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McIlroy, Koepka continue to call for slow-play penalties

Sam Greenwood / Getty Images Sport / Getty

Rory McIlroy and Brooks Koepka - two of the best and most vocal players in the world - continued Wednesday to push for slow-play penalties to be implemented on the PGA Tour, a stance neither player plans to change until rules officials step in.

"I don't think it's fine to do nothing because it's genuinely a problem in our game," McIlroy said at Liberty National, the venue for The Northern Trust. "It starts at our level because people try to emulate us."

His proposed solution is rather simple, too.

"It should be a warning and then a shot. It should be you are put on the clock, and that is your warning, and if you get a bad time while on the clock, it's a shot. That will stamp it out right away."

Koepka, who has called out his peers on numerous occasions this season and could be considered the leading voice of slow-play reform, is on board with the implementation of such penalties.

"What I don't understand is if I hit into the water, I have to take a penalty stroke, it's in the rulebook," Koepka said during his press conference. "And then you have 40 seconds to hit a shot, that's it the rulebook, too. They're all in the rulebook. So figure it out and penalize somebody."

Koepka also shot down the idea that the difficulty of a course factors into a player's pace, as he said the problem is "100 percent just players taking their time."

"I think it's just gotten out of hand. It seems now there are so many sports psychologists and everybody is telling everybody they can't hit it until they are ready, that you have to fully process everything," he continued. "I mean I take 15 seconds and go, and I've done alright. So I don't understand (why) they're taking a minute and a half."

Koepka even offered himself up as a "guinea pig" to set an example for other players on Tour.

Luckily for the pair, they are grouped together alongside Matt Kuchar for Rounds 1 and 2 of The Northern Trust, so slow play shouldn't be an issue - until they catch the group ahead of them, of course.

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