David Price's Side of the Whistling Straits Story

[David_Tepper]

He has officiated at 21 PGA Championships, 11 Masters, 5 Ryder Cups and 2 British Opens:  


http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/pga-championship/2010-08/golf-rules-official-fields-0816#ixzz0woYSjdDe

[PCCraig]

He has officiated at 21 PGA Championships, 11 Masters, 5 Ryder Cups and 2 British Opens:  


http://www.golfdigest.com/golf-tours-news/pga-championship/2010-08/golf-rules-official-fields-0816#ixzz0woYSjdDe

David:

I saw this earlier today and think it was very well done. Most of the people I've talked to about it off GCA seem to think it's a flawed rule and that the rules officials screwed the tournament up a la a NBA Ref or MLB Umpire. Golf's rules are obviously more black and white and the rules official isn't responsible at all...the players are.

Interesting as well was that Price said DJ had asked him a couple times prior that day for rulings on sandy areas and the ability to take practice swings. As Price said in the article, "all he had to do was ask for a ruling."

[Sam Morrow]

Just about everybody involved screwed up here in some capacity, it's a black eye for golf, but I want to say that having been around Mr. Price several times he is a good man and a sound official.

[Kevin Lynch]

Just about everybody involved screwed up here in some capacity, it's a black eye for golf, but I want to say that having been around Mr. Price several times he is a good man and a sound official.

Sam,

I'm not sure what that means.  "Everybody involved???"  Who screwed up besides Dustin Johnson? 

Why is this a black-eye for golf?  Believe me, I'm the "rules anarchist" in most situations (e.g. scorecard issues), but this was pretty much a straightforward case.  I'm shocked that Johnson would claim he had no idea, especially considering the questions he had earlier in the round.  This was solely the result of his lack of situational awareness, not because of some ambiguity in the rules.  Feherty's ridiculous analysis Sunday evening was probably the only thing that made this appear like a "black-eye."

[jeffwarne]

Just about everybody involved screwed up here in some capacity, it's a black eye for golf, but I want to say that having been around Mr. Price several times he is a good man and a sound official.

Sam,

I'm not sure what that means.  "Everybody involved???"  Who screwed up besides Dustin Johnson? 

Why is this a black-eye for golf?  Believe me, I'm the "rules anarchist" in most situations (e.g. scorecard issues), but this was pretty much a straightforward case.  I'm shocked that Johnson would claim he had no idea, especially considering the questions he had earlier in the round.  This was solely the result of his lack of situational awareness, not because of some ambiguity in the rules.  Feherty's ridiculous analysis Sunday evening was probably the only thing that made this appear like a "black-eye."

It was OBVIOUSLY a bunker to Price....(therefore he felt no reason to inform him he was in a bunker)
It never occurred to DJ, his caddie, and the nearby spectators or any of the ENTIRE  CBS commentary crew that he was in a bunker.
That tells me it was not so obvious and it would've been OK to have risked being "eaten up"
Sometimes you can have too much experience.

Of course DJ is responsible, but his error wasn't lack of a knowlege of a local rule or not knowing about grounding the club, but rather what the small, somewhat disguised, patch of dirt/ sand, grass, and garbage, had been defined as.
He could've been bailed out......nobody's fault, just a lack of knowing what another man was thinking.

[Kevin Lynch]

Of course DJ is responsible, but his error wasn't lack of a knowlege of a local rule or not knowing about grounding the club, but rather what the small, somewhat disguised, patch of dirt/ sand, grass, and garbage, had been defined as.
He could've been bailed out......nobody's fault, just a lack of knowing what another man was thinking.

I thought Nantz said something about it being a bunker.  It was pretty obvious to me on TV, but I also spent some time on that hillside Wed-Sat as a spectator and knew there were bunkers everywhere.  Still, given all the discussion about the "1200+" bunkers during the week, I think it is solely lack of awareness to not even consider that a really sandy lie might be a bunker.

[Ronald Montesano]

NEWSFLASH:  I'm still shocked that we are still discussing this.  So many sheep, so many flocks, so few shepherds.  Feherty fails us as often as he does not...he is no shepherd, he just sounds like a cool Irish dude. 

[Dean Stokes]

NEWSFLASH:  I'm still shocked that we are still discussing this.  So many sheep, so many flocks, so few shepherds.  Feherty fails us as often as he does not...he is no shepherd, he just sounds like a cool Irish dude. 

Just out of curiosity, how often does Feherty fail us please?

I am also shocked that we are still discussing this episode. DJ is quoted on PGAtour.com as saying "it is nobody else's fault but mine". The only people bothered by this ruling are membes of this site....to say it was the rules officials fault is ludicrous. Where was the rules official on the first tee at Lytham when Woosie had 15 clubs in his bag? Surely he should have asked the caddies at that juncture if they had counted the clubs!!!!! Maybe each player should have their own rules official walking with them beside the caddie and maybe even the swing coach.........then they will never make any mistakes or be held accountable for errors of their own doing.

[Scott Coan]

Two very experienced professionals; 2 completely different interpretations of the ground conditions:

David Price:  "I just didn't have any question it was a bunker, and had there been a question, he should have asked before he proceeded."

Dustin Johnson:  "Obviously, I know the rules very well. I just never thought I was in a bunker, or I would have never grounded my club. Maybe walking up to the ball, if all those people hadn't been there, maybe I would have recognized it as a sand trap. I knew there wasn't any waste bunkers. But all the bunkers on the course had a darkish color to the sand. This was white dirt."

By David Price's own reckoning, the hillside was chaos...  "It was very chaotic," Price said. "This was a very difficult situation based on the topography. There was a very high hill, completed filled with people, because once the grandstands on the right side of 18 filled, this was the only place people could see the green from. The hill was filled with people, and the other side of it was very steep, so people couldn't back up and go down. The marshals did the best they could, but there were probably 3,000 or 4,000 people on that hill."

Having recognized the chaos, David Price should have had the situational awareness to (A) either remove all people from the bunker in order to provide DJ with the opportunity to interpret his ground condition - or - if the hill was so overcrowded that everybody could not be removed from the bunker then he should have (B) informed the player that his ball was lying in a bunker/hazard but that he could not safely remove all the surrounding people from it. 

Instead of A or B he "asked Dustin if there was anything he needed, if there was anything I could do." 

Dustin Johnson owned the situation and he copped the 2-shot penalty and lost over one million dollars prize money for the mistake.

The PGA totally lost control of the hillside and David Price failed in his control of the immediate vicinity of DJ's golf ball.  If the ball came to rest up against a piece of litter in the same exact spot you can be sure Mr. Price would have been there to offer his professional guidance as the group's rules official.  Instead he left the area around Johnson's ball to walk 30 yards toward the green and help clear a wider gap on the right.

A real sad confluence of events that unfortunately fall completely on the big shoulders of Dustin Johnson.  He handled it with real class and I hope he goes on to win many majors in the future.

[JLahrman]

Feherty did not fail anyone.  The CBS crew was not competing in the tournament and was not responsible for knowing if the ball was in a hazard.  Those guys do their homework, but they are more likely to be worried about how many cute kids the potential winner has than the local rules sheet given to the players.

I did not see the shot or the lie until Monday after hearing and reading about it Sunday evening, and quite honestly I was surprised to see that it never entered Johnson's mind that he could have been in a bunker.  When I looked at him hittng the shot, I certainly thought he was clearly in a bunker.  He'd already asked Price about a couple of other situations so obviously he felt comfortable asking when he wasn't sure.

Price's only potential mistake was getting involved in crowd control.  I do agree that the PGA could have handled it better, and Price should not have needed to feel an obligation to help with it.  But I do not think he needed to feel any obligation to proactively inform Johnson that he was in a bunker.  Even had he been standing right next to Johnson, I feel the first indication he would have had that Johnson didn't realize it was a hazard would have been when Johnson grounded his club.

[Gary Slatter]

Two very experienced professionals; 2 completely different interpretations of the ground conditions:

David Price:  "I just didn't have any question it was a bunker, and had there been a question, he should have asked before he proceeded."

Dustin Johnson:  "Obviously, I know the rules very well. I just never thought I was in a bunker, or I would have never grounded my club. Maybe walking up to the ball, if all those people hadn't been there, maybe I would have recognized it as a sand trap. I knew there wasn't any waste bunkers. But all the bunkers on the course had a darkish color to the sand. This was white dirt."

By David Price's own reckoning, the hillside was chaos...  "It was very chaotic," Price said. "This was a very difficult situation based on the topography. There was a very high hill, completed filled with people, because once the grandstands on the right side of 18 filled, this was the only place people could see the green from. The hill was filled with people, and the other side of it was very steep, so people couldn't back up and go down. The marshals did the best they could, but there were probably 3,000 or 4,000 people on that hill."

Having recognized the chaos, David Price should have had the situational awareness to (A) either remove all people from the bunker in order to provide DJ with the opportunity to interpret his ground condition - or - if the hill was so overcrowded that everybody could not be removed from the bunker then he should have (B) informed the player that his ball was lying in a bunker/hazard but that he could not safely remove all the surrounding people from it. 

Instead of A or B he "asked Dustin if there was anything he needed, if there was anything I could do." 

Dustin Johnson owned the situation and he copped the 2-shot penalty and lost over one million dollars prize money for the mistake.

The PGA totally lost control of the hillside and David Price failed in his control of the immediate vicinity of DJ's golf ball.  If the ball came to rest up against a piece of litter in the same exact spot you can be sure Mr. Price would have been there to offer his professional guidance as the group's rules official.  Instead he left the area around Johnson's ball to walk 30 yards toward the green and help clear a wider gap on the right.

A real sad confluence of events that unfortunately fall completely on the big shoulders of Dustin Johnson.  He handled it with real class and I hope he goes on to win many majors in the future.

WELL SAID SCOTT.    Lets not discuss it any more.....

[Brent Hutto]

As much as I detest slow play and the pitiful whining that most Tour players engage in when begging for ridiculous relief rulings and other special pleadings, the pity in this whole situation was that Dustin Johnson is not a patient enough fellow. The norm among his peer would be to just stand there while that crowd of people were moved the hell out of the way and everyone including himself could approach the situation with clear intent and full information about the lie, the local rules, the yardage and everything else he might need to know.

I love guys that play fast but shouldering your way into a crowd and addressing the ball as soon as you had a glimpse of the green is not savvy play with a career-changing shot on the line.