One could argue that pace of play is never more important than at LIV Golf, where a shotgun start kicks off every round. With a full field of 54 players, each hole is always at its three-player capacity. Any group who slows things down too much will be obviously out of position, and holding everything else up.
Enter Richard Bland, Patrick Reed and Kevin Na.
LIV is in the Chicago area this week, playing its season-ending Individual Championship at Bolinbrook Golf Club. Brooks Koepka built a 4-shot lead through 18 holes, but the story of the day came from the aforementioned trio.
Starting their day on the 6th hole, Bland, Reed and Na had slid out of position, pace-wise, from the group ahead of them by the time they reached the 10th hole, their fifth of the day. They were also behind position according to time-par, the allotted time a group is expected to use on each successive hole on the course.
Bad shots happen, penalty shots happen, rules officials step in, play can slow down. Golf happens. But this trio doesn’t exactly hold the reputation of golf’s fastest bunch. They were promptly warned by officials on the 10th hole. Two holes later, little had changed. In fact, according to LIV officials, the group had lost even more ground on the group ahead of them. On the 12th hole, officials stepped in to communicate that the group was officially “on the clock.”
At that point, the logistics are pretty clear. When being timed, players have 40 seconds to play a shot when it is their turn. They’ll get an extra 10 seconds if they are the first to play from a tee box. Take longer than that, without any abnormal situation arising, and that player will receive a penalty, both to their score and their pocketbook. Richard Bland unfortuantely found out.
Bland’s second shot into the par-4 12th exceeded the 40-second time limit, earning him an immediate one-shot penalty, turning his par 4 into a bogey 5. Along with it, he earned at $10,000 fine. With that penalty, his even-par round of 70 was kicked to one-over 71. LIV issued a statement afterward.
As rare as this scenario may be, it’s not even the first time it has happened to Bland this year. Earlier this summer, at Valderrama in Spain, Bland was assessed a one-shot penalty for taking 84 seconds to play a tee shot on a par 3. That week, it may have been just the difference between tying for 14th and tying for 12th, but in a $20 million competition, that slow play penalty becomes a lot costlier than just the $10,000 fine.