LPGA icon Dottie Pepper had enough at the Farmers Insurance Open when time seemed to have stopped during the final rounds. The pairing of  Harris English, Aldrich Potgieter, and Andrew Novak labored through nine holes in three hours with the final round in San Deigo taking just short of 5 hours and 30 minutes. This sluggish pace of play wasn’t anything new for the PGA Tour and they are looking to take action after a fan survey revealed slow play in tournaments is a major problem. While the Tour contemplates what to do next, LIV Golf went out and flexed its smooth fast-paced style under the lights in Saudi Arabia.

While fulfilling her role as the on-course analyst during the Farmers Insurance Open’s final round, Pepper was informed by her colleague, Frank Nobilo, that the group was heading to a time of three hours of play. This set her off as she commented, “You know, Frank, I think we’re starting to need a new word to talk about this pace-of-play issue, and it’s respect — for your fellow competitors, for the fans, for broadcasts, for all of it. It’s just got to get better.” She further said that this issue has been “gnawing” at her for a while.

Earlier, American Express also saw a time of closer to six hours to complete its final round. Hence, when LIV Golf wrapped up its first round of 2025 in Saudi Arabia on Thursday, they wasted no time in bragging about the smooth pace of play on social media.

On Instagram, they posted a graphic that highlighted the opening round took just 4 hours and 24 minutes to complete, with the caption “From start to finish. ⏱️”  This appears a subtle shade at the PGA Tour.

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LIV fields are considerably smaller,use a shotgun start and play on courses that are set up way easier. You are...more

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Notably, with only 54 players in the field and a shotgun start, LIV events are always set up to move along that bit quicker. Still, it was refreshing for fans to see such speed on the course having grown tired from the long hours of the PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour has been plagued with slow play over the years with some obvious culprits, but the lack of action from their end has not been appreciated in the golf community. The USGA has a recommendation on how long it should take to play a shot. It states that 40 seconds, with an extra 10 seconds if a player is first to hit that shot should be considered enough time, but it is not an enforced rule. However, with LIV Golf that is not the case.

Last year in September, during its season-ending Individual Championship at Bolinbrook Golf Club, Richard Bland, Patrick Reed, and Kevin Na teed up on the sixth hole. By the time they reached the 10th hole, their fifth of the day, they were behind time. Bland’s second shot into the par-4 12th exceeded the 40-second time limit, which earned him an immediate one-shot penalty, turning his par 4 into a bogey 5. Moreover, he was hit with a $10,000 fine.

Compare this with the PGA Tour, which last imposed a slow-play penalty at the 2017 Zurich Classic, when it did so for the first time in 20 years. The pace of play has been one of the key driving forces behind LIV Golf’s success and seeing how strictly they adhere to the rules, it has paid dividends for them. Meanwhile, there was more slow play on display at the AT&T Pebble Beach.

On the sixth hole on the final day, Tom Kim took a long amount of time to line up his second shot. The shot ended up going out of bounds, forcing Kim to take a penalty stroke. One of the commentators stated, “He took an awful time to do that.” The other commentator then added that the out-of-bounds shot, “was not worth the wait.”

The problem of dragged hours of play comes at a time when the PGA Tour is facing a challenge to maintain a healthy viewership. The American Express final round drew less than half its 2024 audience. On top of that, Jay Monahan is also facing increasing competition from not only LIV Golf but Tiger Woods’ TGL as well. The tech-infused fast-paced private league drew nearly a million viewers for its first match on ESPN.

Monahan has to act and act swiftly. The Tour has moved to reduce the field sizes for the 2026 season which will lead to speed things up, but a lot remains to be done. At the WM Phoenix Open, the first round was suspended at 6:13 PM due to darkness—because, well, they just ran out of daylight. That’s where things are at now.

Most recently, Charley Hoffman decided to address the elephant in the room, releasing a memo that took a hard look at the criticism the Tour has been facing. “We’ve taken a lot of heat over the past few weeks about slow play,” Hoffman began. “And yeah, it’s an issue—for our fans, for us as players. Cutting down field sizes will help, but only by a few minutes a day. As players, we still need to make a concerted effort to speed up.”

He didn’t stop there. Hoffman acknowledged that the pace of play has been a problem for decades, adding that players need to take personal responsibility: “Golf is a tough game, and when conditions get extreme, it takes time to play it the right way. We all need to take responsibility to be ready when it’s our turn to play and have the awareness to realize that we are out of position and speed up even before the rules official shows up.”

Interestingly, on January 29 the PGA Tour told media officials that it has taken into account fan complaints over pace of play after conducting a survey last year. As such they will start experimenting with rule changes to not only improve pace of play but the overall broadcast and viewing experience.

But for now, they find themselves lagging behind LIV Golf and the fans were keen to remind them.

Fans point out LIV Golf’s “flex” as PGA Tour plans changes

Gary Young, senior vice president of rules of competitions of the PGA Tour said, “I think a lot of the feedback from the Fan Forward project has been that they would like to see the game speed up, and now we’re hearing it from the players themselves. I mean, it’s amazing for the first time I’m hearing guys take responsibility.” So far, there are four solutions in the offing from the PGA Tour to address the situation, these include:

• Distance-measuring devices: The PGA Championship has already adopted rangefinders and The PGA of America first put this in place in 2021 as a way to improve the pace of play. The PGA Tour may look to go down the same route.
• Increased use of video review center: More efficient usage of the video review center will help with delays due to rule calls, allowing the play to continue at a brisk pace.
• Naming the culprits: The PGA Tour plans to publicize a list of the worst slow-play offenders based on “average stroke time” data. This might get some notorious slow players to speed it up.
• Accountability: The Tour is not only looking to fine and penalize players who violate play-time rules, but they might also disclose these amounts and punishments to the fans, to show they are curbing down the problem.

However, until these ideas, or at least one of them is implemented on the course, fans remain skeptical. Following LIV Golf’s sly dig, fans were quick to call to show their appreciation for them, while taking shots at the Tour.

One fan simply noted, “Shots fired,” while one fan even went as far as tagging the PGA Tour’s official Instagram account, writing: “Hey @pgatour… any thoughts?”

Another fan kept it simple: “Decent flex 💪” Well, why not? LIV has every reason to flex right now. Paige Spiranac has also been critical of the Tour’s pace of play, posting a blunt rant on X: “I hate slow play. I just despise it. I am on the extremist end of hating slow play.” Charley Hull, Tiger Woods, Rickie Fowler—all of them have voiced their frustration with the Tour’s snail’s pace problem.

Jay Monahan might need to start brainstorming some solutions because, the slower the game, the more frustrated the fans get. And with viewership already taking a hit, the Tour can’t afford to lose any more interest. Another fan fired a warning at Monahan writing, “Extremely better product than the 🦕 tour pga tour. Being at a golf event for 12 hours a day 4 days straight is stupid and outdated.”

For the players lagging, it’s definitely a wake-up call. And then came another savage comment:  “Add another 30 minutes alone if Patrick Cantlay was on LIV.” Cantlay’s name is practically a meme at this point when it comes to slow play. His 38-second average shot time is just under the maximum limit, and fans haven’t forgotten his 2023 Masters disaster—where he and Viktor Hovland took nearly five hours to finish their final round.

Now, with LIV (and even TGL) pushing faster, more exciting golf, the Tour can’t afford to keep dragging its feet—literally. At this rate, the PGA Tour might need stricter penalties and real enforcement to keep up. Because while LIV is speeding ahead, the Tour’s biggest problem is slowing it down.