[WLVRYN]

Ben Crane is the posterboy for slow play, which a rangefinder wont help much, but he did have several discussions with his caddie on yardages that day that he wouldnt have had if he had the exact distance. That alone would have cut a couple of minutes off an excruciatingly long round (almost 6 hours, coupled with the fact that he called in rules officials twice for drops).

It takes about 5 seconds to shoot the yardage with the rangefinder, so that adds what, a minute or two to the round assuming the pros go through all the other routines that they do before they play. I realize that they will still consult their yardage books and pin sheets (as they should). This isnt a lot of additional time, and if it reduces anyone's preshot time, then it will be a benefit to the tour.

What the USGA did wasnt to help speed up a PGA tour round (they left that decision up to the tours to decide whether to allow them in tourneys or not). They attempted to improve the pace of play for the average players who dont have yardage books, pin sheets and caddies. They did this because average players have developed bad habits from watching the pros pace off to the exact yard. It was killing the recreational game by lengthening rounds to 5-6 hours and pushing people away from the game or keeping them from joining up because of the time commitment. Are you telling me that if your cart had a GPS system on it, it would be faster to go walk off the yardage yourself than to look at the screen? IMHO, anything that shortens a round is good thing. If the PGA tour doesnt like it, then they dont have to adopt it.