There always seems to be an inflection point each professional golf season, during which the slow play problem dominates the discourse on the PGA Tour. The issue isn’t a new one. It’s an age-old problem in the pro game. Everyone knows it: Golf can crawl.

Among the changes that will be tried out: testing the use of distance-measuring devices, publicizing pace-of-play data for players, and disclosing fines and penalties for slow-play violators.

Slow pace of play has plagued the PGA Tour and the LPGA for years, frustrating players, fans, and broadcasters alike. It almost reached a breaking point last week at the Farmers Insurance Open in San Diego,

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. — The PGA Tour is taking a hard look at whether to allow rangefinders and publicize violations as part of a comprehensive study on pace of play and other enhancements to the game that have come out of a survey of 50,000 golf fans.

Perhaps the least surprising thing the PGA Tour has learned since it launched its Fan Forward survey initiative last June is that it has a pace-of-play problem. What it intends to do about it has yet to be determined,