{"id":8577,"date":"2025-07-19T17:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/8577\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T17:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T17:33:08","slug":"out-of-control-dechambeau-and-stenson-take-a-swing-at-open-slow-play-chaos-the-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/8577\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Out of control\u2019: DeChambeau and Stenson take a swing at Open slow-play chaos | The Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

A day after a controversial penalty was issued to Shane Lowry<\/a>, two former major champions, Henrik Stenson and Bryson DeChambeau, have criticised the R&A\u2019s approach to slow play at the Open after being spoken to by rules officials in separate incidents during round three.<\/p>\n

Day one at Royal Portrush saw three balls take close to six hours. \u201cFirst two rounds it was out of control, what I saw,\u201d said DeChambeau.<\/p>\n

By Saturday, with players in pairs, that had been reduced generally to little more than four hours. Groups involving Stenson and DeChambeau, though, were still warned over timing. Stenson admitted he \u201cvented\u201d to referees after signing for a 69.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a warning on the 10th green that we were three minutes out, so five minutes over the allotted time frame,\u201d said the 2016 Open winner. \u201cI had joked yesterday with the other guys about the first two days, first round took about an hour over the allotted time. Second round was four to five minutes over. I said: \u2018We just have to wait until halfway through Saturday or Sunday and someone is going to come up to you and say that you\u2019re two minutes over and they\u2019re going to start pushing you on.\u2019 That\u2019s exactly what happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if you can play an hour over time scheduled in one day, then all of a sudden two minutes is of huge importance the next day, it feels a bit inconsistent to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henrik Stenson said the approach to timing on the third day was inconsistent with what happened on the opening day. Photograph: Andrew Redington\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

DeChambeau was similarly baffled. After a 68, the two-time major winner confirmed his pairing had been put on the clock on the 17th. \u201cI was moving my butt as fast as I could,\u201d he said. \u201cGreens were really tricky. I was trying to read them right.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very simple. It\u2019s not difficult at all. You eventually time everybody for their whole entire round. Very simple. Nobody wants to do it because people are too scared to get exposed, which I am an advocate for. I\u2019d love to be timed, and I have no problem with that. My putting, I\u2019m more deliberate, take more time on that, but when it comes to iron shots, off the tee, I\u2019m pretty fast.<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n

The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody plays a different style of game and that\u2019s just the way it is. I wish it was just a new system. I think it would be more fair towards everybody. If somebody is playing slower, the guy can go up to him and say: \u2018Hey, man, you\u2019re over par with your time.\u2019 All you do is you just time them for every single shot. He gets there and puts the bag down, and how long it takes him to hit that shot and how long it takes him to walk to the green. It\u2019s not rocket science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lowry was unwilling to delve back in to the controversy that saw him hit with a two-shot sanction<\/a> late on Friday. The Irishman did say fellow players have been supportive. \u201cSomething needs to be changed for sure,\u201d said Jon Rahm of the rule which Lowry fell foul of. Lowry was adamant on Friday he did not see his ball roll backwards in rough at the 12th hole during a practice swing, with officials determining he was in breach. \u201cI just don\u2019t know exactly how they could change it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A day after a controversial penalty was issued to Shane Lowry, two former major champions, Henrik Stenson and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":["post-8577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-golf","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}