Solving slow play: is it time to unleash rangefinders on the PGA Tour?

Mark Townsend 05 Feb 2025

The recurring theme of slow play has been top of the whinge list for 2025 with rounds taking well over five hours and fans seemingly losing interest in the PGA Tour.

There are regulations in place but the slow players will always be the slow players and the rest of the field will have to suffer.

So can rangefinders help reduce the problem?

We have seen them in use on the Korn Ferry Tour and even the PGA Championship, as well as at most events on the LPGA Tour and, for the past season, on the PGA Tour Champions.

Why we haven’t yet seen them on the PGA Tour is anyone’s guess.

Once upon a time rangefinders weren’t allowed in club golf competitions and some deem that they take away the skill factor calculating distances and a caddy’s strategic input. Also there are slope adjustments to be made and the integrity of the game is also trotted out.

But we’re surely past all that now.

Ask any caddy and they will tell you that getting a yardage is the quickest thing to work out. There are so many spots to get a yardage from that you might as well just save yourself the few seconds and zap the hole and various spots that you need to carry.

There’s no guarantee that the pace of play will pick up but, with fans switching off and damaging headlines still swirling around, the PGA Tour needs to be seen to be doing something.

Golf slow play sign

And perhaps there is hope.

“Everything’s on the table. So it’s in that spirit that we look at creating the best version of PGA Tour golf,” said PGA Tour chief marketing and communications officer Andy Weitz.

“We want to better understand how being out of position, how the ability to better understand the distance can not only increase the pace of play potentially but also send a signal to our fans that we are evolving and use of these modern devices could be a fit for the PGA Tour on a permanent basis in the future.”

Gary Young is the Tour’s senior vice president of rules & competition and he revealed that there is also a move to use ShotLink data to determine who is playing slowly.

“There are players out there whose routines are longer than they need to be. We’re at a point in time where guys are admitting that. The use of distance-measuring devices has been brought up and this particular rules committee is very accepting of that. It’s been tested on the Korn Ferry Tour level and for a full year on PGA Tour Champions. Why not?” added Young.

“We’re hearing it from our fans. They use it day in and day out, why would we hold a resource back from the players that potentially could help them, especially for off-line shots, getting a quick reference point?”

It could be that they trial it at a Signature Event, where the fields are smaller, or at the Zurich Classic, a team event, in late April.

There is also the possibility, though more unlikely and far harder to manage, of a shot clock while there is also mention of disclosing violations which may well be the most interesting and effective way to tackle the problem. That would mean we find out who has been fined and what action has actually been taken: in effect, a name-and-shame policy.

Max Homa told Weitz: “We want to hold each other accountable, and we want to play in a way that is the best version of the fan experience.”