OAKMONT, Pa. -- A few weeks ago, Jack Nicklaus made a confession. "I'm sure I was slow at Oakmont," Nicklaus told Golf Digest. "It was hard for me to begin preparing to hit until it was my turn to play. I actually thought I was being considerate by refusing to walk around preparing while another player was hitting. But I was too slow and nothing could make me speed up."
Plenty of players are following in Nicklaus' footsteps this week at Oakmont for the 2016 U.S. Open, and some are even getting roasted for it. My pal Kevin Van Valkenburg of ESPN lit into world No. 2 Jordan Spieth a little bit for his slow play antics earlier in the week. And while I'm not here to tell you that Spieth has transformed himself into Brandt Snedeker in the last 24 hours, I am here to tell you that there are external factors at play with Spieth that do not do him any favors.
I walked with Spieth and playing partners Bryson DeChambeau (who fancies himself a scientist-turned-artist) and Zach Johnson (who makes the Oakmont rough looks like it grows fast). The threesome played the front nine at Oakmont in Saturday's second round in a whopping 2 hours and 49 minutes. It was painful to watch and excruciating to follow.
And yes, Spieth should be held accountable for his glacial performance ... and he was! Their group was (rightfully) put on the clock late in the second round on Saturday as they had played most of the day with either a full hole or nearly a full hole empty in front of them. A marshal on their second (!) hole of the day ducked behind a camera tower and leaned into his walkie talkie: Group 47 is out of position. This was 20 minutes into their second round.
Part of this is inevitable, right? It's a U.S. Open and every shot is scrutinized with an intensity normally reserved for nuclear fission (something DeChambeau probably knows a thing or two about). But 2 hours and 49 minutes is a little bit embarrassing. Grow the game? More like grow the time slot for Fox to display the game on TV because their current 13-hour window is not nearly enough.
So I definitely expected to see Spieth hitting the brakes on a day in which he was slated to play 36 holes. He always does at the big boy tournaments. But I was surprised to see, on Saturday anyway, that Spieth was by far the fastest player in his group.
That is not necessarily a compliment, but he was ready to hit when it was his turn to hit and never lagging or lingering. Does he take a long time to read putts, and does he do that annoying thing where he steps up and backs off of reads? Yes. But compared to what The Artist (DeChambeau) and Johnson were doing, Spieth seemed like he was playing speed golf. You have to forgive DeChambeau -- he was likely performing some trigonometry I cannot speak to -- but Johnson was pretty brutal -- double and triple-checking his yardage book, talking his caddie through every putt.
The rub here is that this is what makes Johnson great. He doesn't have the talent of a Dustin Johnson or a Rory McIlroy, and it's his attention to detail that has made him a two-time major champion and one of the better players in his generation. I can't fault him for that because he should do what he's allowed to do within the rules, but I can dislike it. I can find it to be a poor viewing experience.
Here is the spot where I start to struggle. The philosophical question here (not to go full DeChambeau on you) is, "Who the heck cares if these guys are playing slowly?" I'm empty-handed when it comes to answers other than that it's a poor consumption experience for folks watching in person (myself included). On TV, as the rhythms of players (like Spieth) get worked out with producers (and they should have mostly already), this should not really be an issue. Sometimes it is, and that's not specifically Spieth's fault. Spieth is not fast, but his fame and the fact that every shot is shown on television makes him seem slower than he actually is. Especially this week.
I suppose what I'm saying here is that we sort of disproportionately place golf's existential issues upon its stars. The future of golf in the Olympics? Solely on Rory McIlroy's shoulders and the decision he makes in 2016. The same is becoming true of Spieth and slow play. But this is not Spieth's burden to bear. His goal is to rack up majors, not be palatable for those consuming his golf. That responsibility falls squarely on the governing bodies of these events.
The European Tour has made many strides in speeding play up, even giving (humorously) Spieth a warning during a tournament earlier this year. It's the job of governing bodies like this to make events good experiences for fans. Playing nine holes in nearly three hours is not a good experience. But you shouldn't really blame Jordan Spieth for that.
