ATLANTA – Rory McIlroy has had enough slow play talk.
The Northern Irishman has always been one of the most outspoken players when it comes to pace of play on the PGA Tour but enough is enough.
“I saw [the European Tour] released a four-point plan, but I only read the headline. I didn't go deeper into it. I've had enough of the slow play stuff,” McIlroy said. “I had two hours of it last week at the [player advisory council] meeting, and that came to nothing.”
The European Tour plan will include increased timing of players and more proactive targeting of slower players. Players will also be penalized a stroke after just two bad times.
“Perfect. We should adopt it,” Brooks Koepka said. “I'd love to see how many bad times guys get. I think you'll see some urgency to play.”
Although he didn’t know the details of the new European pace of play policy, McIlroy did offer a solution for slow play when he pointed out that pace of play won’t be an issue at this week’s 30-man Tour Championship.
“Seriously, it's like traffic, right? You get 156 in the field, and it's hard to get those guys around quickly. Even last week, 70, there was no mention of pace of play,” McIlroy said. “I'm in a privileged position that I can say that because I'm going to get into a field of 30 or 70. Obviously, guys that are not quite in my position would disagree with that. [But] if you want to speed up play, cut the field sizes.”