At Sahalee, an opening Arizona State win and 15 shots worth of slow-play penalties

Arizona State’s quest to replace two first-team All-Americans got off to a strong start on Sunday at the Sahalee Players Championship. The Sun Devils, ranked 12th in Golf Channel’s preseason rankings after the graduations of Josele Ballester and Preston Summerhays, defeated top-ranked Texas by a shot thanks to senior Michael Mjaaseth’s 54th-hole birdie.

Exciting stuff, but the fall-opening tournament for many of the best teams in the country was overshadowed, at least in part, by multiple slow-play penalties, including in the penultimate grouping during Sunday’s final round.

Texas’ Christiaan Maas, Arizona State’s Bowen Mauss and Pepperdine’s Mahanth Chirravuri were each penalized one shot for missing two of four checkpoints. Also on Sunday, North Carolina’s Keaton Vo, Washington’s Jake Foley and Arizona’s Connor Hamm were docked three strokes apiece for an additional checkpoint missed. In the first round, Ronin Banerjee, who was competing along with other members of the U.S. National Development Program, was penalized a shot along with Arizona’s Tianyi Xiong and Oregon’s Tim Chang.

The penalties changed little on the team leaderboard, though host Washington was most affected, going from T-7 to ninth. Pepperdine dropped from T-6 to seventh. Arizona’s penalized players were already not counting either day, same for Vo. The national-team juniors still finished an impressive fourth, six shots behind third-place UCLA and three ahead of fifth-place San Diego State. North Carolina and fourth-ranked Florida, which finished 10th, were each missing their top player because of the Walker Cup – Niall Shiels Donegan and Luke Poulter, respectively.

While there have been cases of slow-play penalties at NCAA postseason events, several coaches agreed that such instances during the regular season, which is not governed by the NCAA, are rare – and 15 strokes worth of slow-play penalties, unprecedented. The tournament, hosted by the University of Washington and Sahalee Country Club, employed a veteran rules staff, which included longtime head official Jim Moriarty, who traditionally works NCAA Championships, as well as USGA championships.

Like they do in the NCAA postseason, officials implemented the time-par and checkpoint system to manage pace of play at Sahalee. The overall time par, or the amount of time all players are expected to complete a round, was either 4 hours, 45 minutes or 4 hours, 44 minutes, depending on the starting side, same as last fall’s tournament. Moriarty and his staff took time to highlight by hand each hole’s individual time par on every scorecard, while placing signage around the course and verbally reminding coaches and players of the pace-of-play policy on the starting tees. Furthermore, one player was selected in each group to keep track of their group’s pace.

Checkpoint holes were Nos. 4, 8, 13 and 17, and if groups missed more than one checkpoint during a round, the players would be subject to penalty. If groups missed a checkpoint but were within 14 minutes of the group ahead of them, they would be cleared of that particular violation. There is also some level of subjectivity, as last year’s NCAA individual champion Michael La Sasso missed two checkpoints in his final round at La Costa, before officials, including Moriarty, decided not to penalize he or his playing competitors. In Sunday’s final round, 18 of the 24 groups did not miss a single checkpoint.

In the case of the group that received three-shot penalties Sunday at Sahalee, Moriarty said those players missed their final checkpoint by about 2 minutes and despite waiting on the seventh tee box were 16 minutes behind the group ahead of them after completing the eighth hole. In scoring, it was discovered that the player tasked with keeping track of time, Hamm, did not do so, and overall, the group was “completely unaware” of the pace-of-play policy, per Moriarty.

Maas also did not log his group’s times, telling officials after the round that he didn’t have a phone because his coaches confiscate he and his teammates’ phone during competitive rounds. Maas’ group missed its third checkpoint, at No. 13, by approximately 20 minutes and ended its round 22 minutes behind the group ahead. Groups teed off in 11-minute intervals.

Both Sunday reviews were extensive, with the process pausing so subsequent groups could sign their scorecards. Some players initially refused to sign their scorecards, and once coaches arrived, the scene turned into a “three-ring circus,” according to one account from the ground. Eventually, tensions simmered, and the appeals committee informed the players that both decisions were unanimous and final.

“Officials are reluctant to give out penalties because they’re afraid of bad publicly,” Moriarty said. “We try to enforce the rules as fairly and evenly as possible.”

Alan Murray, Washington’s head coach, called the penalties frustrating but noted that “for the vast majority of players, it wasn’t a problem.” He also lauded Moriarty as a pillar of the college game.

“Jim’s always done a really great job running events, and I would trust his ability to oversee things accordingly,” Murray said. “I wasn’t enthused that our guy got a three-stroke penalty, but when you look at the black and white of it, that group was entitled to get a three-stroke penalty. You just have to grin and bear it.”

Added another coach: “We had A-plus officials. They did their job, even when unpopular.”

Afterward, several coaches diagnosed the issue as pertaining to the course setup. While Moriarty asked coaches if the time-par numbers were acceptable during their pre-tournament meeting on Friday morning – “If this isn’t enough, tell me now,” he said then – it was impossible at the time to forecast the scoring. The field, which combined to shoot 194 over par last year, ballooned to a combined 271 over this year. Two of the checkpoint holes were Nos. 8 and 17, which ranked as the most difficult and fifth most difficult holes, respectively. They also ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in doubles or worse made (29 and 27). One group had all three players putt their balls off the third green from inside 30 feet during the final round.

Sahalee, already penal with over 300 out-of-bounds stakes placed by officials, played even tougher thanks to some borderline hole locations, which Murray, in charge of setting up the course along with the club, agreed with.

“In hindsight, we probably could’ve done a better job of preparing the golf course and coordinating the time par correctly,” Muray said. “… It was our event, and we wanted it to run smoothly and everyone to have a great experience. We work really hard to get the best field possible there and then set up a championship-caliber event and golf course, and I think we’ve achieved that every year. A couple of the hole locations were just extremely tough this year.

“If anything, we probably got a couple of things wrong.”

Being a host coach himself (Williams Cup) and one of the coaches whose teams were affected by the penalties, North Carolina’s Andrew DiBitetto understood the perspectives of all involved.

“Sahalee has quickly become one of our favorite tournaments,” DiBitetto said. “Alan Murray and everyone at Sahalee are passionate about creating an incredible experience for all teams. Players and coaches easily see this and feel it. It’s also a championship test of golf with an elite field, which we absolutely love. What happened with the slow-play penalties is unfortunate. The players involved and I’m sure their coaches didn’t want that to occur, and we didn’t think it required a penalty, but we respect the ruling and move on. So much of coaching is about learning. I don’t know the details of all the penalties assessed, but I know what happened with Keaton’s group. We’ve already talked with Keaton about what we can learn and how we can be better in the future, myself included. I’d imagine others involved are doing the same. There’s a lot on the line these days with teams, individuals, PGA Tour U, etc. and I hate this happened, but it’s better now as opposed to later in the year.

“Again, hopefully lessons have been learned and we move forward.”