Some controversy erupted at the PGA Tour Houston Open over the weekend due to pace of play allegations.
During the final round on Sunday, Min Woo Lee’s tee shot on the par-5 8th hole went wide and into a bush. Lee consulted with a tour official whether the ball was playable or not, and while that’s nothing new in golf, it took about 30 minutes for Lee to take a drop and do his next shot.
While the ordeal happened, Lee’s playing partner Alejandro Tosti was seen talking to the course marshal and appeared to be frustrated by the time it took. Things seemed fine afterward until the 12th hole. There, Tosti appeared to slow his game down as some sort of retaliation. NBC reporter Jim ‘Bones’ Mackay was on the course and provided details of what transpired.
‘I don’t know what’s going on, but Tosti’s playing at his own pace,” Mackay said on air. ‘At times it’s normal and at times it’s glacially slow, and he’s decided on this particular hole to really take his time. He’s holding up play in this particular group.
“The bottom line is this is incredibly unfair to (Lee) trying to get over the finish line for the first time.’
Alejandro Tosti explains pace of play allegations
The easy assumption would have been Tosti was getting payback for the slowdown with Lee earlier in the day. However, that’s not how Tosti saw it.
After news spread of the drama, Tosti went on a social media rant on Monday morning before he later deleted it. Golf Digest had screenshots of the post before it was deleted.
‘Playing at my own pace… omg,’ Tosti wrote, according to Golf Digest, adding that because he went to the restroom and prepared a drink ‘I am ‘slow playing and trying to throw off my playing partners’…. Go (expletive) yourself failures.
Btw stop the fake news idiots.’
After he deleted the post, Tosti made another post accusing Mackay of trying to start a narrative.
‘Bones talking (expletive) for the fans. Saying l am walking 50 yards behind and ‘trying to slow playing my partner.’ The part you don’t see is that l used the restroom and prepared myself a drink,’ Tosti wrote.
Quite the weird situation, but it didn’t appear to bother Lee. He went on to finish first in the Houston Open at 20-under-par for his first PGA Tour victory.
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