neal Lancaster, one of the PGA Tour's free-spirited players, had it right.

After another slow round during the Wachovia Championship in May, something that has become increasingly commonplace on the PGA Tour, Lancaster said, "Maybe we should change our motto from 'These guys are good' to 'These guys are slow.' "

Lancaster's comments were just the beginning of the maelstrom.

At the Booz Allen Classic the week before the U.S. Open, Rory Sabbatini became so upset with the slow pace of playing partner Ben Crane he rudely played ahead and walked to the 18th tee while Crane was still putting on No. 17.

'Two weeks later, Vijay Singh, the No. 2 player in the world and the tour's leading money winner, blasted the slow pace at the Barclay's Classic, despite shooting a 68.

Laura Davies became so irritated with the pace at a recent LPGA Tour event she said, "I'd like to take a gun and shoot the slow ones. It's pathetic."

	Martha Rial, Post-Gazette Golfcarts equipped with GPS monitoring systems allow course managers at Quicksilver Golf Club to check golfers' progress and send messages to them. Click photo for larger image.

"It's ridiculous," Singh said, "I mean, you play a round of golf in five hours and wait on every shot. It's just like the officials are just blind. You don't see one out there. It kind of ruins the rhythm of play."

On the PGA Tour, players incessantly toss grass in the air, have lengthy conversations with their caddies as if they're discussing life insurance and don't start their preshot routine until it is their turn to play ... and not a second sooner.

These are the same players who have been instructed by their sports psychologist to not swing the club until they have properly visualized the shot, as if the karma might positively affect them as it did Ty Webb, Chevy Chase's golf-possessed character in "Caddyshack."

"At the end of the day, slow play is the bane of our game," said David Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association.

The PGA Tour has fines for slow play, though they receive little attention and rarely are handed out to players. The stiffest: A player who receives 10 slow-play warnings in a year is fined $20,000. The rule went into effect in 2003, and only one player -- the tour will not disclose his identity -- has been fined since then.

But the tour also requires each player to hit a shot within 40 seconds or face a potential two-shot penalty -- a rule that is almost never enforced. Pace charts, indicating the desired amount of time to play a round, are devised for all tournament courses and circulated to the players.

Some courses, though, are designed to play faster than others. Colonial, for example, has a pace chart of approximately 4 hours, 10 minutes. Mirasol in West Palm Beach, Fla., site of the Honda Classic, is slightly over 4:35 because the course is longer and has more water hazards.

"It's no different than it was the last 30 years," veteran PGA Tour official Jon Brendle told the Chicago Sun-Times. "It's a perception, for one thing. If a player has to wait and still plays his round in four hours, he thinks it was a slow round. But if he doesn't have to wait and plays in five hours, he thinks everything's fine."

The problem with slow play on the PGA Tour is the trickle-down effect it can have on public-course players who try to emulate what they see on television. For years, slow play was blamed on Jack Nicklaus, golf's greatest player who took an inordinate amount of time over each shot and putt.

That might change with Tiger Woods, now golf's greatest player who plays very quickly and wastes little time over a shot. Same with the quick-playing Annika Sorenstam, queen of the LPGA Tour.

"There's nothing logical about playing in four hours with your buddies who can't break 80 and playing in five hours with three professionals who are supposed to shoot par or better," said PGA Tour player Steve Flesch, in an interview in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

High-tech solutions

Public golf courses in Western Pennsylvania -- around the country, for that matter -- have been plagued with slow play for years, one of the reasons cited by course owners and golf professionals for a three-year decline in play.

The majority of golfers no longer make golf an all-day affair, particularly on weekends. Because of increasing demands placed on them with their families' youth soccer games or baseball practice, golfers have a hard time committing to a weekend round when it takes 5¹/₂ hours to play.

"Nobody likes it," said Sean Parees, director of golf at Quicksilver Golf Club in Midway. "Nobody enjoys being behind someone who doesn't play fast."

Quicksilver, one of the busiest and best public courses in the area, has been able to closely monitor pace of play because it has carts equipped with a Global Positioning System -- a device designed to give players accurate yardages from the tee to the fairway to the green. Not only does the system eliminate the need for players to step off yardages, but it also allows the clubhouse to monitor where each cart is on the course.

If a group is playing slow and falls a hole or two behind, clubhouse workers can flash a message on the cart's GPS screen, telling them to play faster. Or they can tell the course ranger which group on which hole is playing slow and dispatch him to notify the offenders. Quicksilver has a recommended pace of 4 hours, 20 minutes for 18 holes, standard for most daily-fee facilities.

Olde Stonewall and Mystic Rock are other daily-fee facilities that offer the GPS system.

"We've been lucky," Parees said. "Occasionally, we have a bad day, but our pace of play has been exceptional the last couple years. It's always been good, but it's been better the last couple years with the GPS."

Courses that don't offer GPS have to resort to other means. At Tam O'Shanter Golf Course in West Middlesex, pace of play has been quickened by eliminating fivesomes on weekends and keeping three starting times open -- one per hour -- in the morning.

"A lot of times slow play can be controlled on the first tee," said John Kerins, owner and golf professional at Tam O'Shanter. "We want to make it an enjoyable experience."

Kerins employs two rangers at Tam O'Shanter to make sure play moves at an acceptable level. If a group gets behind, players will be told to hurry up -- or, in some rare instances, skip a hole -- to get back in position.

"I will tell them, there's 100 people behind you who aren't very happy," Kerins said. "Most of the time that goes over well. Most of the time."

Curiously, public-course rounds are slow, even though a lot of players often concede putts to their partners ... or themselves. Contributing to the snail-like pace is the amount of time players take to hunt lost balls -- something that has increased with the advent of such high-priced balls as the Titleist Pro V1 and the Callaway Hex. Players are not quick to give up on balls that cost $44 per dozen.

"One of the reasons [slow play] receives so much attention here because across the pond, in Europe, they play so much match play and they put the ball in their pocket," said Jeff Rivard, executive director of the West Penn Golf Association. "But Americans have a preoccupation to make a number -- they're going to take all nine strokes because they paid their money."

Watching the clock

The Tri-State section of the PGA of America, which is composed of club professionals in Western Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, does not share the problem that exists on the PGA Tour.

Dennis Darak, the TSPGA's executive director for 28 years, said threesomes averaged 3 hours, 50 minutes in the first round of the recent 36-hole Stableford Championship at Green Oaks Country Club, with the first of 19 groups finishing in 3:40.

Two weeks ago, at the Tam O'Shanter Open, Darak said the field of more than 100 players averaged just less than four hours.

"We've been very fortunate," Darak said. "We have not gone over our time limits."

The Tri-State section has pace-of-play guidelines on every tournament entry form, instructing players of an allotted time limit for each hole. For example, a foursome has 14 minutes to play each hole, or an 18-hole allotment of 4 hours, 20 minutes. A threesome gets 13¹/₂ minutes per hole, or 4 hours, 5 minutes to complete a round. And a twosome is given 11 ¹/₂ minutes per hole, or 3 hours, 45 minutes for 18.

Also, each player has 45 seconds to play a shot.

First-time offenders are given a warning. If it happens again during the round, the player is warned and monitored for several holes by an official. A third offense results in a two-shot penalty.

Darak said it has been years since he has had to assess a two-shot penalty.

"We try to explain they have to play fast," Darak said. "The golf professional has become aware and they know what we expect."

Round of applause

Sabbatini is one of the tour's likeable guys, a player who wears army-fatigue pants to heighten awareness for his charity -- Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund -- which donates money to families of soldiers killed in the war in Iraq. Sabbatini donates $250 for every birdie, $1,000 for every eagle to the fund.

But he was skewered by nearly everyone for what he did to Crane, one of the slowest players on the PGA Tour. Paul Azinger, in the broadcast booth for ABC Sports, called it "as inconsiderate as anything I've seen." Sabbatini later issued a public apology for his behavior

"That was totally unprofessional," said CBS analyst Gary McCord. "That is not how you handle that. I've played with slow players before but you don't humiliate them in public. I'd wait till we get in the locker room and then I'd tell them about it."

Or, do what Fulton Allem did to slow-moving Bob Estes when they finished playing a round a number of years ago. After signing his name on Estes' scorecard, Allem also wrote, "You are too slow!"

Some of Sabbatini's fellow pros also delivered their opinion of his actions: When Sabbatini walked into the locker room at the U.S. Open several days after the incident with Crane, the players who were there gave him a standing ovation.