Carlota Ciganda considers a shot during the LPGA’s CME Group Tour Championship in November.
Michael Reaves/Getty Images
LPGA veteran Carlotta Ciganda captured her eighth career win on the Women’s European Tour on Sunday in her home country of Spain. But one issue that has dogged the Spanish pro reared its head again during her victory: accusations of sloppy play.
Ciganda shot a one-under 71 on Sunday to secure her W at the Andalucía Costa del Sol Open de España, but it didn’t come without difficulty as she saw a huge 54-hole shot almost slip away.
“It wasn’t easy, sometimes when you have a four-shot lead, it’s not easy.” Ciganda said after the round. “I haven’t been up there for a while, so I had a little bit of adrenaline going and started with a couple of bogeys.”
How to finally solve the slow game? Oh Nelly Korda, other professionals have opinions
The European Solheim Cup star made a clutch birdie at 17 to give herself a two-shot lead heading into the bottom, where she made another bogey to hold on for a one-shot victory.
“I fought really hard, I’m a fighter,” Ciganda said of her round, “I try to give my 100% every time I play golf and that’s what I tried to do. It was a good day for me.”
But after her win, a video appeared on X posted by @Golfingbrock of Ciganda who hit her approach shot on the par-4 15th hole at Real Club Guadalhorce Golf.
The video begins with her partner’s shot in play, then shows the entire sequence of Ciganda preparing to hit her shot, along with a clock in the corner. From the time her playing partner’s ball comes to rest until Ciganda finally hits her shot, approximately 1 minute and 20 seconds pass.
Players are supposed to have 40 seconds to hit a shot.
Ciganda routinely doubles that time and tournaments won’t do anything for him.
So why post about it? Because whether it’s on tour or in your local commune, slow play is a plague that needs to be eradicated. pic.twitter.com/ChoVApJBxN
— Brock
(@Golfingbrock) December 1, 2024
In the LPGA and PGA tournaments, players are given only 40 seconds to hit a shot. In specific scenarios, PGA Tour players are given an extra 20 seconds to tee off. Ciganda’s time exceeded those marks.
But Ciganda was not punished for slow play. In a reply to the original post, On Monday Q Info reported that in Saturday’s third round Ciganda was timed after waiting for a bad moment, but she too was not penalized for that infraction. As her margin of victory was one shot, a hypothetical pace-of-play penalty would have dramatic consequences for the tournament.
This is not the first time Ciganda has avoided a penalty for slow play, but the last time it ended in disqualification.
At the 2023 Evian Championship, and LPGA major, Ciganda was assessed a two-stroke penalty on the 9th hole of the second round after her set was scheduled and she subsequently exceeded her playing time.
At the cut line at the time, Ciganda appealed the penalty in the scoring tent, but when LPGA officials denied her appeal, she refused to add penalty kicks to her score. As a result, she was disqualified under rule 3.3b (3) for returning a score lower than her actual score.
And Ciganda’s history of slow game attacks doesn’t stop there. At the LPGA’s 2021 Bank of Hope Match Play event, Ciganda seemingly defeated Sarah Schmelzel 1 in their match by winning the 18th hole. But after the last shot was fired, Ciganda was assessed a general slow play penaltywhich in match play results in the loss of the hole.
And just like that, Ciganda went from match winner to loser.
“I know I have to improve and I will try to do that next year,” Ciganda said Golf week from her pace game at The Annika last month. “I don’t think people realize how tough golf can be … mentally it’s a lot tougher than people think. Golfers just drink a few beers and play golf, and we do this for a living. A lot of things go through your mind.”
‘I’m pretty ruthless’: Charley Hull’s slow LPGA fix shows little mercy
Slow play has been a hot topic late in the 2024 LPGA season. After enduring a slow pace at The Annika event in mid-November, the LPGA pro Charley Hull was heard on the matter.
“It’s ridiculous and I feel sorry for the fans how slow it is out there,” Hull said. “We were there for five hours and 40 minutes yesterday. We play four balls at home on a tough golf course and we’re round in three and a half hours, four hours. It’s pretty crazy.”
Hull shared her “ruthless” solution to the problem, including two-stroke penalties for each offense and the loss of a Tour card for each player with three offences.
Coincidentally, in the same tournament was Ciganda he is said to have been fined $4,000 for slow play.
While many players shared their thoughts on the slow play at the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship, not everyone shared Hull’s anger. Angel Yin spoke with GOLF’s Nick Piastowski before the event, and she admitted that the pace of play has at least improved since she first came to the tournament.
“If I have to be honest, over the years I’ve been on tour, I think it’s been worse before. It was worse before, we expected more, and I think now we have a good mix of fast players and that’s when the slow players really start to show. Because most of the girls play a lot faster where you can’t really be too slow or then you start falling behind,” Yin said.
