3 Slowest PGA Tour Pros Explored Amid Glaring Pace of Play Issues

At the Farmers Insurance Open, the last group took five and a half hours to complete their final rounds. LPGA icon Dottie Pepper minced no words when she called out the slow play saying, “It’s been gnawing at me and a lot of people for a while.” This wasn’t the first time the play had been sluggish in the last rounds this season. Last weekend, the American Express tournament saw a similar pace for its closing round.

Harris English, Andrew Novak, and Aldrich Potgieter took nearly three hours to play their first nine holes in the final round, and Pepper had enough as the players teed off on No. 10 at Torrey Pines. “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 said.

Earlier, American Express saw a time of closer to six hours to complete its final round. This sort of pace of play has plagued PGA Tour’s start to the season and it is a problem that has been going on for some time. With calls for better action and marketing the product to a younger audience, this is something completely undesirable.

With that being said, let’s take a look at some of the slowest pros of the Tour.

1) Brian Harman

Last year in October, Matt Fitzpatrick’s caddie Billy Foster appeared on the 19 – Uncut YouTube channel and named two players who consistently play slow.

“Currently Tom Kim. Brian Harman, he has 12 [wiggles] before he hits it. You get dizzy watching him,” Foster said before adding, “They are good players, great players, it takes all types. But get on with it lads, will you.”

As shared by Foster in the video, Harman has been the slowest in the league due to his wiggles and sometimes taking longer to hit. Earlier during THE PLAYERS 2024, Brian Harman, Matt Fitzpatrick, and Adam Scott were grouped together, and Harman took 3 minutes to hit the 96-yard shot.

Harman’s pre-swing waggle became infamous at The Open Championship 2023, with many fans annoyed by his antics. On the 12th hole, Harman took a long time to set himself up, before taking more time to play his shot. Also during the US Open Harman made Rory McIlroy, Brooks Koepka, and Hideki Matsuyama wait for over 20 minutes at the 7th hole during the second round of play.

Later Koepka addressed the issue while speaking to Gol Monthly. “I mean, yeah, it’s never quick. I was talking about it when I was on the PGA Tour too, so I’m not afraid to talk about it. There’s a lot of guys out here that take their time. I think it is a problem.

Technically in the rule book, it says you have 40 seconds to hit your shot. I think that’s what it is. If you are taking over, technically you’re breaking the rules, right? So, I don’t know,” he said.

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. It’s a policy on the PGA Tour, which has plans for a working group of players to study the pace of play. In fact, since 1995, there have been only three incidents that have resulted in a penalty by the PGA Tour due to slow play, with the last coming in 2011 at the Zurich Classic.

Next up on the list is the second name Foster mentioned.

2) Tom Kim

The 22-year-old Tom Kim has also been under fire for slow play. Since turning pro in 2018, he has won three PGA Tour titles, but his sluggish pace of play has become more of a talking point. Unlike the other slow-paced players, Kim’s slowness has nothing to do with him not being at the ready or taking an awful long amount of time between shots. It’s the fact that he stands over the golf ball for so long before taking the club back.

At the Travelers Championship in 2024. Kim was the first player to tee off the 13th hole. As per the rule book, 40 seconds are allotted to the player. However, the golfer took 1:23 minutes to take the shot. A video for the same was shared from an account named TheGolfDivoTee on X.

In October, Collin Morikawa when talking about the slowest player on the greens. In a video posted by Tiger Woods’ tech-driven TGL, Morikawa was asked, “Who will have the most shot clock violations this season?” The American took no time to reply, “Tom Kim… Easy.”

Kim is more of a plotter, who plans and contemplates each move carefully since he is not a long hitter. While it can be fascinating to see him navigate the field, his waiting can be excruciating at times.

Last November, English LPGA Tour star Charley Hull called for strict punishments for slow play. “I’m quite ruthless but (my idea would be) if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a two-shot penalty. If you have three of them you lose your Tour card instantly. I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up and they won’t want to lose their Tour card,” she said.

From the 2026 season, the PGA Tour will have Smaller fields for regular-season events, maybe that will help players like Kim to step up. Well, the third player on the list is someone all too familiar with the slow pace.

3) Patrick Cantlay

The 32-year-old has become a constant in the list of the slowest players because of his playing style. The golfer has multiple instances where fans criticized him for slow play. The American professional’s average shot time is 38 seconds, which is just short of the maximum time allotted.

He was under fire notably enough at the 2023 Masters. Cantlay was paired with Viktor Hovland ahead of Koepka and winner Jon Rahm in the final round in the group and the pair took nearly five hours to complete their round.

Rahm and Koepka were forced to wait on almost every hole, with Cantlay deemed responsible for the slow finish to the first major of the year. Afterward, Koepka didn’t hold back in his criticism.

“Yeah, the group in front of us was brutally slow. Jon went to the bathroom like seven times during the round, and we were still waiting,” Koepka said. Then at the RBC Heritage, he was again slow even drawing heckles from the crowd. Footage of the golfer spending close to a minute standing over a four-foot putt drew criticism across the board.

With the Tour taking the blow with decreasing viewership, they might consider making the rules stricter with bigger penalties to avoid slow play. The last two events at the PGA Tour, have seen more than 5 hours plus play for the final round.

The emergence of LIV Golf and now TGL poses a significant challenge for the Tour to maintain interest in its product. The American Express final round drew less than half its 2024 audience is already alarming. With the slow pace of play, the fan interest may dwindle further.

Can the PGA Tour amend new rules for slow play? What are your thoughts about it? Share with us in the comments section below.