Five hours and 40 minutes. That’s how long it took Nelly Korda and Charley Hull to crawl through the third round at The Annika tournament in Florida last November—so long that they finished in near darkness. Hull didn’t hold back, calling the pace “ridiculous” and openly sympathizing with fans forced to endure the sluggish spectacle. Her solution? Harsh penalties for repeat offenders, even suggesting serial slowpokes should lose their Tour cards altogether. With frustrations over the pace of play boiling over, the LPGA was forced into action and last month announced new stricter penalties to combat slow play.

Much like the PGA Tour, the LPGA has also faced trouble with slow play. At the Farmers Insurance Open, the last group took five and a half hours to complete their final rounds, drawing a sharp reaction from LPGA icon Dottie Pepper, who said that the issue had been “gnawing at me and a lot of people for a while.” The American Express tournament also had a similar pace for its closing round. But while the PGA Tour hasn’t sprung into action despite mocking from its rival LIV, the LPGA came up with a new policy to punish offenders. Now, the LPGA Players President Vicki Goetze-Ackerman has detailed the reasoning behind the new rules.

Talking on the No Laying Up podcast, Goetze-Ackerman mentioned, “Looking at our data, we found that people who had plus times of plus 6 to plus 15 were the majority of where our fines were coming from. So, we wanted to address that, and we felt that by going to a stroke penalty from plus six to plus 15 and addressing where the errors were being made by our membership, they would heed the warning and start moving a little bit faster. That was the thought process behind those changes.”

The most decisive changes to the slow-play policy involve the punishments for exceeding the time allotted. Under the new guidelines, if a player exceeds the time by 1-5 seconds, she will receive a fine. Should a player take 6-15 seconds over time to play a shot, she will be hit with a one-stroke penalty. Finally, if a player takes 16 or more seconds than they are allowed, a two-stroke penalty will be charged. These changes were laid out after careful consideration and will take effect on March 27, 2025.

She was then asked how the fine and penalties system had changed with the advent of this new policy. “So, we do still have a fine structure in place for a plus time from plus one to plus five. We had one person last year who fell into that category, while the rest of the group fell into the plus six to plus 15 range. With this new policy and last year’s conditions, we would have had 23 players receive a stroke penalty, in addition to the eight players who got a two-stroke penalty.

We believe that the threat of a penalty versus a fine—the fine was not moving the needle, it wasn’t changing the behavior of our members. We realized that the members themselves initiated us looking into this,” she answered. The LPGA, just like the PGA Tour faced backlash from fans over the pace of play issue. Not just fans, but golfers like Nelly Korda and Charley Hull have also voiced out for it.

After the final round at the Annika Invitational, Hull had to play in the dark to complete her turn. The result of the unplayable course condition led to her finishing runner-up. When there’s no light, how can you even judge the ball? Even before her, World No. 1 Korda has also expressed the same concern. She said, “Honestly, I despise slow play.” With more top names coming together to raise the issue, it was about time LPGA made some changes.

In 2024, 22 players faced fines, with nine receiving a one-stroke penalty and two receiving a two-stroke penalty.

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It’s been a looooong time coming…and much needed. The problem begins in college. THAT’s where a ton of...more

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After the changes were announced, Korda reacted saying, “Finally…I’m very excited about it…I think implementing harsher rules is going to be good for the game of golf because they’re saying at the meeting, at the end of the day, [we’re an entertainment product]. If we’re taking really long out there, that’s not entertaining.”

The new policy against slow play will be active from the end of March, but perhaps the players are already trying to adjust to it. The new rules were presented to the players at the Founders Cup in Bradenton, Florida, and the event saw a surprisingly good pace of play. Charley Hull described it as “lovely” and shared her take on the change.

“Obviously to keep people under wraps, you need to have a very harsh punishment…If the punishment isn’t unbelievably bad, you’re going to do it,” she said.

The LPGA also did the homework before announcing the new rules to make it fair and square for everyone.

LPGA Tour’s education session for new policy

With LPGA taking the lead in introducing a new policy, there are complications attached to it. Yes, it’s not an easy process to make it fair for everyone. However, the authorities have strategically planned the commencement of the new policy.

Goetze-Ackerman mentioned, “The reason why we waited for Arizona is to educate our members. We do not want anyone to get a stroke penalty.” Further, she even shared how the aim is just to improve the product and entertainment side of it with faster play. Each round with a new policy will have a different time frame based on the difficulty and the condition.

She stated on putting the entire thing into the process, “We were having multiple education sessions via Zoom as well as on-site when we got to Arizona in Utah.” Apart from just the training, the official will also track and share statistics with the players to push them to improve. The data will share whether they are in the top 10% fastest or slowest ranking to help them stay away from the penalty areas.

The great start to tackling the slow play issue will definitely benefit the league in matching the TV broadcaster time and offering improved viewership experience. What are your thoughts on it? Share with us in the comments below.