[Photo: Richard Heathcote]

Slow play is all the rage. And by all the “rage”, we mean literally, as in the emotion. We saw it last week, when Sleepy Hollow Country Club’s pace-of-play naughty list went viral, and again when our own Chris Powers suggested that doxxing golfers who are 12 minutes slower than the suggested pace is a little extreme. But as always with human beings, the response to a problem eventually becomes the problem itself, and that fact reared its ‘fugly’ head on the DP World Tour this weekend when Tommy Fleetwood was accused of slow play by the Sky Sports broadcast during his playoff with Aaron Rai at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship.

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“This is what I don’t like. To me, they’ve both got to arrive at the tee at the same time. I don’t like that. That gives the person who arrives on the tee last an advantage,” Sky Sports commentator Andrew Coltart said when Fleetwood arrived on the playoff’s first tee several moments after eventual winner Aaron Rai.

“Tommy is just slowing it all down, a little gamesmanship. Clever. Making him wait, stew,” co-commentator David Howell replied.

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If Fleetwood – one of the pro golf’s few true ‘good guys’ – being accused of dabbling in the dark arts struck you as odd, you weren’t alone. In fact, Fleetwood himself was surprised by the interpretation of events on Sunday, offering a very simple explanation for the delay:

Nature called.

“I did see the comments… It’s one of those things, I don’t know – look, you don’t know in what context it was said. I didn’t hear it. I read it,” Fleetwood explained at the DP World Tour Championship overnight (Australian time).

“I feel like it’s disappointing… Andrew, I think very highly of him. I think he’s amazing – I’ve read one little piece and I’m not saying – whether the article was written that way. I’m not going to accuse anybody of meaning anything by it.

“I’m just saying from my point of view, I had just played with Aaron for 36 holes, we are unbelievably close and unbelievably supportive of each other in our careers. I was desperate for the toilet, and then as soon as I was finished, I ran to the tee and that was how it happened.

“So yeah, you know, I think everybody knows that I – or I would hope that everybody knows that I wouldn’t do anything like that, and I think the world of Aaron, as well.

“So no, I don’t know how it was written. It’s hard to comment on something or defend yourself on something that you to the extent know in what form it was said or written.

“But like I said, that’s what happened. We walked off the 18th and I was desperate to go to the toilet, I said to Miguel, ‘Can I please go to the toilet?’ He said yes. I ran to the toilet; ran to the tee.”

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Seems reasonable enough to us and Fleetwood has given pundits little reason to doubt his sincerity and intentions over the years. But hey, if you’re a pace-of-play hardliner, perhaps the reigning Tour Championship winner’s explanation still isn’t enough. Perhaps your need for speed is so great that only one thing can possibly satisfy it:

Adult nappies.