From 'Despising' Birdie-Fests, Lazy 'Fore' Shouts And 'Shocking' Scheduling... What Irritates Us About Professional Golf?
From long pre-shot routines to a lack of rough and tournament clashes, here are the things that irk us about professional golf...
'Inside The Ropes' is the chance for Golf Monthly's expert team to share its honest thoughts on the biggest subjects in the game. This week, we get our professional golf irritations off our chests
We watch a lot of golf at Golf Monthly, and our writers have been fans of the game for decades. We live and breathe the sport and love it dearly, but there are many occasions where we find ourselves slightly irritated by what we're watching.
That's the subject of this week's Inside The Ropes, where I asked my colleagues for their pro golf irritations and also chimed in with a couple of my own.
So, what annoys you about pro golf? Let us know in the comments section at the bottom of this article.
Long player-caddie discussions
I'm becoming increasingly bored of conversations between caddies and players and I can't help think professional golf would be more interesting if these consultations were banned.
Some of the players come across as almost insecure and need the validation of a caddie to hit a shot, which can lead to painful back-and-forths that sometimes take longer than a minute.
Almost everyone feels slow play is a problem, and the caddie-player relationship does nothing to improve this. My colleague Joe Ferguson believes caddies should be scrapped in the professional game and I'm starting to get on board with that admittedly 'out there' opinion.
Rough
The lack of rough at most tour events is my second point of annoyance.
There's so much talk about how far the ball goes, but the widely employed solution of simply lengthening golf holes makes no sense.
If you make the rough thick and the fairways narrow, players will either scale back in order to find the short grass or persist with the big stick and take the gamble on.
If someone wins from the latter camp, then fair enough, you have to give credit where it's due.
But at least challenge them or make them think. It's far too easy most weeks for big hitters to whack driver 350 yards and face little to no penalty for missing the short grass.
And while I'm on the subject of length, enough of 'par 4s' in excess of 500 yards already - it's ridiculous!
Lengthy pre-shot routines
It would be easy for me to say pace of play in general, given that it's a hot topic in the professional golf world, but I've opted for pre-shot routines, particularly those that take a long time to complete.
Yes, professional golfers have probably been told to have a pre-shot routine so they're 100% over the shot, and I get that. However, when the pre-shot routine takes over two minutes to complete, and doesn't start until their playing partner has struck their shot, then something is wrong.
It's not just in the long game, but the short game (particularly putting), where we see some time-consuming routines.
Aimpoint hasn't helped the pace of play argument, with players taking an age to assess a three-foot putt. For me, though, it's the fact that the players and caddies would have played the course two-to-three times during the practice rounds, as well as every day from Thursday and Friday, it's not as if anything has changed significantly.
Professional circuits are introducing measures to help whack the time down, and one good way would be to have a time limit on pre-shot routines.
'Fore'
The majority of players, from what I've seen anyway, do shout fore when their golf ball has gone offline, but what does irk me is when they don't and simply raise their arm in the direction it's going in.
Firstly, that golf ball is hurtling towards the crowd at high speed with no warning, and secondly, it's just pure laziness. How difficult is it to shout out a four-letter word?
Professional golfers are blessed in that they usually have a spotter on every hole, but just simply raising an arm in the air after a wayward shot isn't the biggest help in the world in terms of safety, or location.
It doesn't happen often, but I'd like to see some repercussions for those who don't shout fore. Whether it's a monetary fine, or perhaps a shot penalty, it's a small notion that can make a big difference.
Birdie-fests
I despise birdie-fests. The fact that a golf tournament at the very highest level is being won at 30-under-par is simply ludicrous and, quite honestly, a bit of a farce.
Take nothing away from the players, because they can only play the golf course in front of them, but serious questions should be asked about the course set up at events where anything better than 20-under-par is winning year after year.
These are the best players in the world and we are making it super easy for them.
Let's create some proper tests of golf week-in, week-out, so that when we inevitably get to a tournament where a 20-under-par or better score wins, we can actually celebrate the enormity of that achievement rather than it becoming the norm.
Lift, clean and place
On a similar note, I would also be happy to see a reduction in the frequency that lift, clean and place is used on the PGA Tour.
For extreme weather, that significantly impacts the integrity of the competition, I can get onboard.
For a bit of rain or a few mud balls, I say get on with it - it's the same for everyone!
Scheduling
The scheduling in the professional game is shocking at times. Take last year, when the Australian Open, Nedbank Golf Challenge and Hero World Challenge all took place on the same week. I wrote at the time that it was a classic example of golf shooting itself in the foot.
Then there's the women's Major schedule, with the biggest showpiece events in the women's game regularly clashing with big PGA Tour Signature Events.
Lottie Woad recently won her second LPGA Tour title against a stacked field with a sensational performance at the Kroger Queen City Championship...which was taking place just as Aaron Rai was completing his PGA Championship glory.
Woad's fantastic win would have had far more viewers if it finished on the following Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday when the entire golf-viewing public were available.
I would love to see some innovative thinkers at tours start to look at other days to play their tournaments. Would a Monday finish be better for the LPGA Tour to get it away from constantly being up against the PGA Tour? I think so.
Hardcore fans would watch great golf everyday of the week if they could, yet currently there is nothing from Monday to Wednesday and then absolutely everything from Thursday to Sunday.
Sure, the biggest events on the PGA, LPGA, DP World and LIV Golf Tours are often played in different time zones and a weekend finish is best for on-site spectator numbers, but I truly believe they would benefit from looking at the calendar and trying their best to avoid clashing.
Formats
The PGA Tour has 48 events on its 2026 calendar, 47 if you remove the Presidents Cup, and I can count just two that aren't 72-hole strokeplay tournaments.
They are the Zurich Classic pairs event and the Grant Thornton mixed pairs tournament. That's really bad, right?
Golf has a vast array of fun and engaging formats, including the likes of match play, skins, stableford and countless other variations, yet we are fed the exact same stale format almost every single week.
The loss of match play is a tragedy and I think we need at least one singles match play event every year. I would also love to see some some elimination events where there is a cut every day and scores reset.
How about a par 3 tournament? An event on a classic course where tees and drivers/woods are banned? A 3 clubs and a putter event? A randomly drawn pairs event? Perhaps a knockout match play doubles event where the teams are randomly drawn after every round? These are just some ideas I've had right now off the top of my head.
The issue we've likely had, and the excuse for not trying new things, when tours experiment with formats is that they're often done in tournaments with weaker fields that have little interest anyway. A few innovative formats in events with strong fields and big money and points on the line would surely create a buzz.
Then we could look back and see which ones worked the best and try them again.
Do you agree with our annoyances? And what are yours? Let us know below.