HILTON HEAD ISLAND, S.C. – The PGA Tour is testing the use of Distance Measuring Devices for the next month, among several changes that it is considering to improve pace of play. To hear both players and caddies tell it, this is a big nothing burger.
When world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler was asked about whether he’d use a DMD, he said, “You’re not going to like this answer, but I kind of forgot about that.”
That beat caddie Will Wilcox, a former Tour pro who works for Sungjae Im, who had no idea about the testing, but when told about it said, “I’m not going to use it anyway.”
That begged the question of why: “The only time I’ve ever screwed up a number was using a gun (laser) at the PGA (Championship, where the device has been legal at the PGA’s three championships since 2021). I hit the back tree, said the number, looked at a number on the ground and I was 25 off. It just causes confusion. The (yardage) books are so good.”
“Will it save a few minutes?” Scheffler said. “I don’t think it would hurt pace of play, but you never know.”
Not a big vote of confidence from the defending Heritage champion.
Scheffler continued. “The pace-of-play debate is funny. I think people want to watch exciting golf. I think that’s what it’s all about. Let’s say if we do all these changes and we save 20 minutes off of a round of golf, is somebody going to sit down on the couch on Sunday and go, ‘Well, I didn’t have five hours to watch a round of golf, but I’ve got four hours and 40 minutes. Now I’m in.’ ”
Scheffler said he’d have a DMD in his golf bag, but it will be up to caddie Ted Scott whether he uses it. It’s the caddie’s job to present the right yardage. Another veteran caddie, Joe LaCava, agreed that it wouldn’t make a noticeable difference to the speed of play.
“I’ll still probably do it the old way, just out of habit,” he said. “I’ll carry it, I might as well, and use it if he hits it offline. It’s nice that they are trying it. Nothing to lose, right?”
But not much to gain either, according to Brian Harman, a player in favor of allowing them, who called them “a great idea,” but doubted it would be much of a time saver.
“It’s not going to overcome a difficult golf course or numbers of players or bottlenecking with tee times,” he said. “If we’re playing in threesomes on a hard golf course, because guys have yardage – we’re not going to play any faster. But this week it’ll look like it’s working because we’re in twosomes on a place that’s flat and all the tee boxes are next to each other.”
Tour pros Sam Burns, Jhonattan Vegas, and Adam Schenk represented players in a working group charged with trying to speed up play. The Tour previously did a test in 2017 on the Korn Ferry Tour and the results didn’t indicate a significant improvement in round time. The devices, which have become ubiquitous in recreational golf for the past few decades, are already allowed on PGA Tour Americas “more out of necessity,” said Gary Young, the Tour’s vice president of rules and competition, noting that the courses played on that circuit often aren’t marked as well. But Young said the Tour will be monitoring the data to determine if the use of DMDs will make a difference on tee shots at par 3s, approach shots, and especially when players hit foul balls and can’t easily find a marker.
“If we see that those average shot times or average stroke times decrease, then that would be something that we would say, well, maybe there is something to this,” he said. “Maybe it is helping.”
He added: “They’re going to have an extra tool in their toolbox for four weeks, and we’re interested in hearing, following that period, how was it? Do you feel it was beneficial? Do you feel it helped you with pace of play? I think that’s an important point to make about this. There is a beginning and an end to it, and then we’re going to take that time to really cram the data and take a look at it.”
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