During Sunday’s Safeway Open final round we had yet another example of the backstopping practice prevalent only in men’s professional golf (here, here and here for 2017 samples). In case you haven’t been watching, this is the now-regular practice where golf balls are left down on a green unless it’s in the path to the hole, with various motives and theories as to why this has become practice instead of players simply marking their ball to protect the field. Speed of play is cited as the reasoning.