Green Reading

PGA should follow LPGA's lead on slow play

The PGA Tour needs to take a page from the LPGA’s rule book.

In the semifinal match of the Sybase Match Play Championship between Morgan Pressel and Azahara Munoz on Sunday, Pressel was penalized a hole for violating the LPGA Tour’s pace of play policy.

Pressel and Munoz had been informed they were on the clock for slow play two holes prior to the penalty on the 10^th hole, and Pressel still took too long to play her shots on the 12^th, resulting in the penalty.

Pressel won the hole and would have gone 3 up with six holes to play, and was likely headed to the
championship match. Instead, Munoz, who is a notoriously slow player and was probably responsible for the twosome being put on the clock, won the hole to pull just one hole down and eventually won the match.

Slow play is a chronic problem on the PGA Tour, and the tour does very little about it. If you don’t think it’s a problem, ask players on the tour. They tend to get rather effusive on that topic.

The last player to reportedly receive a one-stroke penalty on the PGA Tour for slow play was Glen Day in 1995. That’s hardly a deterrent to slow play, which adversely affects the players who play at the pace the game is meant to be played, including most of the game’s top players.

Somehow Kevin Na was never penalized a stroke despite taking more than a minute to hit several shots in the final two rounds of the Players Championship.

I wondered where rules officials were in the final round of the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte a few weeks ago. I was following Rory McIlroy and D.A. Points – Points isn’t exactly speedy – in the penultimate group.

After they played the 13^thhole, I waited for the final twosome to reach the tee box. And I waited, and waited, and waited.

The final twosome of Webb Simpson, one of the tour’s slowest players, and Ryan Moore was a full two holes behind. If that’s not out of position, I don’t know what is.

And it’s not necessary, as the LPGA knows.

BMW Charity Pro-Am featured crazy finish

If you didn’t catch the finish to the Nationwide Tour’s BMW Charity Pro-Am presented by SYNNEX Corporation at Thornblade Club in Greenville, Nick Flanagan pulled off a crazy victory over fellow Australian Cameron Percy.

Needing a birdie on the 72nd hole to tie Percy, who had just bogeyed the hole, Flanagan airmailed the green from about 190 yards. But tThe ball hit a cameraman behind the green, then caromed back onto the green, skirting past the hole.

He drained the resulting 15-footer to force a playoff, which Flanagan won on the third hole by getting up and down for par from a greenside bunker while Cameron was making a sloppy double bogey.

ESPN placed Flanagan’s miracle birdie on the 72^nd hole at No. 4 in its top 10 “Plays of the Week” segment on Sunday night and Monday morning.

Flanagan, 27, also won the BMW in 2007.

He was 19 when he defeated Casey Wittenberg in 37 holes at Oakmont Country Club to win the 2003 U.S. Amateur. Four years later he would earn a Nationwide Tour battlefield promotion to the PGA Tour with three wins, but after making 16 cuts in 29 starts in 2008, he failed to retain his card.

The crazy finish has Flanagan on his way to getting back on the PGA Tour.

Barefoot has eventful week planned with Fallen Angels tourney

The second annual Fallen Angels Charity Golf Tournament Thursday and Friday (May 24-25) at Barefoot Resort’s Fazio and Love courses gives players the option of participating for one or two days. The first round is on the Fazio Course and the second is on the Love Course.

The event has several unique features, including a flyover by two air medical transport helicopters and a third helicopter on display, the presence of the air medical honor guard accompanied by members of honor guards from the Grand Strand and a bagpiper. Flight crew members in uniform will be volunteering and long driver Tom Garber will be participating Friday.

The entry fee is $365 per player including a three-night stay in a Barefoot Resort golf villa and all activities. The cost without accommodations is $240 per player two rounds and $135 per player for one round, and that day’s accompanying activities. Foursome registration is discounted slightly.

The tournament includes an open-bar welcome reception on May 23 at Docksiders Bar & Grill, Fallen Angels ceremony, buffet, open bar and live music beginning at 5 p.m. Thursday at Docksiders, and an open-bar awards party Friday at Docksiders. Breakfast is included at the clubhouse both days and there will be a bloody mary and cocktail bar Friday morning. A silent auction Thursday will include memorabilia and music items.

Tee times begin around 10 a.m. Thursday and noon Friday. The registration deadline is Tuesday.

All proceeds from the event will benefit the non-profit Air Medical Memorial that honors those who have lost their lives or were injured in air medical transport accidents. It assists accident survivors in rebuilding their lives, promotes air medical transport safety, and is building the Air Medical Memorial & Survivors Garden, which will be located just outside Denver, Colo.

Visit www.fallenangelsgolf.org, call 720-340-2040, call Barefoot Resort at 843-390-3200 or email info@airmedicalmemorial.com for more information.

HBO takes a look at Korean phenomenon on the LPGA Tour

Jan Stephenson said in 2003 that she thought the proliferation of Asian players was killing the LPGA Tour, and Tom Kite said in 2007 he thought all the foreign players winning events on the LPGA Tour was damaging the tour.

It's still a topic of conversation today, and if you have HBO, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel takes an interesting look at the rise of Korean players on the LPGA Tour in the show’s 2012 season premiere on Tuesday, May 22 from 10-11 p.m.

The segment is called Seoul Sisters and HBO says of it:

Home to 50 million people, tiny, mountainous South Korea has little room for golf courses, but no other country in the world has more women in the upper ranks of pro female golfers. An astounding 145 of the top 500 female golfers in the world are from South Korea, including four of the top ten, while the nation is responsible for 17 of the top 50 LPGA earners in 2012 to date, the most of any country. The path to success on the links can begin early, with some young South Korean women – on
the advice of their parents – sacrificing traditional schooling to dedicate more than 40 hours a week to their craft. Real Sports host Bryant Gumbel travels to South Korea to find out how a country roughly the size of Indiana and making up less than one percent of the world’s population has come to
dominate a sport.

Other HBO playdates: May 22 (5:00 a.m.), 25 (1:30 p.m., 8:00 p.m.), 27 (8:00 a.m.), 29 (8:30 a.m., 6:00 p.m.) and 31 (4:00 p.m., 3:45 a.m.), and June 2 (9:30 a.m.) and 6 (11:00 a.m.,
12:25 a.m.)

HBO2 playdates: May 24 (7:00 p.m.), 26 (1:40 p.m.), 28 (10:00 p.m.) and 30 (10:00 a.m., 11:00 p.m.), and June 3 (11:30 a.m.), 7 (7:00 p.m., 1:45 a.m.) and 11 (3:30 p.m.)

HBO On Demand availability: May 28-June 18

Byrd off to solid start at Nationwide Tour's BMW Charity Pro-Am

Playing in his second Nationwide Tour event, former Coastal Carolina All-American Zack Byrd of Murrells Inlet shot a 2-under 70 at Carolina Country Club and is tied for 51^st after the first round of the $6000,000 BMW Charity Pro-Am in Greenville.

He had to rebound from a double bogey on the second hole that dropped him to 2 over, and did with consecutive birdies on holes 4, 5 and 6, and birdies on 9 and 13 to offset a bogey on the seventh.

He closed the round with five straight pars, and will tee off Thornblade Club's 10th tee at
9:25 a.m. in Friday's second round of the 168-player event, which pays $108,000 to the winner.