‘Needs to be banned:’ U.S. Open winner blasts green-reading technique

Lucas Glover knows the PGA Tour has a slow-play problem.

But the 2009 U.S. Open champion also has a list of solutions before the number of Tour cards is cut from 125 to 100 starting next season.

On the Jan. 28 episode of “The Lucas Glover Show” on SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio, Glover explained how the Tour can speed things up, including by banishing the AimPoint green-reading technique in which players straddle the lines of their putts and assess the breaks with their feet.

“Statistically, [AimPoint] hasn’t helped anybody make more putts since its inception on the PGA Tour,” Glover told co-hosts Mac Barnhardt and Taylor Zarzour. “Statistics have borne that out. It’s also kind of rude to be up near the hole, stomping around figuring out where the break is in your feet. It needs to be banned. It takes forever.”

Glover did not say to which statistics he was referring.

The six-time PGA Tour winner has been outspoken about the Tour’s crawling pace of play, and prohibiting AimPoint wasn’t his only suggestion to get things moving.

Glover, who finished T3 at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which Rory McIlroy won, wants the PGA Tour to allow distance-measuring devices, give each group its own bunker-raker and have yardages marked on every sprinkler head.

He also had some ideas that he knows the Tour won’t be a fan of, but he believes would be helpful.

That starts with nixing honorary observers walking with groups inside the ropes.

“Tour’s not going to like this,” Glover said. “Honorary observers are a couple of people that the Tour puts in a group to walk inside of the ropes that probably work for the sponsor or are a guest of the sponsor. Guess what? They get in the way. They don’t know where to walk off of the greens, they don’t know where to stand. A lot of times, the group behind is waiting on them.”

Glover would also recommend the Tour get rid of sign bearers and some of the golf carts.

“There are way too many golf carts on the golf course during play,” Glover said. “Easily, the number one reason players back off golf shots is because a golf cart is going by or a golf cart stopping. And usually, it’s for a good reason. They’re bringing water to put in coolers, or they’re shuttling people. But there’s got to be a way to eliminate some of the carts.

“The No. 1 reason a golf pro will back off a shot is a golf cart on the PGA Tour, I would almost guarantee it.”

Glover would also like designated drop circles near every obstruction.

The Tour’s pace of play has come under intense scrutiny early in the season. During a final-round slog at the Farmers Insurance Open, CBS on-course reporter Dottie Pepper asked pros to be “more respectful.” On Sunday at Pebble Beach, the broadcast jabbed Tom Kim several times for taking too long to hit a shot.

McIlroy was asked for his solution to slow play, and the four-time major winner admitted it’s complicated and that his ideas will “piss off” some of the membership.

The Tour plans to get leaner next season by trimming the number of cards, but Glover wants to see other things done first before taking playing opportunities away from the membership.

“Some of these seem small. Some of them seem big,” Glover said. “But I do think they are legitimate options that A: should have been done before we cut 25 cards and B: need to be done in the future no matter how many people play because PGA Tour players are just slow. We know this.”