Day one of The Open Championship brought plenty of quality play, but there was also a significant talking point.
Seen by many as the top tournament in golf, The Open always draws plenty of attention.
This year, the R&A has done a fine job setting up Royal Portrush.
The course setup is fair, with strong rewards for good play and harsh penalties for mistakes – just as it should be.
But despite the strong start, there’s an issue that became clear on day one – and it’s not something new to this event either.
Calls for change after fans slam slow play on day one of The Open
Fans were quick to voice their frustration over one particular issue during the opening round at Royal Portrush: slow play.
Rory McIlroy’s group took four hours to get through 11 holes, which is hard to justify under any circumstances.
And golf fans let the players know that something has to change really quickly.
One fan said: “We HAVE to start stroking guys.“
Another added: “The pace of play needs to be improved drastically and quickly.”
A third fan called for penalties: “Ridiculous….. they should be on the clock, and then fined a shot or two.”
A fourth commented: “It’s players stepping off to try wait for wind to die or something. Just hit it.”
A fifth was very critical of the players: “Doesn’t help when every player stands over their putt for 5 minutes just to miss it short.”
Keegan Bradley gives his thoughts on slow play at The Open
Keegan Bradley was asked what he made of the six-hour rounds at Royal Portrush.
“It did, yeah. There’s a couple long waits. We had about five groups on that par-5 6th or whatever, 7th, to play. Then we had long waits on all the par-5s. It gets windy like this, it gets backed up,” he said.
He added: “I don’t think they can do anything about it. I don’t know. You get to the tee, and there’s groups on the tee, there’s nothing – I mean, what do you do? I don’t know what you would do.”
Six-hour rounds are a major problem for professional golf.
Colin Montgomerie raised concerns about slow play before The Open even started.
Aaron Rai also spoke about the issue during his post-round interview at Royal Portrush.
“I think it’s tricky with the style of holes, especially early on,” he said. “Hole No. 5 is a drivable par-4, so there’s naturally a backlog there. Then you’ve got a par-3 straight after that and a par-5 that comes on hole 7.”
He continued: “Then it kind of backlogs a little bit from there. So it was a little on the slow side.
“But naturally with the challenging conditions, the challenging course, pace of play is going to be a little bit slower than normal.
“I think, again, same as the conditions and the golf course, that you have to be accepting of the things that come with it. Sometimes you’re going to get a little bit behind the pace of play. You may have a couple of ball searches, a couple of bad holes, and then you just have to try and deal with those things with what comes at you. Yeah, it’s just part of it at times.“
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