The Korn Ferry Tour has broken new ground in golf with a published listing of how long it takes to hit shots relative to the field average for a tournament and for the season.
The data for “average stroke time” was posted to the PGA Tour’s website after last week’s Colonial Life Charity Classic. It provides an overall speed of play, with how long a player takes off the tee, with his approach, around the green and putting.
“The publishing of the AST data on the Korn Ferry Tour is an opportunity to provide greater context around a player’s pace of play and the various factors that may impact it during any given tournament,” Korn Ferry Tour President Alex Baldwin said.
Mitchell Meissner said he considers himself to be a quick player and he was 17th at 4.815 seconds below the field average.
“There was definitely some interest in comparing my timing data to the data of my buddies,” Meissner said. “I hope the fans will be surprised by how quickly the majority of us play, especially considering all the necessary decisions it takes to play one shot and the significant consequences at stake out here.”
Nicholas Infanti led the Korn Ferry with an average overall time of 12.226 seconds below the field average. Ian Gilligan was last (No. 129) at 9.097 seconds above the field average.