PGA Tour contemplates announcing fines as part of study into slow play

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — The PGA Tour is taking a hard look at whether to allow rangefinders and publicize violations as part of a comprehensive study on pace of play and other enhancements to the game that have come out of a survey of 50,000 golf fans.

Tour officials were purposely short on specifics Wednesday during a meeting with reporters on the “Fan Forward” initiative that Commissioner Jay Monahan announced a year ago. He is expected to go into greater detail at The Players Championship in March.

But the preview session at Pebble Beach supported Monahan's message late last year that “everything is on the table” as the PGA Tour embarks on a series of changes.

“I think as we roll the clock forward three, five, 10 years, we’re going to look back at 2025 as an inflection point in the evolution of the tour,” said Andy Weitz, the tour's chief marketing and communications officer.

He said part of that was capital growth from the investment of Strategic Sports Group, which put $1.5 billion into PGA Tour Enterprise with the potential to double the amount.

Fenway Sports Group, a big part of SSG, has Theo Epstein as a senior advisor. Epstein, former general manager of the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs, worked with Major League Baseball on recent changes that include a pitch clock and larger bases to encourage more stealing.

The shot clock has been mentioned to help improve pace of play on tour, and the topic has gained momentum in recent weeks when the final round of threesomes has taken about 5 1/2 hours to finish.

Weitz said the tour formed a study group a month ago with three players — Sam Burns, Jhonattan Vegas and Adam Schenk — who likely would pass their findings to the Players Advisory Council, a 16-member panel that has been more involved than ever.

Rangefinders — or distance measuring devices — currently are allowed only at the PGA Championship. The tour is trying to find a spot in the schedule for a test run to see if it helps speed play by getting players the yardages quicker.

Gary Young, the senior vice president of rules and competition, said the sample tests could be at signatures events that have smaller fields, or perhaps a tournament like the Zurich Classic that features team competition.

The potential of disclosing violations would be a break from PGA Tour tradition. The tour is different from most other sports leagues in that it has never disclosed fines, disciplinary action or violations that relate to pace of play. The tour long felt that would be little more than a distraction. What it heard from fans was a need for more transparency.

“I think there's a real moment now for that all to be looked at,” PGA Tour President Tyler Dennis said.

Weitz said the discussion has met with little resistance from players. He had breakfast Wednesday morning with Max Homa and said Homa told him, “We want to hold each other accountable, and we want to play in a way that is the best version of the fan experience.”

Another example to help speed play was the use of a video review center at the new PGA Tour Studios in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.

All of the changes came from the “Fan Forward” program, which included a survey that grew out of a fan council started in 2017. An outside agency helped the tour reach 50,000 fans who were surveyed in three waves.

The topics:

— Broadcast enhancement, much of it geared around showing more shots, more meaningful consequences (such as the 36-hole cut) and fewer tap-ins.

— Competition adjustments, which includes the tour studying another change to the format in the Tour Championship. Depending on player feedback, a proposal could go before the policy board as early as March.

“If we can get alignment between one concept, then we’ll do it as early as ’25. If it is, ‘Yes, we love this idea but,’ and there needs more conversation, it’ll have to be ’26 because there will be more to work through,” said Billy Schroeder, senior vice president of competitions.

— Player content and profile. Weitz said for the ages 18-34 demographic, fans were most interested in personality on the course, and then off the course, and lastly competitive performance.

— Fan experience on the golf course, and what golf can learn from other sports in which the entire playing field can't be seen from one spot. Formula One was an example of that.

The tour already has gone through player-driven changes in recent years, such as the $20 million signature events with smaller fields and no cuts, reducing field sizes in 2026 and lowering to 100 players from 125 players in FedEx Cup who keep full cards.

More changes could be on the way, some of them already being studied.

“If the voice of the fans is at the center of what we do, we're on the right path,” Weitz said.

AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

Max Homa hits his tee shot on the 11th hole of the North Course at Torrey Pines during the second round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Thursday, Jan. 23, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

Jhonattan Vegas hits out of the bunker on the fourth hole on the South Course at Torrey Pines during the third round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Friday, Jan. 24, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

Sam Burns hits from the second tee at La Quinta Country Club Course during the first round of the American Express golf tournament in La Quinta, Calif., Thursday, Jan. 16, 2025. (AP Photo/William Liang)

Harris English walks on the the 18th green on the South Course at Torrey Pines during the final round of the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

Harris English celebrates after winning the Farmers Insurance Open golf tournament at Torrey Pines Saturday, Jan. 25, 2025, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks on Thursday are giving back a chunk of their historic gains from the day before as Wall Street weighs a global trade war that has cooled in temperature but is still threatening the economy.

The S&P 500 was down 3%, a day after surging 9.5% following President Donald Trump’s decision to pause many of his tariffs worldwide. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 981 points, or 2.4%, as of 10:10 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 3.7% lower.

Even a better-than-expected report on inflation Thursday morning wasn’t enough to get U.S. stocks to add to their surges from the day before, including the S&P 500’s third-best since 1940. Economists said the data wasn’t very useful because it offered a view only of the past, when inflation may rise in coming months because of tariffs.

A better-than-expected report on joblessness didn’t help much either, with Wall Street’s focus entirely on what’s to come.

“Trump blinks,” UBS strategist Bhanu Baweja wrote in a report about the president’s decision on tariffs, “but the damage isn’t all undone.”

Trump has focused more on China, raising his tariffs on its products to 125%. Even if that were to get negotiated down to something like 50%, and even if only 10% tariffs remained on other countries, Baweja said the hit to the U.S. economy could still be large enough to hurt expected growth for upcoming U.S. corporate profits.

China, meanwhile, has reached out to other countries around the world in hopes of forming a united front against Trump. The European Union, though, on Thursday said it will put its trade retaliation measures on hold for 90 days and leave room for a negotiated solution.

Trump and his Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sent a clear message to other countries Wednesday after announcing their tariff pause: “Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded.”

Many on Wall Street are preparing for more wild swings in the market, after the S&P 500 at one point nearly dropped into a “bear market” by almost closing 20% below its record. Often, the whipsaw moves have come not just day to day but also hour to hour. The S&P 500 still remains below where it was when Trump announced his sweeping set of tariffs last week on “Liberation Day.”

“Everything is still very volatile, because with Donald Trump, you don’t know what to expect,” said Francis Lun, chief executive of Geo Securities. “This is really big uncertainty in the market. The threat of recession has not faded.”

One encouraging signal, though, is coming from the bond market, where stress seems to be easing.

The bond market has historically played the role of enforcer against politicians and economic policies it deemed imprudent. It helped topple the United Kingdom's Liz Truss in 2022, for example, whose 49 days made her Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister. James Carville, adviser to former U.S. President Bill Clinton, also famously said he'd like to be reincarnated as the bond market because of how much power it wields.

Earlier this week, big jumps for U.S. Treasury yields had rattled the market, so much that Trump said Wednesday he had been watching how investors were “getting a little queasy.”

Several reasons could have been behind the sharp, sudden rise, including hedge funds having to sell their Treasurys in order to raise cash or investors outside the United States dumping their U.S. investments because of the trade war. Regardless of the reasons behind it, higher yields on Treasurys crank up pressure on the stock market and push rates higher for mortgages and other loans for U.S. households and businesses.

But the 10-year Treasury yield has calmed over the last day, following Trump's U-turn on tariffs, and was sitting at 4.30%. That’s after it had shot up to nearly 4.50% Wednesday morning from just 4.01% at the end of last week.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rallied across Europe and Asia in their first chances to trade following Trump’s pause. Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 9.1%, South Korea’s Kospi leaped 6.6% and Germany’s DAX returned 5.2%.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.

People walk by the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday morning, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

People walk by an electronic board showing Japan's Nikkei 225 index at a securities firm in Tokyo Thursday, April 10, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

A person walks past an electronic stock board at a securities firm in Tokyo Thursday, April 10, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

A currency trader walks by the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader watches computer monitors at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader walks by the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won and the Korean Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (KOSDAQ) at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader prepares to work near the screens showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

A currency trader watches computer monitors near the screen showing the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at a foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, April 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

President Donald Trump is displayed on a television on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

A traders works on the floor at the New York Stock Exchange in New York, Wednesday, April 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)