Tour News

Guan revisited: Hideki Matsuyama hit with slow play penalty

Published

11 years ago

Jul 21, 2013

For the second time at the the majors in 2013, a player was assessed a penalty for slow play. The offending party: Hideki Matsuyama of Japan, who, after multiple warnings, was penalized on the 17th hole of his third round at The Open Championship.

Matsuyama and playing partner Johnson Wagner first faced the timekeeper’s disapproving glare on the 15th hole. At that point, the players were 15 minutes behind. The group ahead of them (the not exactly young and sprite) Tom Lehman and Mark O’Meara, were significantly outpacing the two at the time, according to the R&A.

After being notified that they were on the clock on the 15th green, Matsuyama had another “bad time” (2 minutes, 12 seconds behind, reportedly) while playing his approach to the 17th hole and was assessed a one-stroke penalty.

The penalty gave the young native of Japan a bogey 6 on the 17th hole, and he eventually finished the day six shots behind leader Lee Westwood.

Of course, there have been suggestions that Matsuyama, a native of Japan, didn’t understand the situation. However, David Rickman, the R&A’s rules official, didn’t give much credence to such sentiments.

“I can confirm that the player was fully aware of the circumstances that he was in,” Rickman said.

One player who did understand the situation and didn’t agree with the penalty was playing partner Johnson Wagner, who took particular issue with the fact that Matsuyama was assessed the penalty on a hole (the 17th) where his drive had struck a spectator, which slowed the group’s progress.

“I don’t like slow play either but given his position in the tournament, and given the shot he faced on 17, I don’t think he took too long,” Wagner said. “I think it’s tragic and I think the R&A should use better judgment in the penalising of it.”

Tragic or not, the R&A in general, and David Rickman in particular, have spoken, and a second player has been docked a stroke at one of golf’s most significant tournaments this year.

Will slow play play a role in the final Round of The Open Championship? Surely, times will tell.

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7 Comments

Augustine

Jul 25, 2013 at 9:27 am

I think the PGA tour should have “timeboards” at every tee just to show whether a group is behind… that would be a fair way to time everyone, not just those “judged” to be slow then placed on the clock…

But, this makes too much sense, so the R&A will not do it…

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yo!

Jul 23, 2013 at 2:23 pm

At the professional level, either put everyone on the clock and enforce it equally rather than haphazardly. Or give the players the option of calling the clock on another player. I’ve been to a couple of tournaments and have timed how long the pros take to make a shot. It is slow … but at least no one gets called for it so no one complains that it is unfair.

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Norm

Jul 22, 2013 at 1:55 pm

That one shot may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the fact is that it was an entire round that was slow. How do you possibly fall 15 minutes behind the group in front of you? That’s abysmal. A twosome of professional golfers shooting around par for 18 holes should play in under 4 hours. 15 minutes is a significant amount of time when put in context. Also, the articale does not mention that there was a Japanese speaking rules official with the group, so “he didn’t understand” was not the case.

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Chris

Jul 22, 2013 at 1:14 am

correction Johnson not Jonathan (can’t even blame my spell check!).

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Chris

Jul 22, 2013 at 1:13 am

This penalty was a mistake. Jonathan got it right, the R&A should known better. But of course if you look at their handling of the rule book over the years you can tell they are out of touch.

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tonyk

Jul 22, 2013 at 12:57 am

Maybe it’s just a coincidence that only young Asian players actually got penalties by slow play.

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- purkjason
  
  Jul 24, 2013 at 10:40 am
  
  I was thinking the exact same thing tonyk. I think Ben Crane should get a penalty stroke for almost every hole he has ever played on tour and the pre shot routine of Keegan Bradley takes 2 mins. in itself, not to mention it’s annoying with all the club spinning. I think the R&A are penalizing the Asian Players due to them improving at a rapid pace. Just look at the LPGA and it’s dominated by the Asian Women and with the help of Greg Norman the young Asian Players will only become better quickly. And the Asians have more pride and dedication than the Americans so they deserve all that comes from hard work. And yes, I’m an American making these comments.
  
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Equipment

Spotted: Putter roundup from the 2024 3M Open

Published

2 days ago

Jul 25, 2024

Brian Knudson

Every week we spot some really cool and custom putters out on the putting green and in tour players’ bags. This week is no slouch with some really interesting and beautiful putters being tested. Let’s take a look at some of the standouts we found.

Tyler Duncan: Scotty Cameron Phantom T-11.5

The Phantom 11 is a pretty wild putter by Scotty’s standards with a multi-material design that boosts MOI for more forgiveness. Duncan’s T-11.5. takes the stock model and moves the shaft to the center of the putter head. We don’t mean a center shafted version, but the shaft is installed in the center, behind the face as well. We don’t have any official details on this T-11.5 but it looks like that setup should create a putter where the face points towards the hole or target, similar to a L.A.B. putter.

Zac Blair: Scotty Cameron 009.M Cameron & Co. “Longneck”

Blair might be in possession of the largest Scotty collection on tour! It seems like every week he has something new, and flat-out gorgeous, that he is trying out. I have seen a lot of 009.M putters over the years, but never one with a long plumbers neck on it. This 009 is a Masterful that utilizes additional CNC machine work to reduce the amount of hand polishing needed to complete the putter. The long, or tall, neck on the putter usually is used to reduce the amount of toe hang and make the putter more face balanced. The face contains a very shallow milling while the sole features a tour truck, tour only, diamonds, and the rare Circle L stamp. The Circle L was made for Scotty’s close friends who lost matches or games and was meant to poke a little fun at their misfortune.

Paul Barjon: PXG Prototype

There are a lot of putters out there that become so widely used and popular that other manufacturers will borrow some of the design cues. The Spider is one of those putters and it looks like PXG has made a prototype putter for Barjon that has some similar features. This proto has a tapered mallet shape with twin wings that come out from either side of the rear. Twin movable weights sit in each wing on the sole and the sole features a plate that is bolted in place at the corners. The top contains a single siteline and the face uses PXG’s advanced pyramid face structure.

Odyssey Ai-One Cruiser Broomstick #7

More and more long, counterbalanced, and alternative putters seem to be showing up recently. The long, or broomstick, putter is making a comeback and more than a few players have joined Adam Scott in using that style. Odyssey has thrown its hat in the broomstick arena with a new Ai-One Cruiser model. The head shape is the very familiar #7 model, but with the shaft going into the center of the club head. An Ai-One face is there to help keep ball speed consistent on off-center hits and three white lines are on top for framing ball and aligning the putter.

TaylorMade Spider Tour S Broomstick

Another option in the long putter is TaylorMade’s Spider Tour S broomstick that we saw around the putting green. The head looks to be a little larger than the standard Tour S and that makes sense with the broomstick-style putters demanding heads near or over 400g. A TPU Pure Roll insert is installed in the face and the shaft is a more traditional double-bend design, just much longer! There isn’t the True Path alignment on top, just a full darker grey finish with a single siteline. Two moveable weights are out in the wings of the putter to dial in the specific weight a player might want.

Check out the rest of our photos from the 2024 3M Open

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Tour Photo Galleries

Photos from the 2024 3M Open

Published

4 days ago

Jul 23, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

GolfWRX is on site this week at TPC Twin Cities for the 2024 3M Open for the penultimate event of the PGA Tour’s regular season.

The photos are flying in from Blaine, Minnesota. We’ve already assembled general galleries and a fresh Tony Finau WITB.

Check back throughout the week for more photos!

General Albums

WITB Albums

Pullout Albums

Chris Gotterup’s TM P-7CB irons – 2024 3M Open

See what GolfWRXers are saying in the forums.

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Equipment

Collin Morikawa’s pre-Open equipment adjustments

Published

1 week ago

Jul 18, 2024

GolfWRX Staff

Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from a piece our Andrew Tursky originally wrote for PGATour.com’s Equipment Report. Head over there for the full article.

Three years later, Morikawa has once again changed his irons to deal with the unique Scottish turf.

Morikawa has been using TaylorMade P730 blade short irons (7-PW), P7MC mid irons (5-6) and a TaylorMade “Proto” 4-iron with a cavity-back construction this year.

However, he switched into a new set of TaylorMade P7CB irons (5-PW) before finishing T4 at last week’s Genesis Scottish Open, to go along with his familiar “Proto” 4-iron. TaylorMade’s P7CB irons are the finalized versions of the “Proto” 4-iron that Morikawa has been using, except they remain unreleased to retail.

According to TaylorMade, Morikawa switched into a full set of the new P7CB irons to aid with turf interaction, just like he did prior to his 2021 Open victory.

Morikawa is honing in on his winning formula overseas.

Morikawa also has switched from his usual TaylorMade Qi10 5-wood to a lower-launching TaylorMade P790 3-iron equipped with a Project X HZRDUS 105 Hybrid shaft. The loft of the club has been bent down to 19 degrees.

TaylorMade says that Morikawa switched into the new driving iron In order to “have an option to hit something lower that will roll out in the fairways.”

Head over to PGATour.com for the full article.

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