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Will Rangefinder use at the PGA Championship speed up play?

tahoebum

tahoebum

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I think that speeding up play is the intent of allowing rangefinders to be used at the PGA Championship in May. Will it? I agree with Morikowa that it likely won't help. I'm fine with them allowing rangefinders as they already have the yardages readily available from their caddy within seconds. IMO, the reasons for slowplay are elsewhere.

www.golfchannel.com

PGA Championship allows rangefinders, Collin Morikawa and other pros weigh in

Defending PGA champ Collin Morikawa and other tour pros offer their thoughts on the PGA of America's decision to allow distance-measuring devices.
www.golfchannel.com www.golfchannel.com
 
Nope

to me, a shot clock with penalties is the only cure for slow play on tour
 
I think so. I can’t see how it doesn’t
 
I don’t think it will help significantly. They aren’t concerned with just the pins. Maybe
 
USAF Ret in Wis said:
Nope

to me, a shot clock with penalties is the only cure for slow play on tour
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I would like to see that. You would see rushed mistakes like in the NBA!
 
I don’t expect the rangefinder to speed up play at all. Slow players like Bryson are still going to be slow. Heck watch Bryson be even slower by using the finder then walking off the yardage as well. 😂
 
fuffle master said:
I don’t expect the rangefinder to speed up play at all. Slow players like Bryson are still going to be slow. Heck watch Bryson be even slower by using the finder then walking off the yardage as well. 😂
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Sadly you are not wrong. ;)
 
It will take a year or two for players to rely less on the yardage book and more on the RF - it may result in better rangefinders for us. The pros want more - I want it easier and more reliable to get yardage to bunkers, water, front and back of green. But on a flat course, that will be tough - yardage books or better GPS RF's
 
Honestly? Probably not.

I read an article written by a Tour caddie where he discussed it and explained all the numbers most Tour players want before they hit their shot. The rangefinder isn't going to give them those numbers, they're still going to need to consult the yardage books and green maps. The only place I can see it being any help to them is if they're off the fairway and not near any sprinkler heads - but they'll still want a lot of other numbers from the yardage book, then rangefinder will just be the first part of the equation.

[edit:] Here's a link to the article: https://golf.com/news/pga-championship-rangefinder-pace-of-play/
 
I do not think it will help, but it can’t hurt. I like the shot clock idea.
 
I don't think so. Any good caddie worth his salt, has the distances at the various tour stops already dialed in.

If anything the use of range finders on the pro tour will help with sales of range finders at the non professional level.
 
No way, the caddy and player will be talking about wind, slope, right, left, spin et. al. but my hope is it won't slow things down even more..... but, it will do great things for rangefinder sales!
 
I doubt it. IMO for most of them it's just going to be something else they add in to the routine.

That said I do think they should try it. We have things at work called test and learns. It's an opportunity to try new things, but actually set them up like an experiment and see what we learn. The PGA Tour could use a couple of tourneys to test this out and use the other tourneys as a control group to see what they find. Throwing it against the wall in one major probably isn't going to show us anything.
 
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Desmond said:
It will take a year or two for players to rely less on the yardage book and more on the RF - it may result in better rangefinders for us. The pros want more - I want it easier and more reliable to get yardage to bunkers, water, front and back of green. But on a flat course, that will be tough - yardage books or better GPS RF's
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With all the GPS course mapping it certainly would be possible to integrate something like a Garmin G80 into a laser rangefinder but I wonder if there’s a big enough market for something that would cost a couple hundred more than the G80? I use my rangefinder all the time on new courses to gun trees and bunkers on doglegs or green side bunker lips.
 
I don't think it's going to solve anything. If anything, it will add to the slow play for some players. Now it's one more thing to add together . .. walk off the distance, add it up, oh wait … hit the range finder … sorry wrong number … walk it off again. :eek:
 
Here we are! Curious to see how this goes.
 
Canadan said:
I predict it changes absolutely nothing.
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As in they neglect the rangefinders and still pace off everything or just that pace remains the same?
 
RealPretendPsychic said:
As in they neglect the rangefinders and still pace off everything or just that pace remains the same?
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I'm not really sure. With yardage books the way they are, and how pros navigate out there, all it might do is validate the pin distance so they start their math there.

It sort of devalues the effectiveness of caddies distance knowledge, while at the same time altering only a small piece of what they are doing, especially if the course is playing firm.
 
Canadan said:
I'm not really sure. With yardage books the way they are, and how pros navigate out there, all it might do is validate the pin distance so they start their math there.

It sort of devalues the effectiveness of caddies distance knowledge, while at the same time altering only a small piece of what they are doing, especially if the course is playing firm.
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Agreed, I’m just interested to see how and if they’re used. My concern is that they’ll only be used in addition to the usual routine making everything even slower.
 
Nope they won't help one bit!

The reason for slow play isn't because they are waiting on a distance from their caddy.
 
RealPretendPsychic said:
As in they neglect the rangefinders and still pace off everything or just that pace remains the same?
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Most likely they do everything they did before plus they shoot it with the rangefinder.

If they want the slowest of the Tour players to play faster, they will have to assess penalty strokes for taking too much time. Nothing else is going to have the slightest impact on the ones who are happy to play at a 5-hour pace.
 
I wouldn’t be surprised if the radar actually slows down play as the caddie uses both radar and a yardage book.
 
I don't think it will speed up anything. Why would it? The distance isn't the only thing, the lift or drop wind, what club to hit, any hazards to make sure you miss etc are all things that a rangefinder doesn't account for, as far as I know. All of that being said I don't have one so I can't tell you how they work I just don't see them speeding up the game at all.
 
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