Pros must use common sense in implementing new rule on pins

Bryson DeChambeau leaves the pin in place during the final round of the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Picture: Kevin C Cox/Getty Images)

The PGA Tour has already staged two tournaments in which that has been permitted and, quite frankly, I believe some players have set a bad example, even though it is now their right to choose exactly when they want to keep a pin in place.

Let’s not beat about the bush here. This particular rule was introduced by the R&A and USGA, the game’s two governing bodies, for one reason only – to try to help in speeding up the pace of play at club level. They wanted to try to help save time, thereby making the game more appealing to potential newcomers, by cutting out the sort of frustrating scenario we’ve all seen ourselves over the years.

You were on the green but a long way from the hole, yet had to wait for one of your playing partners attending the pin just in case you got lucky and hit it, incurring a penalty shot in the process – loss of the hole in match-play or two shots in  stroke-play.

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That exact instance is why I was quick to welcome this new rule but, since its introduction, I have quickly become dismayed by some of those who are the sport’s role models using in it a way that is taking away the spirit of how this great game has been played over a long period of time.

By all accounts, Bryson DeChambeau kept the pin in place most of the time in the Sentry Tournament of Champions, the PGA Tour’s traditional first event of the year, in Hawaii and, while we perhaps shouldn’t be surprised about that from the most eccentric character the game has seen for a long time, he is not alone.

In the build-up to last week’s Sony Open, which was also staged in Hawaii, former Masters champion Adam Scott said he planned to leave the pin for every putt this year – even if it was a six-footer to claim a second Green Jacket at Augusta National in April.

“As you know, I’m not a person who cares how things look,” said the Australian, referring, of course, to the fact he used a broom-handled putter until an anchoring ban was introduced.

The fact DeChambeau led the field in strokes gained putting at Kapalua is likely to encourage some of his fellow professionals to keep the pin in, but hopefully the vast majority share the view of another American. “I can’t really take myself seriously if I kept the pin in,” said Justin Thomas, the 2017 US PGA champion, in offering his view on the game’s hot topic. “I mean it just would be such a weird picture and like on TV me celebrating and like the pin is in and my ball’s like up against it.

“I guess there’s some instances in tournaments where the pin is really the only thing that can stop it, that’s one thing. But, if I have a putt I’m trying to make, that thing’s coming out.”

Unfortunately, damage has already been done by players such as De Chambeau and Scott in terms of how this new rule is likely to be implemented in club competitions and, guess what, it is probably going to slow play up even more rather than the opposite. Unless common sense prevails, you are going to have scenarios whereby the flag is being kept in by one person in the group, taken out by the next one to putt then put back in by a third player. In short, an absolute nightmare and that’s a shame.

In the two games – both bounce matches – that I’ve played in 2019, I only putted intentionally with the pin in once. Ironically, it was my first putt of the year and, rather than wait for my two playing partners to get to the pin after they’d chipped on to the green, I hit a putt from fully 50 feet away and felt comfortable  doing so.

In those two rounds, I was faced with a couple of downhill six-footers where I’ll admit it might have been tempting to leave the flag in if it was in a competition. I’m with Justin Thomas on this one, though, and let’s hope a massive proportion of European Tour players feel likewise as they get 2019 up and running in the Middle East over the next three weeks.