{"id":81501,"date":"2025-08-21T01:53:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T01:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/81501\/"},"modified":"2025-08-21T01:53:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T01:53:13","slug":"former-major-winner-blasts-pga-tour-players-in-extraordinary-rant-it-is-so-annoying-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/81501\/","title":{"rendered":"Former major winner blasts PGA Tour players in extraordinary rant: “It is so annoying to me”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former long-time CBS Sports analyst Ian Baker-Finch has revealed what he believes is the biggest issue regarding pace of play on the PGA Tour<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Baker-Finch spent 19 years calling the action but retired from broadcasting at the Wyndham Championship<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The former Open champion, who won the Claret Jug in 1991, joined the most recent edition of The Smylie Show to discuss the men’s game and his career.<\/p>\n

Baker-Finch said over his 30-year association with professional golf he has only seen pace of play get worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He believes caddies are partly to blame, with exchanges between player and looper taking far longer than necessary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“It is so annoying to me on television,” he said. “I’ve been watching it for 30 years and it’s got worse and worse and worse.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“How can you hit the shot in 40 seconds if the caddie talks for two and a half minutes?”<\/p>\n

Baker-Finch explained that in his day he would jot down a few notes in his yardage book.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Golden Bear Jack Nicklaus<\/a> was the ‘first guy’ to take more detailed notes, he said.<\/p>\n

“Everyone else just went by feel,” he said. “‘I hit 7-iron here yesterday, looks like 155, whatever.'”<\/p>\n

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Baker-Finch said players are now so precise they want to know yardages to the decimal point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He added: “Shut up. It’s 110 yards. It\u2019s a gap wedge. Don’t be long because it’s too fast down the hill.<\/p>\n

“You come to a par-three tee and they take two minutes talking. You’ve played it the last three days! You know it’s a 5-iron to the back pin, 6-iron to the front pin. Choose a club, get out of the way, let me hit the shot.”<\/p>\n

Pace of play on the PGA Tour has always been a talking point but the topic has been particularly noteworthy in 2025.<\/p>\n

LPGA hall of famer turned golf commentator Dottie Pepper appeared to spark the debate in January when she broke ranks<\/a> on the broadcast during the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Pepper urged golfers to have more respect for fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s just gotta get better,” she said.<\/p>\n

What is being done to speed up pace of play?<\/p>\n

The PGA Tour claim they are making efforts to improve in this area.<\/p>\n

On the developmental Korn Ferry, the Tour has now eliminated a ‘free warning’ for slow play, with golfers facing a one-stroke penalty if they receive a ‘bad time’.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Repeat offenders can expect two-shot penalties or even disqualification.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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The rule may be adopted on major tours, but no decision has been made yet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, the PGA Tour trialled allowing the using of rangefinders<\/a>, though some argued the use of distance-measuring devices won’t make a noticeable impact.<\/p>\n

\"New <\/p>\n

New pace chart<\/p>\n

Beginning in 2026, many PGA Tour events will reduce field sizes from 156 to around 120-132.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the small-field signature events, placing groups in two-balls and over three-balls has substantially reduced round times.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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New leaderboard features on TV broadcasts also show the average group time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Tour claim they may publish more data, effectively naming and shaming the dawdlers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former long-time CBS Sports analyst Ian Baker-Finch has revealed what he believes is the biggest issue regarding pace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[5904,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-81501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}