Cink DQ - new rule - leave the bunker unraked or walk back 200 yards

[Garland Bayley]

OK, you rules experts. Answer this if you can. Does anyone on the face of the earth have any statistical evidence that moving a rake through some adjacent part of a bunker before a shot helps even the best of players get a better outcome?

I strongly suspect that the applicable rules here are from an era when golf courses had far more variation in conditions than they do today. The modern pro plays at a course where the sand in the practice area is exactly the same as the sand in each and every bunker on the course. The rules are obsolete! Update them!

[RJ_Daley]

While I have also been railing against the apparent absurdity of the rule that sunk Cink, and the actual magnitude of the penalty of disqualification rather than the 2 stroke penalty and let him keep playing only because the competition "for the day" was closed (not the tournament), at least I can understand the legal beagle rules experts like JVB and Tom Paul explaining the reasons of the outcome as it has unfolded based on interpretation of the language that exists in the rules of golf now.  I may not like it, may not personally agree on certain aspects and interpretations, but the language of the rules can be rationally and logically interpretted via standard accepted methods and theory on Arbitration of legal or contract language disputes to support the manner this all unfolded in Cink's case.

What is not supported by the language in the rules (not to actually open that up as a subject of discussion here on this thread) but I am surprised Shivas as an attorney does not recognise is that his idea of the 'cheater line' doesn't hold up to the methods and theory or doctrine that codified contract or legal language has come to use for definintion and judgement.  The language dealing with the notion in the rule 8-2(b) that the line of play "on the putting green" - is about the ball - is not sustainable and thus the notion about the line on the ball is irrelevant and not contrary to the expressed rules of golf.  The wording of the last sentence of that rule clause does not support his premise, that the line on the ball is an infraction, as the language is written about the line of play on the green.  Ejusdem Generis and Noscitur a Sociiis are the legal doctrine most commonly used to interpret such language, and neither doctrine support the "Cheater Line interpretation" but the same doctrine and principles applied do support the Cink sanction as consistent with those rules as written. 

[John_Cullum]

JohnC:

Believe me what I'm about to ask you is in no way at all intended to be a criticism of you or your position on this Cink situation. My question to you is how often and how much do you feel you've been involved in officiating or decision making of Rules situations via Rule 33 or even Rule 34?

Tom P

I have been officiating at tournaments for 10 years. Tomorrow I'm off to Augusta GA for the Augusta State Invitational, a relatively strong field NCAA event, two weeks ago I was at the Chris Schenkel, considered a prestigious college event. In May I'll be at a Monday Quaifier for a Nationwide Tour event, and I'll likely wind up at some conference and division championships for the NCAA. In the summer I'll be at the State Open Championship and the PGA Section Championship and in the fall I'll be at two PGA Tour Q School events along with some college tournaments. That is a pretty typical year for me for the last 10 years.

So over the years I've seen my share of rule 33 matters, but not much for rule 34 (if any).

I will add that i have worked with a number of PGA Tour officials at Q Schools over the years and I totally respect them. Any number of controversies have arisen over the course of all of these events and I am certain you will agree from your own experience that the decisions are often not the unanimous conclusions of the committee. I am just one voice and one vote, and I try to do my best

[JohnV]

Garland,

With the 2008 Rules changes there were a number of things that were updated for bunkers.

1) You can take a practice swing anywhere in the bunker as long as you don't touch the sand with your club.
2) Once you've played a shot from a bunker, if your ball comes to rest in another bunker you can touch the sand in the first bunker with you club in taking a practice swing
3) You can lean on a rake that is touching the sand.  Note, you can't lean on a golf club
4) You can lift your ball to identify it.

Things are being liberalized as time goes by.

[RJ_Daley]

John, will they ever have enough decisions and rule changes to stop the madness! 

I think the answer is no.  There seems to be an infinite number of situations that will fly in the face of common sense, where the rules haven't yet been modified to contemplate such apparently inconsistent or unfair occurences.  You'd think anything that can happen in the game of golf already has, and the issue that are apparently not fair, would have been discovered and addressed.  But, either the rule makers didn't change them because of a domino effect of one change blowing out unintentionally another valuable rule, or they just hadn't had a high profile occurance that caused such effect. 

It does seem that a few words modification could be applied the next time the rules committee meets to make changes, ant the Cink absurdity of raking a bunker by a caddie 180 yards from the one you are in, can be accomodated without real harm to the rest of the game.  But, we'll have to wait and see if the ruling body is that wise, or wiser if the rule change would adversely effect the game in a greater way than the cure. 

But, at least for now, we fair minded folk can rail against the injustice of it all, and keep the discussion's moving in the forums and grille rooms... 

[JohnV]

Dick,

As long as people continue to think that things are wrong in the rules, there will be changes.  We could "stop the madness" right now and let all the folks like Stewart Cink get penalized.

Many of the decisions that go in the book these days are to clarify things or give us a nice decision to show a player so he has to quit whining.

They even put a "cheater line" decision in, but it still hasn't shut up Shivas. 

[TEPaul]

"I will add that i have worked with a number of PGA Tour officials at Q Schools over the years and I totally respect them. Any number of controversies have arisen over the course of all of these events and I am certain you will agree from your own experience that the decisions are often not the unanimous conclusions of the committee. I am just one voice and one vote, and I try to do my best."

JohnC:

That's a pretty impressive and varied officiating schedule you've been on over the last ten years. I've never done that much variation. Most all my officiating has been with either GAP or the Pennsylvania Golf Association.

We've never gotten into too much variation of ruling opinion or application though because for most of the last twenty years we've always all been hooked up with radios and everyone hears most of the situations over the radio because we radio them in and so there's sort of instant interpretation and resolution agreement if you know what I mean.

[JohnV]

The USGA and R&A have issued an almost unprecedented announcement that fixes the problem that many have with the ruling that got Stewart Cink DQ'ed.

See: http://www.usga.org/news/2008/april/JRCAnnouncement.html

One thing to note is the third part of the announcement.  If you are standing just outside a bunker just in front of the green and hit it into a bunker behind the green, you shouldn't rake the bunker because there is a reasonable possibility that you could hit it back into that bunker.

But, for a fairway bunker it should always be ok to rake the bunker (assuming you didn't play backwards.)

Thanks to Charles who commented on my blog about this

[Kalen Braley]

Thanks for that post, sounds like they have that loophole closed up.

Good to see the rules-makers, IMO, doing the right thing for future consideration.

[TEPaul]

JVB:

Very interesting, and about what I think we expected in the form of a Decision or Rule change.

But this is an official JRC "interpretation" (of a type of situation) to obviously take place immediately and in advance of a Decision or Rule change to come.

How often have you ever seen an "Interpretation" to take place immediately like this?

By the way, I was sitting next to Pete Richter last night (who I believe you know) and we were talking about this situation of Cink's. He felt, as John Cullum did, that the Cink situation could probably have been just disposed of (no penalty) through Rule 1-4 but I think I convinced him that if one really looked at the wording of Rule 1-4 they could see it would not be applicable because Rule 13-4 really did cover Cink's situation and consequent penalty (as the USGA just virtually admitted) and that then would be a violation of Rule 33-1.

But in a way Pete's sensibilities were right in that he said this should be approached basically through the concept of etiquette, and it looks like that's some or most of the reasoning the JRC used.

But how they actually went about getting it into the Rules through an immediate "interpretation" apparently followed by a future Decision or Rule change is interesting.

[JohnV]

Tom,

I've been trying to think of another time that an interpretation has been made public like this.  I can recall that the decision to let Mark O'Meara continue with a ball that was found inside 5 minutes but not ID'ed within 5 minutes at the Open was a case where a new Decision was known by the people theat the championship, but hadn't been released yet. 

With the dawning of the Internet age, it is possible that things like this will happen more frequently.

Basically an interpretation is on its way to becoming a Decision as soon as the Joint Rules Committee agrees on the wording.  Usually they would hold it until the next revision, but since it is so soon after the previous one I think they decided to get it out early.

As I understand it, there are other interpretations that the USGA has on things but are not public.  If you happen to call and ask about a ruling, they might give you that interpretation, but it isn't truly public.