‘This is cheating!’ Tour star slammed after latest slow play drama

The controversial topic of slow play has reared its ugly head again in recent weeks.

Charley Hull wants to see extreme measures for the worst offenders – “I’m quite ruthless,” she said ahead of the LPGA’s Tour Championship last month. “If you get three bad timings, it’s a two shot penalty. If you have three of them you lose your tour card instantly.” – while major champions Nelly Korda and Lexi Thompson were among those also calling for tougher punishments.

The following week the problem was highlighted at the Open de Espana on the Ladies European Tour.

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Carlota Ciganda is well known as a slow player. She once beat Sarah Schmelzel on the 18th hole in the LPGA Match Play only to have the result overturned when she got into the scorer’s tent having been assessed penalty shots for exceeding her allotted time for total strokes taken on the finishing hole.

The Spaniard has also been hit with several thousand dollars worth of slow play fines this season.

There’s a reason her nickname among her peers is ‘Human Weather Delay’.

And the seven-time Solheim Cupper was making headlines again in her homeland, particularly after a clip of her taking almost a minute and a half to hit a shot began circulating on social media…

Players are supposed to have 40 seconds to hit a shot.

Ciganda routinely doubles that time and the tours won’t do anything about it.

So why post about it? Because whether it’s on tour or at your local muni, slow play is a plague that must be eradicated. pic.twitter.com/ChoVApJBxN

— Brock 🪨 (@Golfingbrock) December 1, 2024

It’s safe to say the fans weren’t impressed…

This is essentially cheating and is disrespectful to fans and fellow competitors…or maybe the Tour’s pace of play Rules are just window-dressing.
– @RobertTyreMarks

I watched her this morning attempting to hit a low punch shot under a few trees. She took forever and backed off the shot 3 times. Probably about 2 minutes to hit that one shot.
– @Thomas55G

One of the main issues with ultra slow players is that if they hit a bad shot, it’s because they didn’t take enough time(in their minds). Or if they hit a good shot, it validates the time spent. Lose/lose
– @Noles31BB

Amen. The only way to change it is to start hammering people with strokes, and it needs to start at the AM level yesterday.
– @GolfBurner

If the LPGA wants to move things along, publish the list of players’ average shot time every week and reward the top 10 somehow
– @ianfamousmofo

OMG that is freaking nuts … so bad
– madmaxmax77

You’re not wrong. Courses & the USGA do little to proactively teach the 40 second rule, or net double bogey for that matter. Both could save vast amounts of time. I do hear starters mention how long a round should take, keeping pace, but you hardly ever see a ranger thereafter.
– @adamsok41

Yet no tour will stand up to the players. Penalties. Big ones. Do it. And the guys at the local need to be asked to leave.
– @johnducom

Painful. She’d likely move quicker if playing partners proceeded without her Would be funny to watch if each player in a group played like they were solo…hitting approach shots when they got to their ball (regardless if they were out) and putting 2 or 3 at same time.
– @mrrealtordallas

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Meanwhile, Tron Carter of No Laying Up fame made his feelings very clear…

This is cheating. Plain and simple.
– @TronCarterNLU

Ciganda went on to win the title – her eighth on the LET and 11th overall – by a single stroke over Belgian Manon De Roey.

Alex Perry is the Associate Editor of bunkered. A journalist for more than 20 years, he has been a golf industry stalwart for the majority of his career and, in a five-year spell at ESPN, covered every sporting event you can think of. He completed his own Grand Slam at the 2023 Masters, having fallen in love with the sport at his hometown club of Okehampton and on the links of nearby Bude & North Cornwall.

Associate Editor