Perspective from the 19^th Hole is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I have written about this before, but I still cannot believe all the smart people running professional golf cannot solve one of its major problems:  Slow play.

One or both of the following actions would solve the problem.

• Impose penalties on golfers when they exceed the time allowed to play under current official golf rules, one of which is that, when it is your turn to play, you have 40 seconds to do so.  Unless you encounter a problem on a shot such as being close to a tree;l they have an additional 10 seconds to play.

• Inject a shot-clock into the process much like occurs in professional football, basketball, and now even, baseball.  This was tried successfully in Europe when, behind every group, a cart drove with a shot clock on the back of the cart for all to see.  Penalties were imposed.

Easy?  Yes.

Controversial?  Perhaps.

But golf’s leaders better do something before slow play prompts more and more viewers to opt out of watching golf on TV.

Players, too, should get the message.  Speed up.

One of my on-line golf magazines wrote about the subject this way, using the euphemism “competition adjustments:”

• Rulings really clog things up.  The Tour intends to make more “virtual rulings” or at least get officials on the scene faster using its video review center back at Tour HQ in Florida.

• Rangefinders (distance-measuring devices) are going to be tested beginning this year.  Whether that’ll speed things up remains something of an open question, but Tour officials said they’re going to collect data at some upcoming events.  [Data would be good because I, for one, could argue both sides of this issue – rangefinders speed up play; rangefinders slow play.]
  
  
• In a typical pro tournament, there are just too many people on the golf course for things to flow.  One quote that stood out:  “Slower players have been allowed to hide.”  Next year’s reduced field sizes should help, as should more data collection (though it also is true that reducing field sizes also means that players trying to make it on tour will have a tougher time doing so).
  
  
• The Tour is finally considering naming and shaming.  Leaders know how long it takes every player on Tour to hit each type of shot.  Fines have been handed out behind closed doors.  And tournament officials have met with slow-play offenders to try to help them speed things up.  But one tweak under consideration is sharing penalty data publicly in the interest of greater transparency (and, theoretically, peer pressure).

Okay. 

Do all that. 

And impose penalties, too.  For those who make a living playing, such action will get their attention.