Matthew Fitzpatrick has never been a fan of slow play — nor the way the PGA Tour has handled the problem.

So it was only fitting that his latest Tour win came with an extra hurdle: His playing partner’s pace.

“That was really frustrating. It was slow today. I felt like there was a lot of stop-start,” Fitzpatrick said after his win at the Valspar Championship.

He chose his words carefully and never called out his playing partner Adrien Dumont de Chassart by name, but his words echoed sentiments he’s shared throughout his years on Tour. It’s a tricky tension to tackle — individuals playing for their livelihoods will always take the time they feel they need, while stroke penalties can feel hard to fairly dish out — Fitzpatrick has consistently called out the policing of issue, using phrases like “truly appalling,” “a disgrace,” “pathetic” and more.

Three years ago, following a big-time win at Harbour Town, Fitzpatrick took aim in a Sky Sports interview. But he also acknowledged he was taking a futile stand.

“The problem is, though, this conversation has gone on for years and years and years, and no one has ever done anything,” he said at the time. “So I feel it’s almost a waste of time talking about it every time. I have my opinions — they’re probably strong opinions, but PGA Tour, DP World Tour, no one’s going to do anything about it.”

Back to Sunday, then. While Fitzpatrick’s day was smooth — he fired three-under 68 en route to his first PGA Tour victory in nearly three years — Dumont de Chassart’s was less so. The 26-year-old Belgian’s opening tee shot flew out of bounds en route to triple-bogey 8 and he made a second 8 at the par-5 11th; his handling of the latter took such a long time that Fitzpatrick, who’d played out of turn in an attempt to keep their group on pace, took the unusual step of asking an official for help.

NBC’s on-course reporter John Wood said that Fitzpatrick was “perturbed” by Chassart’s pace, which he described as “glacial, to be kind.”

Rules official Orlando Pope confirmed on the broadcast that Fitzpatrick had spoken with an official and that the Tour had begun unofficially timing him; that eventually led to an official warning.

“Yeah, just, you know, just not ready,” Fitzpatrick said, referencing his playing partner, if not by name. He was drawing a distinction between making a high score — which happens and can inevitably slow up play — and playing slowly while doing so.

“When you’re not ready to play a golf shot it gets frustrating after awhile. Particularly when you playing well yourself or you’re in contention or whatever it is. It definitely knocks you out of your rhythm. Because you hit, you walk to it, you kind of think about it, you hit again, and you go. 

“There in particular that hole, then you’re around a stretch there that can get a little bit quirky with different shots and stuff, so you have to be on it,” Fitzpatrick continued. “It definitely knocked me out of rhythm I felt like for the next two, three holes. I was kind of chasing my tail, because I’m trying to speed up and trying to keep us or get back in position, and at the same time you’re obviously trying to win a golf tournament.”

Fitzpatrick did ultimately win that golf tournament.

Chassart tumbled to T26 after a 74. Still, he avoided any slow-play penalty and improved from No. 97 to 91 in the season-long FedEx Cup standings.

It has been nearly nine years since the last time the Tour last issued a stroke penalty. The Tour announced several potential fixes early last season. Safe to say Fitzpatrick thinks those remain a work in progress.

But if given the chance, we doubt he’d change anything about Sunday’s winning round.

Bobby Jones, the legendary amateur and Augusta National co-founder, didn’t just play golf well — he also played the game quickly. There was little fidgeting or second-guessing when Jones stepped over a shot. Slide in, maybe a quick waggle and let it rip. Ditto on the greens, where he believed examining putts from multiple angles was unnecessary if not counterproductive.

A century or so after Jones’s prime, his proclivity for a peppy pace is alive and well at the club he helped establish — or, at the least, the club’s forward-looking chairman, Fred Ridley, has championed the cause. Look no further than Ridley’s state-of-the-union remarks at the Masters a year ago. In the weeks leading up to the 2025 tournament, the sluggish pace on the PGA Tour had become so offensive that CBS Golf reporter Dottie Pepper called it out on the air.

Pepper’s critique sparked much heated debate on the topic, which led Ridley to say in scripted comments to the press: “The subject of pace of play is top of mind. Playing without undue delay, as the rules and the game’s traditions dictate, is an essential skill of golf at all levels. Recognizing the challenges professionals face each week, I also believe pace of play is an important element of the examination of the world’s best players.

“Golf is a special game because it requires us to be considerate while also being competitive. Respecting other people’s time, including, importantly, the fans who support the game, is a fundamental courtesy. Therefore, I want to encourage continued dialogue on this topic, especially at the professional levels which serve as the most visible representation of our sport.”

But Ridley’s concern extended beyond the professional game and even the elite amateur and college games all the way down to the junior ranks. That much became evident when he was asked to reflect on a young golfer who had used the time-consuming AimPoint green-reading technique — which has become popular in the pro game — in the finals of the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals. (There were, in fact, several players who employed the technique, but a reporter asked Ridley about one in particular.)  

“I, too, noticed exactly what you noticed,” Ridley said. “It’s interesting, but every phase of the competition has the same length chip and the same length putt, so it’s really not necessary to pace that off. They know how many yards that is. But nevertheless that’s what they were doing. I think it’s safe to assume that next year at the Drive, Chip & Putt you will see some sort of time limitations placed on the competition.”

Ridley wasn’t bluffing.

On Tuesday, the DC&P, which is jointly run by the Masters, the USGA and the PGA of America, announced a new rule — in essence, a shot clock — that will be instituted at the event’s finals at Augusta National in April.

At that stage of the contest, each of the 80 finalists hit only six shots a piece (two drives, two chips, two putts) so you can understand why they’re in full grind mode. Still, to alleviate some of the slog, the event is introducing a “pace of play bonus” by which competitors will earn half a bonus point for each shot they complete in 40 seconds or less, meaning players who execute all six of their shots in the allotted time will earn three bonus points in all. “This initiative aims to reinforce pace of play as an essential skill in golf,” according to a release announcing the new rule.  

Here, according to the official rules, is how the pace will be monitored:

First Shot

Second Shot

Scoring Procedure

Sensible? We think so! Now if only we could get the pros moving, because, after all, tomorrow’s stars are following their lead. As Ridley said last year, “These young people are looking to their heroes who play the game each week for a living as to how they’re going to approach competitively playing the game.”

If the DC&P’s new rule is effective, maybe that formula should get flipped on its head.