Lexi Thompson and world No 1 Nelly Korda have both backed Charley Hull’s ‘ruthless’ calls to impose harsher penalties for slow play and tackle a ‘big issue’ on the LPGA Tour.
Hull was left frustrated after her third round at the ANNIKA on Saturday took nearly five hours and 40 minutes as a three-ball, leaving her, Korda and Alexa Pano finishing in near darkness.
The Englishwoman described taking so long as ‘ridiculous’ and believes more needs to be done to punish slow players, with Hull suggesting one extreme change to the rules to encourage a quicker pace of play.
Charley Hull suggested some extreme ways to tackle slow play on the LPGA Tour and called for harsher penalties to be imposed
Speaking after her final round on Sunday, where she finished tied-second as Korda claimed a seventh win of the season, Hull said: “I’m quite ruthless, but I said, ‘listen, if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a two-shot penalty.
“If you have three of them [penalties], you lose your [LPGA] Tour card instantly. I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up and they won’t want to lose their Tour card. That would kill the slow play, but they would never do that.”
Hull’s comments were referenced heavily in press conferences ahead of the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, with Korda agreeing with her ‘funny’ suggestion and calling for more to be done.
“I personally think it’s a pretty big issue,” Korda said. “I think it’s not good for the fans that come out and watch us. If it was me personally, I would be very, very annoyed watching for five hours and 40 minutes, close to six. I just think it really drags the game down. I think that it really, really needs to change.
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“Players just need to be penalised. Rules officials need to watch from the first group. Once they get two minutes behind, one minute behind, it just slows everything down. To be standing over a putt for two to three minutes, that’s ridiculous.
“I think people just need to be ready faster. People start their process a little too late and they stand over it too long. Again, I think we need more people on the ground to monitor pace of play. I don’t think we have enough people to monitor it.”
Thompson believes Hull’s suggestion was a ‘bit of an aggressive comment’ but agreed more need to be done to tackle a slow play issue that she felt has ‘gotten worse’.
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“I don’t disagree with it [Hull]’s comments,” Thompson said. “It has to be done. Something has to be done to quicken up the play out there, whether it’s fines or whatever it is. Needs to be done because we need to play quicker.
“Rounds shouldn’t be taking more than four and a half hours, especially in threesomes. Four and a half should be the max. It’s definitely a problem out here right now. So I don’t know what we’ll do to try to get it resolved but hopefully just play quicker.”
The LPGA Tour does issue fines and penalties for the slow play and AIG Women’s Open champion Lydia Ko said: “I don’t know if that’s more of an issue on our Tour versus other tours. I believe that the rules officials and everybody that sets these guidelines are doing their best to make it fair for everyone.
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“Even if you’re the biggest golfing fan, nobody wants to be out there for as long as possible. I think the slow play topic is talked about on every tour. I’m sure everybody, whether it’s the players, people setting these rules, are doing their best to get us in there and get us out of there as quick as possible.
“I don’t think there is a single person out here that is a trying to defy that.”
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