Kevin Na defends himself against slow-play rep after incident at Valspar Championship

Kevin Na can’t shake the reputation he earned over the years as the slowest player on the PGA Tour.

Saturday at the Valspar Championship, however, he and playing partner Robert Garrigus claimed the bad time the duo received during the third round at Copperhead was not the fault of the methodical 13th-year pro, though Garrigus’ caddie vociferously believed otherwise.

“It ain’t fair playing with Kevin Na,” Brent Henley, speaking up for his man following Garrigus’ 1-under 70 day that gave him a tenuous one-shot lead, at 8-under, over his playing partner heading into Sunday’s finale, told Jeff Rude. “It ain’t fair.”

Henley, who appeared to have his boss on the way to his second tour win after Garrigus got out to a four-shot lead thanks to a trio of birdies in his first four holes and a 10-under total for the week, said the two of them “felt like we were running.”

Paired with Na in the last twosome at Innisbrook for the third round, Garrigus incurred the first bad time warning he had ever received in his 17-year professional career when officials put the duo on the clock on the seventh hole for being out of position. Officials slapped Na with a bad time on the 13th tee and Garrigus, renowned as one of the faster players on tour, with one on the next hole. After going out at 3-under on the front nine, following the slow-play incidents Garrigus made two bogeys and the rest pars on his final seven holes, including one at the last.

Garrigus conceded as Henley claimed, that the incident interrupted his cadence but he let his playing partner off the hook. The pair, again slated to be the final golfers out of the gate, can look forward to a rematch on Sunday when they tee off at 1:45 p.m. ET.

“I did get a little out of rhythm. It didn’t bother me that much,” said Garrigus, who graciously gave Na the benefit of the doubt, saying he was “a lot faster now.”

Even casual golf fans probably knew to what Garrigus referred, since Na, through several instances, became the poster child for “while we’re young,” the most notorious of which came during the 2012 Players Championship. Since that event, when ridicule rained down on him for his unending waggles, inability to pull the trigger, and even intentional whiffs, Na has worked diligently to pick up the pace but just can’t outrun the “slow play” label.

“It’s not fair for me because I already have that stamp on me,” he said, referring to the mess he made at The Players. “I was basically on national television for... four days ... It just put a stamp on me. It’s not fair. I’ve had a lot of guys come up to me and say, ‘You know, you really changed.’”

He’s also the first one to acknowledge his snail-like pace, and Saturday was not one of those times.

“I don’t know what people were saying but I don’t feel like I should be criticized for my play today because I’m the first one to admit if I play slow,” he said. “But I really didn’t feel like I played slow today.”

Na noted that he had made great strides in gripping and ripping it as well as lining up putts.

“I try to play my game and try the best I can where I don’t affect the guys I’m playing with and I don’t think I have been,” Na said. “I felt like I improved 90 percent of my pace of play ... I’m very conscious of the group in front of me, the group behind me ... I’m very aware of my situation and I’m doing everything I can -- I don’t know what else I can do, really.”

Garrigus, who jokingly told an official he would “have words” with him later, pointed out that the backup on the course was not his or Na’s fault; he even came to Na’s defense.

“Couple holes where I flinched over and swung over the ball, whatever. That’s his deal,” said Garrigus. “He’s gotten a lot better.”

By their ciphering, Na and Garrigus waited five minutes on the third hole while Pat Perez, playing one group in front of them, fruitlessly searched for a lost ball and returned to the tee for his third shot. Garrigus, himself, took another five minutes determining a ruling on the fifth.

“Yeah, we are out of position, but was that really our fault?” Na said. “No, but you’re on the clock ... So from then on, we’re probably 10 minutes behind. We played at our pace, which was fine ... but it makes us look bad.”

Who can blame Na for defending himself, especially after he and Garrigus finished the round in a “not too shabby” just under four hours, which caused Na’s looper to stick up for his guy?

“Is he the fastest player? Absolutely not,” Kenny Harms told Rude. “But he’s not a slow player like he used to be. When I first started with him, he was unbelievably slow. He’s adjusted. Unfortunately circumstances happen and people say, ‘It’s him again.’”

So far, no harm (as it were), no foul, since as, Rude astutely observed, “lunar eclipses are more common” on tour than a bad time resulting in a one-stroke penalty for any golfer -- even Kevin Na.