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.

The blog headline above applies to a new development that we will see today as the Professional Golf Tour heads to Hilton Head, Georgia, to play the annual RBC Tournament, which always follows hard-on-the heels of the Masters.

The new development:  Allowing players and caddies to use range finders.

I think this is a useful experiment for all golf tours that will help to answer a question that has two answers:

• Using range finders could slow up play as players and caddies measure everything.
• Using range finders could speed up play because players and caddies wouldn’t have to pace off as many distances.

If I was a professional caddy, I would welcome range finders.

Just consider if your player hit a bad shot off the tee into an area where it would be difficult to find any distance marker.  In the past, you might even have had to pace off the entire distance, which, of course, would slow up play.

Today, you could use a range finder.

Critics of range finders could contend that “real golf” requires either of two actions – (a) to walk off to measure distance or (b) to play by feel, just as past golfers did.

Range finder advocates might say that golf always is in a state of flux, as new equipment arrives and players use the new staff.  So, allow range finders.

One of my on-line golf magazines put it this way:

“The PGA Tour will begin testing the use of distance measuring devices during competition this week.

“The move, which was announced during the Players Championship in March, kicks off a six-tournament trial period over the next month.  The tour has two events this week, the signature event RBC Heritage and an alternate competition, the Corales Puntacana Championship.

“The testing period ends with the Truist Championship and Oneflight Myrtle Beach Classic.  

“The Korn Ferry Tour will also use this period to test the devices, starting at three straight events.

“Players using distance-measuring devices during competition must strictly adhere to ‘distance-only’ functionality.  Any advanced features — including course mapping, club selection assistance, slope calculation, elevation readings, or wind measurement — must be completely disabled before use.

“Violations incur severe penalties:  A first breach results in an immediate two-stroke penalty, while a second offense triggers automatic disqualification from the tournament.”

Concerns about slow play have plagued professional golf for years, not to mention me, a “recreational golfer” who plays a lot of rounds in a year.

Some of them are at my home course in Salem, Oregon, Illahe Hills Golf and Country Club, where the advice is to complete a round of 18-holes in about four hours.

In La Quinta, California, I play at The Palms in the winter and, there, the advice is to play 18-holes in three-and-a-half hours, which it turns out, is not difficult, if you work at it without hurrying.  Just play!

For pro golf, slow play intensity peaked early this golf season after several tournaments featured agonizingly protracted rounds.  The situation escalated when CBS reporter Dottie Pepper issued an impassioned on-air plea during the Farmers Insurance Open, declaring the problem was serious.

Augusta National and Masters Chairman Fred Ridley devoted time during his tournament press conference last to express his concerns for golf’s slow play epidemic, going so far as to suggest it may be monitored during Augusta National’s Drive, Chip and Putt competition.

Further, the use of distance-measuring devices is one of three recommendations from a player-formed committee to address slow play.  The committee also has recommended overhauling penalty structures by imposing immediate one-stroke penalties for a player’s first timing violation — a strengthening from the previous system that merely issued warnings for initial infractions.

Third, the committee is developing a transparency initiative that will publicly release comprehensive pace-of-play statistics for all PGA Tour professionals, hoping to create accountability through data visibility.

So, if you are a golf fan as I am, watch for these developments over the next few weeks.

Slow play is a major problem for pro golf tours, so I say pro golf leaders need to move quickly to put corrections in place so more TV viewers don’t tune out.  And, I also submit that playing faster won’t harm the best players.