I forgot to mention this yesterday, but the pace for the final round was fantastic. It was much better than the 5 hour trudge at the Masters. In fact, I think it was over in less than four hours – and much more dramatic. I don’t know if it was the USGA putting more players on the clock or not. Woods was on the clock on Friday and Saturday. But, it did seem like the USGA was getting players through a lot more quickly on a course that is not exactly set up for speedy walking.

I did not catch this part of the television coverage on Sunday – flipping back and forth between the Ginn Tribute and the Memorial will do that to you – but some people are speculating that JB Holmes (”I’ll take as long as I want”) dissed Jack Nicklaus while walking off of the 18th at Muirfield yesterday.

Jason Sobel, in the Weekly 18, speculates:

We weren’t on site at Muirfield Village this week and didn’t hear anything about this after the fact, so we’re inclined to give J.B. Holmes the benefit of the doubt. In case you missed it, the FBR Open champ walked off the 18th green Sunday, looked in the direction of tournament host Jack Nicklaus … and then looked away and walked right past him.

We gave the incident a few rewinds on the DVR, and if a picture tells a thousand words, it was apparent that Holmes (who had just completed a final-round 5-over 77 to finish T-20) wanted no part of the tournament host as he headed toward the scorer’s trailer.

I’m trying to find a YouTube of it, and if so, I will post it. AOL Fanhouse said that JB did toss his ball to a youngster in the crowd. And he did cost himself a couple hundy grand with his round. He probably had a right to be peeved. But to avoid shaking the hand of the best player in history? Childish. Hopefully he meant nothing by it. Then again, Holmes has said he’ll do things how he wants.

This also made Yahoo! Sports’ golf blog vis a vis The Golf Watch blog. The Yahoo! blog comments are hilarious. Golf Watch mentions some Jim Nantz quote on air about the situation.

Michael Collins writes for the Golf Channel and covers golf on PGA Tour Radio on XM. He wrote his weekly column for TGC.com and it is about slow play.

Yes, we’re slow; do you work for a chance at 9 million bucks a week? No? Then shut up.

If I hear one more person complain about slow play I’m going to punch ‘em in the nose and look at their face as they try to figure out how, and what just happened.

Last week at THE PLAYERS I’m on the fifth hole waiting by the green for Tom Lehman and Greg Kraft to putt out so I can call the shots of Phil Mickelson and Bernhard Langer when this “Goober” in a NASCAR hat, dirty t-shirt, and 13 teeth says to me, “These guys are too damned slow. Look at this Bill Shaft guy (he meant Greg Kraft), he’s backed off this putt twice already and it’s only 4 feet.”

I patiently waited for Greg to drain his putt (nice par save); he did back off four times, before I turned back to “Goober” and said, “Yeah, I bet you’d be much faster than these guys out there if you were playing.”

Collins, I hate to tell you, but you looked bad in this situation for two reasons: (1) you just publicly stereotyped a golf fan so you could feel superior to him in your opinion and (2) you actually talked back to the fan in the first place.

The exchange continued, though.

“So if it takes the best players in the world five-and-a-half hours to play a course with 35 mph winds and greens you couldn’t hit, more or less putt, maybe you should respect the fact that for 9.5 million they’re here giving it their all while you’re in THAT hat and t-shirt drinking a beer complaining. What do you do for a living?”

I believe the Internet expression is lollerskates. Seriously, that is terrible as a response and a rationale.

Guys in the NBA play for entire seasons for double or even triple that amount of money. They get five seconds to do something with the ball and 24 to get a shot off as a team. Baseball games are getting faster on the average. The NFL looks to speed up play. College football – notoriously slow – is enacting rules to increase the pace.

Basically, golf is the only major sport on the map that is getting slower. And, actually, only the PGA Tour is getting slower. American players have commented that the pace is much better in Europe. The LPGA Tour has enacted a serious slow play policy that is universally loved. Why the excuses, then?

Interestingly enough, Collins does understand the reasons for slow play. He talks about them in his column. Some are players themselves, some are logistics of the Tour, some are set up based. Despite responding to the fan commentator, he does seem to understand the issue.

He does offer one ridiculous suggestion – snipers – but then calls for a shot clock of 45 seconds per shot. That is basically the LPGA Tour policy +15 seconds per shot. That’s something that I could live with for sure.

Also, Mike, I’ll have my guard up when I meet you some day because I will be expecting that punch in the face.

UPDATE 1:29pm Monday – That link on the front page came down awfully quickly!

In my monthly column over at Sports Central, I talk about the seriousness of slow play. I know, it’s my crusade topic for this season. But, I talk about it in light of the 5 hour rounds of the final pairings at the Masters and the Players Championship. Also, I talk about how Tim Finchem appears to be stepping up to the plate with some options. Last, I mention how everyone wins if those options are implemented regardless of trying to clean up slow play.