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How long does it take you to play 9 holes, in general?  Like an hour and 45 minutes, something like that, right?  A friend of mine (we'll call him Bean) met up one evening after work to squeeze in 9 holes with a cart.  There was a bit of a wait, so Bean and I teed off around 6:20 or something like that...there must have been a solid 2 hours of daylight left to play.  The first hole played fine - no waiting, no lost balls, all good.  We teed off on 2, and once we got to the fairway the problems started.  The group in front of us decided it would be cool to take 6 practice swings and then barely get the ball in the air.  Now, everyone has to start somewhere, and I have plenty of patience for that.  Everyone has bad days too, so I can understand that as well.  When the groups became so backed up that we were able to watch them tee off from the tee box itself, frustration set in.  These hotshots were teeing off from the tips.  Great.  Nothing like playing from the hardest tees and barely advancing the ball.  Needless to say we drove off after 6 holes because at that point we had already been out there for close to 2 hours and there was no way we could finish without the aid of some spotlights or a couple of lighthouses or something.

Now imagine playing a 7-hour round, and imagine you're a touring pro.  Would you want to pull your hair out, or hit the bottle at the clubhouse?  Welcome to the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, where celebrities get to act like asses all day and the pace of play is as slow as molasses.  In the winter.  Uphill.

Sure, there are celebrities that take the game seriously and try to put on a good show, make some putts and maybe sign an autograph or two.  Kevin Costner, Don Cheadle and Andy Garcia come to mind.  But then you have clowns like Bill Murray.  Yeah we get it, you were in Caddyshack.  Yeah, you love  golf.  But is it really necessary to prance around on every green or throw chocolates into the crowd or even TALK to the crowd that much on each hole?  And then there's Danny Gans, the Vegas showman who is a permanent performer at The Mirage.  I love it when I'm watching coverage on TV and Danny Gans feels the need to always be within 3 feet of the camera.  I also love it when he feels the need to do every single one of his impersonations between each of his shots.  I don't even know how many impersonations he does, but it's more than 2 and that's enough for me.  It's completely unbearable after 5 minutes, so imagine being the pro in his group and having to deal with the constant chatter and B.S. 

7-hour rounds?  You gotta be nuts, even if it IS Pebble Beach.  Rory Sabbatini can't possibly be at this event, he might just murder someone.  If I were in this tournament because of the venue I would just come back later in the year and avoid the hooplah.   But if I were playing I might be inclined to say, "Hey...just shut the hell up and play already."