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Sam Bennett is a problem

I think you spelled his name wrong…it’s actually Patrick Cantlay.


All jokes aside that was brutal to watch, and it’s not like he had a rhythm of 3 waggles then go.
 
The other day while at the range, I took a break and was watching a couple of guys play a sim round of golf on the TopTracer we have at our driving range. On average, it took one guy 6 seconds to hit his shot, and it took the other guy 30 seconds to hit his shot.
 
RealPretendPsychic said:
12-16 second clips don’t get the clicks the 30 second ones do. There were plenty of times he (I don’t want to say only, but I will) only peeked at the hole two or three times after setup.
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And thats fine. Let's say only half the time he broke the rules...Then what? For all of the talk of golfers getting mad about cheating and breaking the rules, why is this one openly accepted if we are to police ourselves?

I watched every golf shot he hit that was showed in the groups over the last 4 days and don't recall a single instance that he was on time. Im sure he was, but this was borderline insanity and has been going on as long as this thread has.
 
JB said:
And thats fine. Let's say only half the time he broke the rules...Then what? For all of the talk of golfers getting mad about cheating and breaking the rules, why is this one openly accepted if we are to police ourselves?

I watched every golf shot he hit that was showed in the groups over the last 4 days and don't recall a single instance that he was on time. Im sure he was, but this was borderline insanity and has been going on as long as this thread has.
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It’s not something that impacts my viewing experience, but obviously many people and players are expressing their displeasure with slow play. If the Tour really is interested in taking feedback and being better, they should do something about, especially after it reared its ugly head at the biggest event of the year. If baseball can implement their pitch clock transformation, then the Tour can address slow play in a meaningful way.
 
JB said:
12-16 seconds and I dont think anybody would ever say a word. There are so many examples out there of him taking over 30 from setup including multiple in this thread. Which of course goes back to the US Am where all of this started because the opponents were not thrilled with it.

He seems like a great young man and it is an amazing story. But standing at setup for 30+ seconds on each shot should not be accepted. The trickle down effect in golf is so real.
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Trickle down slow play is definitely a problem. I still think with these guys (pros) they are playing for insane amounts of $$ so an extra few seconds here or there doesn't bother me, but at the same time that is not a green light to hold up the field either. I think it's on the pro tours to find a way to implement meaningful fines. I think FedEX standings points come to mind or if really bad suspend them from a tournament.
 
I have a phrase I use when playing with newer golfers - there is no such thing as a bad golfer, just slow ones. Slow golf is the single thing that can ruin the great roll that golf has been on in the last several years.

It starts with the obnoxious pre-shot routines that teachers push out to newer golfers - then it gets reinforced by watching pros pull the nonsense Cantlay and Bennett did yesterday. Max Homa got pointed out on Twitter for his slow play a week or two earlier and he apologized for it.

There should be a cumulative timer kept on tour by a walking ref the same way it's done in chess. Player is responsible for knowing their cumulative time. Exceed it and start incurring stroke penalties.
 
mikeg_74 said:
Trickle down slow play is definitely a problem. I still think with these guys (pros) they are playing for insane amounts of $$ so an extra few seconds here or there doesn't bother me, but at the same time that is not a green light to hold up the field either. I think it's on the pro tours to find a way to implement meaningful fines. I think FedEX standings points come to mind or if really bad suspend them from a tournament.
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I agree with this. I think their rules are fair, because 40 and 60 seconds is loads of time.
The problem is they don't implement at all.
When it was Bryson, the entire world was on board with "get them to speed up". When it's a fan favorite or an unknown less is cared.

But the trickle down effect is real. I remember years ago playing with @Lions81 as my partner in a THP Experience. We watched a golf school in front us each go through the same pre shot routine they were clearly taught from this instructor at Mission Inn. All four golfers with the same routine and each one was over 30 seconds long. It was absolutely brutal to follow and watch. But this is the new way. You must have this lengthened pre shot routine that is the same for every single shot.
 
JB said:
I agree with this. I think their rules are fair, because 40 and 60 seconds is loads of time.
The problem is they don't implement at all.
When it was Bryson, the entire world was on board with "get them to speed up". When it's a fan favorite or an unknown less is cared.

But the trickle down effect is real. I remember years ago playing with @Lions81 as my partner in a THP Experience. We watched a golf school in front us each go through the same pre shot routine they were clearly taught from this instructor at Mission Inn. All four golfers with the same routine and each one was over 30 seconds long. It was absolutely brutal to follow and watch. But this is the new way. You must have this lengthened pre shot routine that is the same for every single shot.
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Yep. That was something I'll never forget. Was like watching robots. Every single one of them doing the exact same thing before every shot. Just brutal.
 
mikeg_74 said:
Some interesting perspectives and this is one topic I struggle with. I am firmly in the camp that I hate being rushed or feel like I am rushed because someone else's perspective of slow really isn't slow, it's just that person is impatient or really fast. That said Cantlay is slow and has been for years. No excuse for him this past weekend as you can see it visually affected the leaders behind them waiting a lot.

For Bennett I am not entirely convinced he is egregiously slow. I would like him to focus better before he addresses the ball and I think that changes the perception that he is slow. Several time this past weekend I timed him as soon as he addressed the ball and it was anywhere between 12-16 seconds before he swung the club. As a comparison I timed Brooks when they were paired up and he was in the 10-12 second range once he addressed the ball.

My point is that slow play is an issue and absolutely needs to be addressed, but the perspective gets skewed when you have someone who plays quicker than normal and gets impatient because others are not playing as fast as they are.
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Slow play is really the biggest problem with golf. If you have 1 golfer on course who does not like to be rushed and their perception of slow play is different (slower) than most then every single group behind this golfers group will be unable to play any faster than this one golfer. It forces 70 +/- golfers to adapt to 1 in the extreme example. I see more and more golfers that are either oblivious to what's going on around them or just don't care (people waiting, groups piling up).

They often learn this pace these days from junior golf coaching and watching "how the pros do it". Not to bring another divisive topic into the mix, but I would have much rather seen them really address slow play than the ball roll back. Slow play has a much higher chance of stopping the roll the game is on than distance. There just seems to be no appetite for it though.

Luckily I play on a private course with my own cart and my group will just typically skip a hole to get around these type people. It's shockingly often though.
 
JB said:
I agree with this. I think their rules are fair, because 40 and 60 seconds is loads of time.
The problem is they don't implement at all.
When it was Bryson, the entire world was on board with "get them to speed up". When it's a fan favorite or an unknown less is cared.

But the trickle down effect is real. I remember years ago playing with @Lions81 as my partner in a THP Experience. We watched a golf school in front us each go through the same pre shot routine they were clearly taught from this instructor at Mission Inn. All four golfers with the same routine and each one was over 30 seconds long. It was absolutely brutal to follow and watch. But this is the new way. You must have this lengthened pre shot routine that is the same for every single shot.
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Where does Spieth fall in all of this, is he typically within the allotted time? His one-way conversations with his caddie seem to take forever but I've never clocked it
 
mts25 said:
Slow play is really the biggest problem with golf. If you have 1 golfer on course who does not like to be rushed and their perception of slow play is different (slower) than most then every single group behind this golfers group will be unable to play any faster than this one golfer. It forces 70 +/- golfers to adapt to 1 in the extreme example. I see more and more golfers that are either oblivious to what's going on around them or just don't care (people waiting, groups piling up).

They often learn this pace these days from junior golf coaching and watching "how the pros do it". Not to bring another divisive topic into the mix, but I would have much rather seen them really address slow play than the ball roll back. Slow play has a much higher chance of stopping the roll the game is on than distance. There just seems to be no appetite for it though.

Luckily I play on a private course with my own cart and my group will just typically skip a hole to get around these type people. It's shockingly often though.
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Slow play is only an issue for us weekend guys because the group isn't addressing it. I agree it takes one group to slow a course down, but if you are in that group and not paying attention to your playing partners, then that is the bigger issue. I speak up when my group is slow or we are holding anyone one up.
 
JB said:
I agree with this. I think their rules are fair, because 40 and 60 seconds is loads of time.
The problem is they don't implement at all.
When it was Bryson, the entire world was on board with "get them to speed up". When it's a fan favorite or an unknown less is cared.

But the trickle down effect is real. I remember years ago playing with @Lions81 as my partner in a THP Experience. We watched a golf school in front us each go through the same pre shot routine they were clearly taught from this instructor at Mission Inn. All four golfers with the same routine and each one was over 30 seconds long. It was absolutely brutal to follow and watch. But this is the new way. You must have this lengthened pre shot routine that is the same for every single shot.
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At the junior level they have taken the "feel" out of the game and these kids have gotten too mechanical. I am all for a pre shot routine/process, but not at the cost for being as natural as they can be.

The Drive, Chip and Putt is a perfect example as I saw several kids with Aim Point on the greens. I didn't think much of it because it was one putt in hyper visible event, but I immediately thought these kids are doing this every hole on courses they've never played in competition. Those have to be brutally long rounds at that age and not setting them up to be natural free thinkers.
 
Because I was always 15 or 20 minutes behind on the DVR, and concurrently watching baseball, I never noticed the length of his pre-shot routine, in real time at least, as I’d FF to the swing. I did realize quickly though that he was really the only player that I’d reflexively do that for. But watching the clips here, man… that’s awful.
 
BuckNasty said:
Where does Spieth fall in all of this, is he typically within the allotted time? His one-way conversations with his caddie seem to take forever but I've never clocked it
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No idea. For years he was one of the slowest guys out there. He talked about it. He said he was addressing it. It still seems really slow, but not as bad as it once was. I know at one of the events earlier this year, his group was put on the clock 2-3 times. What's crazy is even if he never sped up, he is still faster than Cantlay and the young man being discussed here.
 
So here is a nightmare scenario, Patrick Cantlay, Brian Harman, and Sam Bennett all playing together trying to finish a hole before a big lightning storm hits.

 
mikeg_74 said:
At the junior level they have taken the "feel" out of the game and these kids have gotten too mechanical. I am all for a pre shot routine/process, but not at the cost for being as natural as they can be.

The Drive, Chip and Putt is a perfect example as I saw several kids with Aim Point on the greens. I didn't think much of it because it was one putt in hyper visible event, but I immediately thought these kids are doing this every hole on courses they've never played in competition. Those have to be brutally long rounds at that age and not setting them up to be natural free thinkers.
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And doing it on EVERY PUTT! 3' for par, aimpoint that b*tch. 80 footer, have to aimpoint that thing all the way to the hole, both ways. It's a scourge.
 
smgoldstein said:
Christopher Smith is a friend and former world record holder in speed golf. Shot like a 65 in 40 minutes or so. Wrote a book basically saying the faster one plays, the less thoughts they have and the better they score.

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This is obviously taking it to a bit of an extreme, but there's definitely something to be learned from it. I eliminated practice swings in my indoor golf routine, but still haven't been able to push myself to do that outside (though I only take one quick slow one).

I know playing by myself, no one in my way, walking, I can play 18 in about 2 hours. If I consciously played speed golf and jogged/ran, I could probably cut that to hour and 15 to hour and a half, though I feel like I'd make a lot of dumb moves at that pace.
 
mts25 said:
This. The slowest golfers I see by far at my club, are the really good high school, college, and sub-30 year olds golfers. Coaching went way wrong somewhere along the line.
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Off the bat I hate slow play and do think there should be a limit in place AND enforced. However, many of these players mentioned above and pros have much much more to play for then most. When I am in high school playing for a scholarship, you better believe I am walking around the hole to get a read from every side like Tiger does. In college you better believe I am taking a peak at my pin sheet and doing the math to get the true carry number of where I need to land the ball instead of just shooting the pin. No way I don't play the shot through my head and pick out a target each time like Jordan does outload with his caddie. Unfortunately many of these things just take extra time. A 10 second process for many, turns into 40 seconds.
 
jjjgolf500 said:
Off the bat I hate slow play and do think there should be a limit in place AND enforced. However, many of these players mentioned above and pros have much much more to play for then most. When I am in high school playing for a scholarship, you better believe I am walking around the hole to get a read from every side like Tiger does. In college you better believe I am taking a peak at my pin sheet and doing the math to get the true carry number of where I need to land the ball instead of just shooting the pin. No way I don't play the shot through my head and pick out a target each time like Jordan does outload with his caddie. Unfortunately many of these things just take extra time. A 10 second process for many, turns into 40 seconds.
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Then they should eliminate the rule, right?
This is no different than any other form of cheating, yet its excused because of "a lot on the line".
 
When you have Xander, then Bennett and then Cantlay in the 4 groups preceding Rahm/Koepka, things are going to slow to a bog.
 
Cantlay problem seems to be the time he takes getting to and from his ball. Many times yesterday I saw him 50-100 yards behind Victor. That's the stuff that bothers me WAY more than the extra wiggles and looks that Bennett does.
 
Parrot said:
When you have Xander, then Bennett and then Cantlay in the 4 groups preceding Rahm/Koepka, things are going to slow to a bog.
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I don’t think Xander is bad. The hand adjustment stuff is scary as hell though.
 
jjjgolf500 said:
Cantlay problem seems to be the time he takes getting to and from his ball. Many times yesterday I saw him 50-100 yards behind Victor. That's the stuff that bothers me WAY more than the extra wiggles and looks that Bennett does.
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This. Lots of players have weird set up routines. If Cantley wants to river dance before every putt it’s all good. Just get to your hall quicker bud.
 
Let's not forget that Hovland, who is one of the nice guys, sent a message to Cantlay. He hit a shot while Cantlay was still taking his leisurely stroll.

 
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