Sean O'Hair: Reformed Slow Player?
by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 16, 2009 12:09 PM EDT
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PrintIn the wake of Clockgate, the topic of slow play on the PGA Tour has gotten more attention because of the high profile nature of slowbies - Tiger Woods & Padraig Harrington. One of Woods' playing partners in the final round this season, Sean O'Hair, has also been lambasted in the past for his Rip Van Winkle pace. Johnny Miller laid into the guy at the Arnold Palmer Invitational in each of the last two seasons.
The incidences had secured O'Hair's place on the Mount Rushmore of slow play, along with Ben Crane, Paddy Harrington, and JB Holmes.
Today, though, we may have to bust out the chisel to take O'Hair's face off of the mountain. Playing alone as first off the tee at Hazeltine this morning, O'Hair shot 73 in 2 hours, 13 minutes - 32 minutes shy of the all-time record - in a display of both skill and speed.
In fact, he played so fast that he told TNT's Jim Huber that he was asked to slow down because he was about to lap the greens crew who were still setting up the course. O'Hair even said he enjoyed going out alone and getting done and the hell away from this course as fast as he did.
Whoa!
Does this destroy the notion that O'Hair is a slow player and that an octagenarian may be able to beat him in a 5K race? Maybe so.
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lol – pretty funny – but playing by yourself is NOT a good thing in a tournament. It means you have managed to NOT play very much good golf and you just want to get on and off the course as fast as possible. Some of these guys who have to play by themselves get around in a little more than 2 hours since they have nobody holding them up.
Tournaments DO offer these rabbits a marker to play with, but more often than not, they just play alone.
I wouldn’t read too much into O’Hair rocketing around Hazeltine by himself.
"this ball will fit in that fairway"
I wouldn’t either, but I found it funny that he got around so fast because he wanted to just get his check and go home.
Email me any comments or questions at ryan@thegolfnewsnet.com.
by Ryan Ballengee on Aug 16, 2009 2:04 PM EDT up reply actions
This reminds me of a time when Darren Clarke and a playing partner were in the first group in the final round at a TOUR stop about three years ago and Clarke and his partner made an agreement to play as fast as possible and finished a round in about two and a half hours. Its easy to play fast when you don’t have much to play for.
I think the bigger question about slow play is why are we seeing a lot of players, especially younger ones, playing slow. I think an easy answer is that young players have seen other tour pros on television take their time over putts and shots and it has become ingrained in their minds that that is how they have to play. I remember reading that Arnold Palmer was mortified when he watched a junior tournament years back because of the amount of time the players were taking over simple putts.
Been a Reds fan since 1996 and am desperate for a playoff run.
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