Thank you for your nice words. I think college golf is an easy target. In fact, many of our tournaments play quickly and have better round times than the PGA Tour. USGA events are notoriously slow. I think the USGA and PGA Tour, because they are most influential, carry most of the blame for the pace of play of the modern game of golf.

College golf doesn’t really have set governing body that is actually engaged in college golf. The NCAA runs the NCAA Championships and makes some rules, but really has no connection with the culture of college golf or the other myriad of tournaments. The GCAA does it’s best, but doesn’t have the power to enforce anything without the consent of most of the coaches.

Each coach does their own thing and is loyal to their team and university. Asking them to think globally and to do things for the bigger picture that could possibly hurt their own team and university in the short term is often a losing strategy. In the end, they are paid by their university so their focus will usually be very narrow.

It is really hard for one coach or any group of coaches to impact the greater whole because there is really no one for them to talk to about anything. The area that real change could happen is at the conference level. If conference coaches would come together a little more for causes they could try some things out and lead positive change.

The Pac-12 Conference Coaches recently put together a start of a plan to improve pace of play in Pac-12 hosted events. Whether or not all the coaches will actually follow through will be seen over time. If they have success and come together and buy into it, a large impact in college golf could be felt as others follow their lead.

I commend the AJGA for their amazing effort and emphasis on Pace of Play. I know here in Washington the Northwest Junior Golf Tour is doing their part too. I’m sure there are many others. If we don’t do more, less and less people will play golf and more courses will close. That’s bad for everyone.

Ask me anything