Nicklaus wants slow play crackdown

Medal of honour: The USGA has re-named the US Open’s winner’s medal after Jack Nicklaus

One-shot penalties are not going to fix problem, says 18-time major winner

Jack Nicklaus has questioned the USGA’s decision to hand a one-shot penalty to players who get collared for slow play at this week’s US Open – saying that it isn’t a severe enough sanction.

Nicklaus, who was at the Olympic Club this week to hear the USGA re-name the US Open winner’s gold medal after him, is a fierce critic of the time that today’s players take to play the game.

The USGA, for their part, have said that players taking overly long will be subject to one-shot penalties but Nicklaus doesn’t think that is going far enough.

“Everything else is two shots in golf, why one shot?” asked the 18-time major winner.

Told that it was because “administrators would be more apt to use it”, the ‘Golden Bear’ was unimpressed.

He said: “That’s, again, accommodating the player. For years it was two strokes. I got a two-stroke penalty in Portland one year, for being a slow player. And a couple of years later I got a slow play penalty in Houston playing with Middlecoff.  It happened to both of us playing together.

“But, anyway, a two-stroke penalty, that’s a bad deal. That throws you right out of a tournament or certainly can. And you don’t want that.

“So if you want to get play to increase, the tour, it’s been 14 years since they penalised somebody a stroke. We haven’t had any players in 14 years?  Come on, give me a break.

“If you’re going to do it, you’ve got to do it. And if you’re going to increase play, then you have to figure out how to do it. It’s no different than somebody said roll back the golf ball or whatever. Whatever you do, do it. And do something that’s going to actually be significant that actually benefits the game.”

Nicklaus acknowledged that he was not a particularly quick golfer back in his pomp.

“I was a slow player when I was younger,” he said. “I learned how to combat that and how to not do it.

“I remember we played at Olympic in ’66 we had the USGA gestapo, as we called them then. They followed you around with a watch walking behind you. They had one with every group. They go, ‘You took 33 and a half seconds to play that shot. You need to move faster.’  It was a little ridiculous.

“But I believe that slow play is not a good thing for the game, even if I was one of the guys that perpetrated that thing.

“The problem with slow play is that all of the kids try to copy the pros. All the kids grow up playing slow, and that’s the problem.”

Bryce Ritchie is the Editor of bunkered and, in addition to leading on content and strategy, oversees all aspects of the brand. The first full-time journalist employed by bunkered, he joined the company in 2001 and has been editor since 2009. A member of Balfron Golfing Society, he currently plays off nine and once got a lesson from Justin Thomas’ dad.

Editor of bunkered