By Brian Wacker
Ian Poulter would like to apologise in advance to his playing partners at this week’s Wells Fargo Championship.

“If I play out of turn then I am sorry,” the 45-year-old Brit said in an Instagram post on Tuesday. “If I’m ready I am hitting.”

The cheeky response comes after Poulter was apparently put on the PGA Tour’s observation list used for its pace-of-play policy.

Though the list is not made public by the tour, Poulter shared the note that he received, posting it in an Instagram story. In it, the email notes that he had been identified as a player with an overall average of 45 seconds or more with his overall per-stroke average at 45.569, which is up from a 44.773 average going into last week’s Valspar Championship, where Poulter tied for 21st.

Under the new policy, as the email to Poulter notes, anyone with a per stroke average of 45 seconds or higher over a rolling 10-tournament period will be placed on the list.

“This is the first time ever I have been told I’m .569 of a second slow,” Poulter said in the post. “Sounds like some @f1 cars.”

A little more than a year ago, the tour made multiple changes to its pace-of-play policy, the most notable among them being that it would punish individuals rather than groups as well as maintain the secret observation list for excessive shot times for players. In addition to the per-stroke average time to play a shot, any player who receives two excessive shot times in a tournament—that is, taking more than 120 seconds to hit a shot without a valid reason—would also land on the list for their next tournament.

The list is updated on a weekly basis. Those who land on it will be monitored during rounds and subject to a 60-second timing limit for all shots, absent a valid reason for taking longer, and even if the group is not out of position. A player will receive a warning for their first bad time and a one-stroke penalty for their second. For each additional bad time, another one-shot penalty will be given. Excessive shot times will also result in fines. For a second bad time, a player will be fined $50,000. Each additional bad time is another $20,000.

The post Ian Poulter’s inclusion on PGA Tour’s slow-play list elicits a very Ian Poulter-like response appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Christopher Powers
There are a lot of reasons that slow play is such a huge problem on the PGA Tour, but one that’s taken much of the blame of late is the use of green-reading books, also known as greens books or green-reading materials. These “maps,” which resemble something you’d find on your Weather Channel app, have changed the way many of the best players in the world read greens.

RELATED: PGA Tour says it’s looking into potential changes to pace-of-play policy

The common complaint with these books is that not only do they take some of the skill out of putting, they slow up play. The image of a player going to a book on even the most routine of putts is off-putting for the casual golf fan, and even some of golf’s most-respected voices have called for a ban. Joe Skovron, longtime caddie for Rickie Fowler, disagrees, as does Phil Mickelson, who went as far to say that the books help speed up play.

Skovron, who started the discussion, also defended the use of the books. “I don’t care if green books are legal or not, but I don’t buy blaming them for slow play,” Skovron’s tweet read. “If you use them correctly and at the right time it can actually speed up your reads.”

Mickelson responded on Tuesday morning, and he was quite firm in his opinion.

“The greens book allows me to do 80 percent of my read before I even get to the green,” Mickelson wrote. “For anyone to say they slow up play is flat out idiotic.”

The five-time major champion wasn’t done there, adding that the books even allow him to play fewer practice rounds throughout the year.

“Let me add the countless hours and many days it saves me preparing for tournaments throughout the year. The book gives me info on where I can/can’t miss it and still get up and down as well as best approach shot into the green without having to play multiple practice rounds.”

For Mickelson, this could all be true. But where he might lose some of the critics is when a player is going to the book a second, third and sometimes fourth time for what appears to be a straightforward putt. In one of the viral videos starring Bryson DeChambeau from last Friday at the Northern Trust, the Mad Scientist can be seen consulting the book once from behind the hole, then a second time from the same spot he was standing in before, and then taking nearly two full minutes to look at the putt without the book from the other side.

The latest viral video, which was posted on Monday night, is of Northern Trust winner Patrick Reed, who took a similar amount of time as DeChambeau for a putt during the Wyndham Championship. Reed consults the book only once, but still takes two minutes and 20 seconds to hit the putt:

Everybody all on @b_dechambeau but this was Reed at the Wyndham last week on a uphill putt. pic.twitter.com/bPdZNVLEGE

— Jason David (@jayesun22) August 13, 2019

Again, each player and situation is different. Perhaps Mickelson, and Fowler, Skovron’s boss, use the books in a quick and effective manner. Other players, as we’ve seen, are more deliberate.

RELATED: Brooks Koepka, Bryson DeChambeau have impromptu meeting over slow-play controversy

The post Phil Mickelson on greens books: “For anyone to say they slow up play is idiotic” appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.