[TEPaul]

"TEP: It was suggested that you should ask your playing partner if you are proceeding correctly under the rules and if he/she agrees with your actions and you are both wrong you are not penalized - is that correct?"

Jerry:

That may've been suggested on here but that is not how the Rules of Golf work. The only way a player can presently inure himself against penalty is to have a rules official give him a bad ruling (or a ruling that might enure to his benefit but is an incorrect ruling). That does not happen now if the ruling was agreed to by a "fellow competitor" only.

[Bruce Katona]

Has perhaps the adjenda of Michael Bamberger been served this morning by all of the attention he has created, not only on this website, but in the daily press.

To call a penalty 24 hours after it occurs is unthinkable.  They have instant replay in football to review close calls.  In baseball, we can debate umpire's calls the following day, but they are almost never overruled under a protest (perhaps the Angels should be eating deep dish pizza this afternoon rahter than cleaning out their lockers if revisions can be made to baseball rulings the next day.)

It's a shame this can happen.  

Golf is a game played by sportsman who call penalties on themselves.. It should stay that way.

 

[JohnV]

TEP: It was suggested that you should ask your playing partner if you are proceeding correctly under the rules and if he/she agrees with your actions and you are both wrong you are not penalized - is that correct?

No, the playing partner is not penalized unless it can be proven that he knew you were not allowed to do what you wanted to do.  If you both knew it was wrong but agreed to do it anyway, it would be a DQ for both of you under Rule 1-3.  If he knew it was wrong, but chose to ignore it or allow you to do it, it should be a DQ for him under 33-7.  Of course, in match play he could choose to ignore it as long as he didn't tell you it was wrong but that he would ignore it.

Someone on here suggested that all groups should have a rules official with them and all rules situations should be dealt with by rules officials. In golf that is a virtual impossiblity, even in high level golf. I sure hope tournament golf on any level has to come to that.

At the US Opens there is an official with every group and even then, the testimony of spectators is sometimes required.  For example, there was a case where a ball was picked up and taken by a spectator before the players or the official arrived in the area.  The official with the group had to ask the other spectators what happened and where the ball had been in order to make the ruling.  Even if the official deals with everything, he can't see everything.

[TEPaul]

"Tom,
You are dead on with Ernie Els. I was going to bring him up in this thread myself. He almost never proceeds with anything but a trivial procedure without requesting a Rules official's presence. If he doesn't like a ruling he will always escalate up the chain of officials as far as humanly possible. He will request any drop that there's even a remote chance of getting. I must admit I somewhat hold that against him as the only way in which he's less than admirable on the golf course. That's unfair of me, of course, since in fact he has simply perfected a skill that's just important at his level as being able to hit a high, soft draw to a front left pin."

Brent:

That's true of Els. I can't really blame him for doing this because he's simply taking advantage of rules procedures that are accepted within the Rules of Golf as well as the procedures of the "Tournament Committees" of the tournaments he's playing it. Not just that but there's some significant money on the line here. Obviously Els is smart enough to understand not to risk that if he can avoid it by working the present "procedure" or "system" as it actually works today all within the Rules of Golf.

Wie could've cost herself $50,000 the other day by not understanding the "system" as well as Els does. I don't really blame Els----it's probably the "system" or the "procdeure" allowable under the Rules of Golf that's at fault here in some way. The "system" or "procedure" may have to be given another look since obvously things are happening today (communications via television and spectators calling in) which some of these Rules and some of these current Decisions did not contemplate when they were written years ago.

[TEPaul]

JVB:

I think what some are saying on here is that a smart player like Els realizes he basically will be able to avoid penalty (shots to DQ) if an incorrect ruling comes from a rules official. Els understands that is not the case if an incorrect ruling comes from a "fellow competitor".

[JohnV]

Exactly.  If a member of the rules committee makes the wrong ruling, the player is exempt from penalty.

[Dan_Callahan]

This came up on Sunday on the PGA as well. Furyk, who is brutally slow with his backing off routine, hit his ball in the water in the playoff. I could understand wanting a rules official to help determine where the ball crossed, but then Furyk could be heard asking if he gets two club lengths from the spot. Obviously, the guy has probably taken a drop from a hazard hundreds of times in his career and knows he gets two club lengths. However, he made a point of asking each step of the way so that if he did anything wrong he would be protected. Very safe and probably the smart thing to do, but also very annoying.

[johnk]

I think this is actually good for Wie's career.  Her first pro tournament will be remembered for this, and not her poor performance on the weekend.

She'll rebound and this will be one more adversity she's overcome.

[RJ_Daley]

Just on a minor point, as I watched the TV replay of the drop (where the golf bag was in the way of the actual point that the ball was dropped-then placed) I saw Wie's caddie look to his right and seemed to be confering with someone as his head was nodding in approval to someone or in a manner suggesting he was saying 'does this look OK'.  I assume that Grace Park and her caddie were also watching this whole thing unfold.  Isn't it also a tradition or part of the game that the playing competitor should be motivated to protect the field?  I get the point above where a playing competitor may be penalized too, if agreeing to a violation that both knew was wrong.  But, when perhaps both thought the procedure of the drop was right, and it had to be re-enacted with string the next day because it was so close... I think they went too far.  Bamberger used to be a caddie on Euro and PGA tour.  I wonder what he would have felt like if a spectator that had knowledge of correct procedures, watched you and your player do something that he felt so convinces was wrong, then didn't say something to you (as he was 5 ft away from this occurance) and then starts this re-enactment song and dance the next day?  

TGC commentator Hewitt and Mark Lye were all gushy about making a point that Bamberger's heart was pure, that he didn't wish "this kid" any bad things and after all "she's a really good kid" and she certainly didn't appear to be trying to cheat.

I kind of think that is all disingenuous.  I think the DQ ought to be on Bamberger to get his press credential yanked for a while.  If he had a problem with the issue, he should have piped up then or shut his trap.

[RJ_Daley]

John K, I agree.  I think Wie has fire in her belly like a champ and will use this as a big motivator.  As an historical part of legend and lore, this won't really hurt her career, because she won't let it.  Even though the rules official said she got a little emotional when they first informed her of their intention to re-enact and then ultimately DQ her, she and her posse crafted a smart public statement and posture response.  

[Dan King]

Steve_Shafer writes:
Under the Rules, she could have asked her fellow competitor to observe the drop without calling a Rules official. She didn't.

Which rule is that?

John Vander Borght writes
Unlike all other sports, there are not officials with every group watching everything.

Why not at least in this case? This was a limited field event on a desert course (finally bringing up the golf course) with lots of different rulings and drops. I believe when the PGA and USGA have small field events there are walking rules officials. How hard can it be to scrounge up 10 rules officials for four days in Palm Desert.

Can a player who is in the competition but playing in another group?  Can either of those players do it after the round is over and the cards returned (like the incident with Marco Dawson and Esteban Toledo at Disney last year)?

What would be so bad with changing the statue of limitation. Right now, if Bamberger brings it up a few hours later, the competition had already closed and there is no penalty. Rule 34-1b. Why not change it from when the competition has closed to when the round has closed? I don't really see a down-side to this. You need to have a statue of limitation, lets just move it to a better time. It would eliminate some of these DQ cases that should have only been a penalty.

Jerry Kluger writes:
I'm glad for TV that you guys have the patience to watch Wie play but not me.  She is so slow that it is painful.

I can't watch any televised golf. I sit in my comfortable chair and watch them line up their putt and by the time they actually hit the damn putt I'm sound asleep. Regardless of the importance of the putt, I just can't keep my eyes open while they are lining up. Guess one of these I'll need to get TiVo so I can watch a round of golf in like six minutes.

John Krystynak writes:
I think this is actually good for Wie's career.  Her first pro tournament will be remembered for this, and not her poor performance on the weekend.

Possibly good for Wie -- bad for golf, unless you like eight hour rounds. I don't see it as a positive.

Dan King

We feel confident what we did was the right thing. Unfortunately we have had to do this before. Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, this is not fun.
 --Robert O. Smith on the DQ of Michelle Wie at the 2005 Samsung World Championship

[George Pazin]

Little surprise here, but I agree totally with JohnV about the real blame being with Bamberger. Why didn't he say something sooner?

If that's me, I either say something before the round is over or I keep my mouth shut. (Which is not to say that's necessarily the right thing, either.)

18 inches isn't 2 inches, and I wonder whether she had the room is she had dropped in the proper place. It didn't look like there was a ton a room over there and maybe if she had gone to the right place, she would've had a restricted backwing or something like that.

As an aside, boy does Annika work hard to bend the rules in her favor! It's my understanding that she attended a rules workshop, which is commendable, but someone needs to better explain to her the intricacies of "line of sight" relief. (They need to explain it to me, too, but fortunately few courses I play have grandstands or scoreboards. )

[Brent Hutto]

I can't watch any televised golf. I sit in my comfortable chair and watch them line up their putt and by the time they actually hit the damn putt I'm sound asleep. Regardless of the importance of the putt, I just can't keep my eyes open while they are lining up. Guess one of these I'll need to get TiVo so I can watch a round of golf in like six minutes.

Get a DVR, Dan. I was just about to the point you're describing until we got the cable company's DVR a couple years ago. One metric for how boring live televised golf can be is how far ahead I need to let the DVR get before I start watching. Worst case is probably PGA Tour events on ABC. My goodness, the commercials come fast and furious.

If I catch up to live action when using the DVR, for PGA Tour golf I have to go do something else for at least 20-30 minutes before it's worth starting to watch again. A 15-minute head start nets me maybe 10 minutes of viewing time until I've caught up again (i.e. it takes 10 minutes or less to watch 25 minutes of the coverage). Conversely, watching the Masters on the weekend I can let it get a 30-minute head start and I won't catch up until the end of the round. It is possible to pack a lot of golf into TV coverage but they choose not to do it for mundane events.

[JESII]

JVB mentions that all of these discussions are closed at the end of the tournament. He also said the DQ decision came a couple of hours after her round (i think) (someone said that). Is it safe to assume the signing and checking of Annika's groups cards signifies the end of the tournament? You see where I'm going with this. Are we going to have a recalled disqualification because the tournament was over? Will Wie ever speak to SI again?

1) It seems to me that Wie was edging for an advantage based on the comment by rgkeller in post #8.

2) Wie's (veteran) caddy did a very poor job on this, he needs to be a co-pilot/navigator as much as a caddy in these times for her.

3) Her playing companion (Grace Park, I think) did a bad job protecting the field.

4) Bamberger did a horrendous job observing the whole thing and seeing and understanding my points 1, 2, and 3 and then sleeping on it and then going to the committee.

5) I am holding off judgement on the LPGA rules committee for a day or two until I am sure the time of disqualification issue is finished. As it is, they did their job well. That has to be a very tough decision to make any time. let alone after the player has just finished in the top 5 in a tournament.

By the way, it is not very difficult to move a ball 8 feet and see that you are a foot closer to the hole than when you started.

[JohnV]

JVB mentions that all of these discussions are closed at the end of the tournament. He also said the DQ decision came a couple of hours after her round (i think) (someone said that). Is it safe to assume the signing and checking of Annika's groups cards signifies the end of the tournament? You see where I'm going with this. Are we going to have a recalled disqualification because the tournament was over? Will Wie ever speak to SI again?

1) It seems to me that Wie was edging for an advantage based on the comment by rgkeller in post #8.

2) Wie's (veteran) caddy did a very poor job on this, he needs to be a co-pilot/navigator as much as a caddy in these times for her.

3) Her playing companion (Grace Park, I think) did a bad job protecting the field.

4) Bamberger did a horrendous job observing the whole thing and seeing and understanding my points 1, 2, and 3 and then sleeping on it and then going to the committee.

5) I am holding off judgement on the LPGA rules committee for a day or two until I am sure the time of disqualification issue is finished. As it is, they did their job well. That has to be a very tough decision to make any time. let alone after the player has just finished in the top 5 in a tournament.

By the way, it is not very difficult to move a ball 8 feet and see that you are a foot closer to the hole than when you started.

The incident was reported to the officials while the round was still in progress.  The fact that the round ended before it was resolved didn't matter.

The close of competition is usually defined by the Committee as being when the trophy is awarded or when all the scores have been recorded on the scoreboard or some other well defined point.

There are 4 kinds of violations that can be enforced after the tournament is over.  If the committee becomes aware of them after everything is done, they can still DQ a player.

1) Agreement to waive the rules
2) Returned a scorecard with a handicap that is too low and the player knew it before the tournament was over
3) Returned a score for any hole lower than actually taken for any reason other than failer to include a penalty that, before the competition closed, he did not know he incurred.
4) knew before the tournament was over that he breached a rule for which the penalty is disqualification.

#3 means that if you have made a 4 and signed for a 3 you can still be DQ'ed after the tournament.  This happened to Mark Calcavecchia a few years ago.  He was looking in the paper on Monday and it said he shot one shot lower than he thought he had.  He called the tour and they read his card back to him.  He realized he had signed for a wrong score and was DQ'ed.

#4 means that if you incurred any penalty and didn't include the strokes and found out about it after your card was signed but before the event was over you are DQ'ed because you violated Rule 6-6d which has a penalty of DQ.

[mikes1160]

If only Michael Bamberger could convince the NCAA that Reggie Bush illegally pushed Matt Leinart over the goal line Saturday......

[TEPaul]

"5) I am holding off judgement on the LPGA rules committee for a day or two until I am sure the time of disqualification issue is finished. As it is, they did their job well. That has to be a very tough decision to make any time. let alone after the player has just finished in the top 5 in a tournament."

Sully:

Having tried to review this whole chain of events (from the interviews with the two LPGA Rules officials and Michelle Wie), in my opinion, the LPGA "Tournament Committee" did this whole thing right. Or let's put it this way---they did the whole thing completely within the USGA/R&A Rules Book and Decisions Book (By the way, the Decisons Book is considered to be part of the USGA/R&A Rules of Golf).

Some on here may not totally realize what they (The LPGA "Tournament Committee") did here and why. From everything I can tell they did totally follow the Rules of Golf and the recognized procedure amongst competent rules officials for this kind of ruling.

Rules Official Smith mentioned that in a case like this the committee wants to simply establish the "facts" of the situation as best they can---and that is most definitely true and the way to do this kind of ruling. They have until the "close of competition" to do that if a ruling is to be rendered. (More later on how to correctly "establish the facts" in this kind of situation similar to Wie's).

When or what is the "close of competiton"? According to the Rules of Golf----"A competition is closed when the results has been officially announced...."

At what point would that be? Probably at a point when the "Tournament Committee" felt their final accounting of the results were official and perhaps just before or at some point just prior to the time when Sorenstam was declared the winner.

This is what Dan King referred to as a "statute of limitations". That's exactly what it is. The reason for that in golf is there has to come a point (at some point) where the outcome of a tournament can no longer be disputed and it only makes sense to have that point be one when the competitors are still there (if something needed to be resolved in play perhaps).

Dan King brings up a good point about another "statute of limitations" regarding scoring (Rule 6-6). That is why does Rule 6-6 have to DQ a player who has the opportunity to correct a mistake by accepting a penalty for the applicable rules violation before the competition has been closed (In Wie's case before her final round was considered to be "official"---and that would be when she left the "scoring area" following her final round)?

As Rule 6-6 has always been the player is DQed if he "leaves the scoring area" before a score on his card that is lower than he actually made is resolved correctly.

I've been thinking about this since I read this situation early this morning and I can't exactly see why there would be a downside to making the penatly of DQ in that situation (in Wie's case her third round) the same as penalty of DQ if it had been her final round. That of course would have to be before she walked out of the "scoring area" in her final round. Perhaps the reason each round is treated as a separate entity (with DQ for a lower score on any hole in any single round) has to so with tournament administration or something. I still don't see why this would be any big problem. Let's say they found out about her potential penalty in Rd, 3 while she was playing in her final round. They'd still have a chance to take her out there after her final round and resolve the thing before she signs her final round score and before the the "close of competition".

What would be the downside of that other than if the ruling went against her maybe technically she could be considered to be playing in the wrong group. But how big a deal is that? Maybe I'm missing some other significant reason but I can't think of one at this point.

[JohnV]

What would be the downside of that other than if the ruling went against her maybe technically she could be considered to be playing in the wrong group. But how big a deal is that?

Tom, to me the downside would be that others would have been playing assuming her score was 2 strokes lower than it really was.  Lets say that she was leading by 2 after the third round instead of being behind.  Wouldn't Annika and others have played  differently thinking they had to make up 2 strokes than they would have if they knew they were tied?

This is similar to the ruling in match play that once anyone has teed off on the next hole it is too late for a claim to be made (barring you not knowing of the breach) or your opponent being guilty of giving wrong information as to strokes taken once you made a stroke.  For those who don't know that rule, rule 9 says that in match play if I ask you what you lay and you say 4 and then I hit a shot and you say,  I was really laying 3 or 5 or whatever I can claim the hole immediately.  This is because I took action based on my understanding of the status of the hole and I might have acted differently had I known the true status.

Many people here seem overly concerned with protecting the rights of the player who broke the rule rather than the other players who might be affected by it.

[JESII]

JVB and TEP,

Thank you for the clarification on the "close of competition", in that light, the LPGA is perfectly clear in this. The other parties all get thumbs down from me.

[Mike_Sweeney]

From everything I can tell they did totally follow the Rules of Golf and the know procedure for this kind of ruling.

Tom & John V,

You guys keep talking about the rules, and I agree it sounds like they did the right thing.

What I am talking about is POLICY. Obviously the LPGA and PGA are under no obligation to follow the Rules of Golf, but they do so for obvious reasons of tradition, consistency....

However, who are the Rules of Golf written for? Is it for club matches or Tour events. The simple, yet flawed, answer is both. However, the two events are completely unique events in many ways, and as such, they deserve some separate rules, that would be an amendment of sorts to Tour events.

[TEPaul]

"Tom, to me the downside would be that others would have been playing assuming her score was 2 strokes lower than it really was.  Lets say that she was leading by 2 after the third round instead of being behind.  Wouldn't Annika and others have played  differently thinking they had to make up 2 strokes than they would have if they knew they were tied?"

JVB:

Obviously it must be that and you're completely right. How would someone like say Sorenstam feel about how she should play in the final round not knowing if she was actually competing against Wie without a penalty or with one? What if she hit the ball into the water or something and later said; "You put me in a position where I didn't know if Wie was in the end going to be a shot ahead of me or a shot behind me at that point."

And you're right too, that there always are people in any situation like this or otherwise who seemed to say this or that is not fair for whatever reason, and the Rules should be changed.. What they seem to fail to totally understand is golf really does have it's own unique system and philosophy of "equity" which all intelligent players seem to understand and more importantly accept. The fact that it's been done this way for over 100 years without creating unfairness seems proof enough. Any smart tournament player should understand that over a career there's no reason to think good or bad breaks should be stacked either for him or against him (particularly if he has an excellent working knowledge of the Rules during his career ).

Again as Richard Tufts explained this system of golf's equity:

"The approach is not whether "this PARTICULAR situation is unfair to me", but rather whether "others in a similar situation and I in mine ARE TREATED ALIKE UNDER THE RULES"".  (Caps are mine for effect   ).

[JESII]

TEP, JVB and any other rules officials,

Is it fair to compare match play golf to all other sports when discussing how these rules decisions are handled? Whereas stroke play is its own animal, and to those that wonder how a penalty can be called a day later when in no other sport that is the case it can be said, that is one of the reasons golf is the greatest game. Golf officials seem to have one objective, get it right. Who has a problem with that?

[Dan King]

TEPaul writes:
Rules Official Smith mentioned that in a case like this the committee wants to simply establish the "facts" of the situation as best they can---and that is most definitely true and the way to do this kind of ruling.

What would be so terrible if they had thanked Bamberger for his interest and drove away. My understanding is they get many callins on rules violations and don't always investigate every single time. Most of the time, if they think there is some credibility they will just watch the TV replay. If it is inconclusive, then it is inconclusive. This time they went out and measured things and went somewhat beyond the norm.

Could it be a bit of fear that it was a golf writer who reported it and if they didn't investigate the headlines would be their failure to investigate a rules violation that was reported to them?

John Vander Borght writes:
Tom, to me the downside would be that others would have been playing assuming her score was 2 strokes lower than it really was.  Lets say that she was leading by 2 after the third round instead of being behind.  Wouldn't Annika and others have played  differently thinking they had to make up 2 strokes than they would have if they knew they were tied?

So what would be the downside to moving the statute of limitations to the end of the round rather than the end of the competition? At least in this case, if Bamberger had reported it after the interview with Wie --after she had signed her card, then she would have been DQ'd on Saturday rather than Sunday and Sunday could have belonged more to Sörenstam. But by Sunday how are we still protecting the field, when Monday we no longer need to.

Dan King

those who are non-golfers will again scratch their head at the reverence officials and players have for rules that seem archaic to some, downright confusing or silly to others. The game certainly didn't gain any new fans Sunday, and Wie's disqualification stole some of the spotlight away from another unbelievable performance by Annika Sorenstam.
 --Larry Bohannan (The Desert Sun

[TEPaul]

"However, who are the Rules of Golf written for? Is it for club matches or Tour events. The simple, yet flawed, answer is both. However, the two events are completely unique events in many ways, and as such, they deserve some separate rules, that would be an amendment of sorts to Tour events."

MikeS:

I could not possibly disagree with you more. Not possibly. The Rules of Golf are the same for everyone and there's nothing wrong with that at all. The fact that it's that way (and has gotten more so in recent years) only serves to clarify things for any golfer---tour pro or recreational golfer.

The Rules of Golf are complex enough the way they are as a single unified set of rules for everyone. TOUR golf is very visible and if they had different "Rules" or even their own "local rules" or different "policies" then golfers would just become more confused about what they were supposed to play under.

I'm so glad to see not just the Tours of the world become more unified with the USGA/R&A rules, particularly with "local rules" (which is the area they tend to diverge) but that the USGA/R&A has worked to create a single set of "Unified Rules" between themselves in the last fifty years. There's nothing much more efficient than "unity", in my opinion.

It wasn't long ago that some tour players got confused and violated the "stones in bunkers" local rules forgetting whether they were playing under the R&A or the USGA that way. Now that one has been unified too.

There's nothing better, in my opinion, in a "rules of golf" context than the rules being unified across the world and at every single level of play.

[Mike_Sweeney]

The Rules of Golf are the same for everyone and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

Tom,

It not the same for everyone.  If the same rules infraction had occured in the same tournament to one of the lesser known players, chances are the TV cameras and sports writers would not be following that player, and thus the incident goes away without the player knowing they created a penalty. That is inequity!

Because it is Michelle Wie, Annika, Tiger.....they have millions of rules officials watching their every move.

During a football game millions of people see what the quarterback does or does not do in terms of a penalty. Nobody on TV see the lineman, where most penalties occur, this is why the rules are called by people on the field. The Tours should:

1. Have a Rules Official in each group.
2. When the card is signed by player, Rules Official and competitor after the round, that is it, no changes.
3. The Rules Official can solicite advice in the field (such as asking a patron if the ball was stepped on....), but should ignore unsolicited advice.
4. If there is a question on a ruling, TV should not be used.

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