Slow-Play Penalties Pile Up on LPGA and LIV, Not PGA Tour

Professional golf's tours are taking sharply different approaches to slow play: the LPGA Tour and LIV Golf League are handing out shot penalties and fines at a steady pace, the DP World Tour has tightened its timing rules, and the PGA Tour has gone nearly a decade without punishing a player in its own events.

How strict is the DP World Tour's pace of play policy?

The tour now assesses a one-stroke penalty after two "bad times" over a full tournament, not a single round. Players out of position get 50 seconds for the first shot and 40 for the next two, with those times cut 15% once the group is back in position. Eddie Pepperell said in 2024 that one player had paid more than £100,000 in fines under the policy.

Gregorio de Leo was penalized a stroke in the final round of the 2026 Turkish Airlines Open after exceeding the 50-second limit by 30 seconds at the par-3 11th while in contention. Jacob Skov Olesen took nearly 130 seconds over his approach at the par-4 10th during the first round of the 2025 Australian PGA Championship, turning a par into a bogey; he missed the cut after rounds of 74 and 74.

Why is the LPGA Tour handing out the most penalties?

After Nelly Korda and Charley Hull both publicly criticized slow play, the LPGA introduced a new Pace of Play Policy and has enforced it repeatedly. Ciganda and Noh, both repeat offenders, were each given two-stroke penalties at the Buick LPGA Shanghai. Arpichaya Yubol took a one-stroke penalty at the ShopRite LPGA and missed a playoff spot by a single shot. Jin Hee Im was penalized a stroke at the 2026 JM Eagle LA Championship, and Yan Liu lost two strokes at the 2025 Amundi Evian Championship.

Nine players picked up slow-play penalties at a single 2025 U.S. Women's Open qualifier — more than the PGA Tour has handed out in a tour-run event since 2017.

That qualifier's group of nine also included one pairing penalized in both its morning and afternoon rounds.

How does LIV Golf compare to the PGA Tour?

Richard Bland drew LIV Golf's first slow-play penalty, at Valderrama; a year later in Chicago he was fined $10,000 and penalized a stroke again for exceeding the 40-second limit on a second shot. Adrian Meronk's one-stroke penalty at LIV Golf Jeddah cost him $240,000 in prize money. LIV has out-penalized the PGA Tour every season since its 2022 launch.

On the PGA Tour, John Catlin was penalized at the 2021 PGA Championship, an event run by the PGA of America rather than the tour itself. The last penalty in a PGA Tour-run event came at the 2017 Zurich Classic of New Orleans. The tour's average target time per round is about four hours and 45 minutes.