If you have ever watched a PGA tour event, it appears as though many of the players on the tour play at a super fast pace of play. It makes sense though, professional golfers take much less time in between their strokes and when hitting the ball. While this may be true for most PGA tour players, there are a few that are actually quite slow.
Chances are you’ve never seen it because televised PGA Tour events only show the players hitting the ball, while cutting out all of the time a player takes before the shot. So, I became a bit more curious about who the slowest players on the PGA Tour are. Below is a list of players that I have found to be some of the slowest.
Slowest Players On The PGA Tour
- JB Holmes
- Bryson DeChambeau
- Patrick Cantlay
- Ben Crane
JB Holmes – Slow Pace Of Play
When doing some research, I found that JB Holmes has one of the slowest times on the professional tour. According to reports, in the 2005 Walker Cup, Holmes took a whopping 1 minute and 30 seconds before he took his wedge shot. Below is a twitter video of that shot.
From what I found, JB Homles is one of the slowest players on the PGA Tour. It is clear from the video that he was analyzing his position and where he wanted to hit the ball. And in this case, it paid off, landing his shot a few feet away from the hole.
Another example of JB Holmes being one of the slowest players on the PGA Tour can be seen in this video. Holmes took almost 1 minute and 20 seconds to hit his putt and missed it. So it does not always pay off having a slow pace of play. However, it is a bit agonizing to watch, which is why many viewers are not big fans of slow players.
Bryson DeChambeau – Slow Pace Of Play
It is no surprise that Bryson has been given the nickname “The Scientist” as he has such a calculated approach to golf. It is also no surprise that he has a slow pace of play. Having such a calculated game requires Bryson to take time during his shots to figure out the best way to approach his situation.
According to Golf Digest, Bryson DeChambeau averaged around 42.01 seconds during his shots. While this may not seem like a lot, it just barely violates the USGA’s rule on pace of play. However, despite his long shot times, he has performed exceptionally well, so maybe there is some truth behind the science.
Patrick Cantlay – Slow Pace Of Play
Another player that seems to keep the clock ticking during his shots is Patrick Cantlay. Most viewers on social media give him a hard time on how long he takes to hit his shots. From many videos, it seems that Cantlay is a bit fidgety, repositioning his feet every few seconds. Below are some examples of Patrick Cantlay’s slow pace of play.
This is another tweet somebody made about how slow he is.
And one more…
While I was not able to find an average time for Cantlay, it seems that the majority of viewers think that his pace of play is way too slow in comparison to the rest of the players on the PGA Tour.
It mainly seems that Cantlay can’t get his foot placement right, or he doesn’t feel comfortable settling his feet. It seems that trying to correctly position his feet is what takes up the most amount of time for Cantlay.
Ben Crane – Slow Pace Of Play
Arguably one of the slowest players on the PGA tour, and most self-aware, is Ben Crane. I was not able to find an average shot time for him, but there are plenty of records of other players getting fed up with the amount of time that he takes for his shots. Ben Crane actually made a youtube video acknowledging how slow he plays:
Is It Legal For PGA Players To Play Slow?
As mentioned above, the USGA has implemented rules that prevent players from exceeding 40 seconds during their shots (except on the green). This rule was put into place so that all professional tours could move at a reasonable pace. However, this rule is not always enforced as many pros exceed this limit and face no penalties.
More specifically, the rules states:
“Each player is permitted a maximum of 40 seconds to make a stroke. A player who exceeds 40 seconds is considered to have made a bad time only when the player exceeds 40 seconds, plus an additional 10 percent timing margin.”
Even with the 10% timing margin, most players still break this rule. So, for the players that are slow, they aren’t being held accountable most of the time.
Final Thoughts: Slowest Players On The PGA Tour
All-in-all these players are among some of the best in the world, they do definitely take their time. Even with the USGA’s efforts to speed up the pace of play, some of these players still have a tendency to slow up the pace. Over time, with more enforcing of the rules, this issue could be fixed.