The opening round of the 150th Open Championship at St. Andrews is in the books.
For the most part, Round 1 went off without a hitch. But golf personality Paige Spiranac has one criticism of Thursday’s event.
“6 hours rounds of golf is just ridiculous ,” she wrote on Twitter.
Spiranac certainly isn’t alone with this take. Countless fans and analysts called out the snail-like pace of play on Thursday.
Threesomes on the PGA Tour typically finish a round in about 4 hours and 40 minutes. Today’s featured threesome of Rory McIlroy, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa completed their round in 5 hours and 42 minutes — teeing off at 9:58 a.m. local time and finishing at at 3:40 p.m.
At the par-5 fifth, this group had to wait off to the side of the green as the group in front of them still hadn’t teed off.
“I figured it would be slow, but I didn’t know it would be this slow,” Morikawa said after the round, per Golf Digest. “We were waiting on groups at tees, waiting on fairways. Xander and I talked about it, we’re watching more golf than we ever have. You stay in the fairway, and you’re watching two other groups play golf.”
Expect a similarly slow pace of play for tomorrow’s second round at the Old Course.