The ageless Bernhard Langer shot rounds of 71 and 72 on Thursday and Friday, respectively, to sit at one under par overall in the 2019 Masters, meaning the 61-year-old two-time champ will make a Masters cut for the 26th time in his career.
But being a Masters legend doesn’t get you off the hook when it comes to alleged slow play.
In his post-round comments to the media, Langer revealed that he was miffed by being put on the clock when he felt the groups ahead of him were responsible for the sluggish pace.
“It only takes one group to have some trouble somewhere and it backs up,” he said. “On the par‑5s, they’re reachable for most of these guys, so you always have to wait at the par‑5s until they clear. They came over on the 3rd hole and they told us we’re 10 minutes behind. Yeah, we waited eight minutes on the tee shot on 2 and then we [waited] four minutes on the second shot on 2. That’s 12 minutes. So no wonder we’re 10 minutes behind, all right?
“I mean that’s just — I don’t know where they got their information from. They said you’re 10 minutes behind 10. I said, ‘Well, is that my fault? We can’t play any faster. Want me to hit it over their heads?’ You’d think they’d have more common sense.”
Slow play has been a problem plaguing the Tour for years, but players have recently been more vocal about it. Brooks Keopka recently made headlines criticizing slow play on Tour, and mentioned it again in his post-round comments on Thursday.
“The pace of play is never good anywhere,” Koepka said. “But I mean, I think we played the front nine in almost three hours, which isn’t that good.”
The Rules of Golf stipulate that pace of play should be “prompt,” while the PGA Tour’s pace of play policy allows 40-50 seconds to play a stroke, depending on where you are playing from on a given hole.
Slow play penalties are extremely rare, with the most memorable instance being Tianlang Guan — a 14-year-old amateur from China — and his one-stroke penalty at the 2013 Masters.
Despite the time warning on Friday, Langer and his fellow group members were not penalized.
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