There are two sides to every slow-play story.
Alejandro Tosti offered his version of events on Monday, a day after he appeared to purposefully “slow-play” the eventual champion, Min Woo Lee, in the final round of the 2025 Texas Children’s Houston Open.
On the 8th hole in Sunday’s final round at Memorial Park, Lee hit his tee shot into a bush and took 12 minutes to take a drop.
The NBC broadcast showed Tosti talking to an official about the delay. NBC on-course announcer Jim “Bones” Mackay, who was walking with the group, later said that Tosti had been “a little disrespectful” to fellow playing partner Ryan Fox earlier in the round. On the 12th hole, Tosti’s pace of play became the top storyline as the broadcast showed him walking far behind Lee, prompting Mackay to offer an observation that indicated Tosti had become upset about the sluggish pace in his group.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but Tosti is playing at his own pace,” Mackay said. “At times, it’s normal. At times, it’s glacially slow. But he’s decided on this particular hole to really take his time, and he’s holding up play in this last group.
“The bottom line is this is incredibly unfair to a 26-year-old guy (Lee) trying to get over the finish line for the first time.”
Lee, who won the tournament, was not asked about Tosti after the round, and the on-site media did not request Tosti.
But on Monday, Tosti fired back at his critics on Twitter.
Tosti initially replied in a since-deleted tweet that was captured by Golf Digest‘s Coleman Bentley, which included a profanity-laden response to the accusations against him. Tosti took the tweet down shortly after posting it and reworded his defense.
Sunday wasn’t the first time Tosti has been involved in a controversy in Houston.
At last year’s event, he and Tony Finau got into a kerfuffle over who was away on the green; tosti eventually putted first, but not before calling Finau back over to move his ball marker.
To be fair, Tosti is not among the slower players on Tour, and it should not have taken Lee 12 minutes to decide to take a drop and without needing to call over an official. The Tour has a slow-play problem (one they are trying to address), but the easiest way to fix it is to put players on the clock and then stroke them if they continue to fall behind.
Tosti’s seemingly inconsistent pace didn’t stop Lee from securing his first career PGA Tour win as the 26-year-old Australian survived a late water ball on the 16th hole to win by one over Scottie Scheffler and Gary Woodland.
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