Mahan offers alternatives for slow play concerns

• By Will Gray
• Feb 8, 2013 4:49 PM ET

Only a couple weeks removed from a notoriously slow finish at Torrey Pines, players in this week's field at Pebble Beach are again looking at long rounds alongside amateur playing partners. After grabbing a share of the first-round lead, Hunter Mahan addressed the issue of slow play on the PGA Tour with media members, offering both a pointed perspective and multiple options for solutions.

"It's not a hundred guys playing slow; it's a few guys," Mahan told reporters after firing a 6-under 66 in his opening round at the host course. "I know that I don't want to be one of those guys. I want to play fast ... There's a handful of guys, and unless those guys make a change, it's just going to be slow."

A runner-up at Pebble Beach two years ago, Mahan was clear in his view that the current solutions in place involving undisclosed fines are likely not an effective remedy.

"You're going to have to, I think, start giving guys shots because shots will affect the rounds a lot easier," he noted. "Fines, 10, 15 (thousand dollars) ... in the long term, it doesn't matter. Obviously that has not worked."

A winner twice last year on the PGA Tour, Mahan also offered up another potential solution that could help motivate Tour members to play more quickly.

"FedEx Cup points, that could be huge," he added. "In the end trying to make it from 125 to 100, that could be very big. But 5,000 (dollars) obviously doesn't make much of an impact, that's for sure."

In position through two days for his third top-20 finish in as many weeks, Mahan isolated an area that he feels is most responsible for the on-course delays.

"What's frustrating is guys when it's their turn, they are the second or third guy and they are not ready to go," he explained. "There's no reason for that. If you're the last guy, it should take you 10 seconds to hit, it shouldn't take you 50 seconds to hit.

"Even if allotted a certain amount of time, if you're the third guy to go, there shouldn't be much thought."