[V. Kmetz]

Disgusted with the USGA for playing Department of Justice and "wait a sec..." bullshit...why should DJ have to answer what else could have done it...


...these green speeds...like a blade of grass can't oscillate under such conditions... like a mere zephyr or a bird fart couldn't do it...like a crowd roar couldn't do it....

he did the right thing, he called the arm band over, he detailed what happened...he didn't sole the putter, and didn't feel he caused it...unless they have some gross, gross evidence, they should've kept their mouths shut... now we'll have a Twitter-verse alight with charges of conspiracy...

cheers

vk

[Ronald Montesano]

The tweets that I read were 100% supportive of the champion, and 100% chagrined at the egregious conduct of the rules caravan.

[V. Kmetz]

Hi RM and all...


Thank god for that unanimity... I rarely subscribe to the mob majority's justice on social media, but it was the equivalent of a chorus of "Shame" ringing on in the House of Parliament. Hope the USGA understands the larger issue...


I'll nutshell it here as opposed to any of the several other threads...


1. To me, USGA had their day in court when the official was called over on the 5th green. As we can plainly see, DJ had no reason to believe he caused the ball to move...official affirmed his version...made him play from "new" spot, un-"replaced."


2. Once that ruling is made, and he doesn't play from a replaced spot, their day in court is over.  To later say he may have "caused" it, means that he didn't in fact play from the corrected spot, and with the same technical ferocity with which the whole matter was conjured up by them, the competition is compromised, as we would then have one competitor who did not play under the rules the others had.


3. In the same spirit I am dissapointed that the USGA didn't rule - one way or the other - on the 12th tee. I can understand an hour and 45 to notice, it, determine it, decide how they will handle it. But the only way they should have gone to the 12th tee is to announce a penalty. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut...the case was judged already on the green. If they had a stated mechanism for handling it on the 5th green (..."OK Dustin, you feel you didn't cause it to move...we must look at it on video...and may determine you DID cause it...so play from the "new" spot, but realize there could be an additional shot)... Without such a mechanism, they are all done with the official's on-site review...


4. I'm less critical of the "How do we tell the field?" part, because they did not operate out malice, but of missteps from the original theater. There may be future un-experienced events which may come up, whereby this communication procedure would be deemed reasonable on many of our parts.


5. Lastly, the issue in the modern experience and recent revision of the applicable rule:


Under which discretion and what conditions can a player - beyond his say-so - be deemed to have caused/not caused a ball to move, when he did visibly did not touch the ball?


There was some snickering about shadow-casts, but that's actually the one I think about most; if one's shadow is across the ball at address, under these razor-edge, lo-fiction surface-environments, the micro-area under/around the ball can certainly move enough to cause a 1/8th revolution turn...If the mere address of a ball can cause this, what should a player do...take an unplayable lie?


And of course there are these conditions...it's gotten ridiculous now.


cheers
vk

[Michael Tamburrini]

Given that so many things could have caused the ball to move and that his putterhead was within a centimetre of the ball when it did so, isn't it possible it was the cause?  And, if there isn't any clear other answer, isn't adding a stroke the moral thing to do??


If you went to hit and your ball moved just as you addressed it (on a completely flat calm day) would you add a stroke, or would you pardon yourself even though you didn't have a really strong alternate theory?

[Jason Topp]

I see this problem as caused by the crazy green speeds that are commonplace now. The original rule made sense on greens stimping a 8. With that much grass the ball is not all that likely to move unless the player did something to cause it to move.


If you have greens at 13+ and significant slope, you are going to have balls move, particularly if there is any significant wind.  The current rule requires the player or official to make an impossible judgment - whether the player caused the ball to move.  There will not be too many situations in which a player preparing to putt can say for sure that he did not cause it to move.


 I think the rules should be revised again if we are going to continue to have such speeds in place.  I am not sure what the rule should be but I do not think there should be a penalty. 

[V. Kmetz]

Given that so many things could have caused the ball to move and that his putterhead was within a centimetre of the ball when it did so, isn't it possible it was the cause?  And, if there isn't any clear other answer, isn't adding a stroke the moral thing to do??


If you went to hit and your ball moved just as you addressed it (on a completely flat calm day) would you add a stroke, or would you pardon yourself even though you didn't have a really strong alternate theory?

But there IS a strong alternate theory MT...the f'n green speeds and absence of normally frictive surfaces...cut to SO fine an edge that it well, well, well enters the mind as reasonable, competing evidence to an act of DJ's...and they had their day in court with the official, right there on the green...

[Michael Tamburrini]

Given that so many things could have caused the ball to move and that his putterhead was within a centimetre of the ball when it did so, isn't it possible it was the cause?  And, if there isn't any clear other answer, isn't adding a stroke the moral thing to do??


If you went to hit and your ball moved just as you addressed it (on a completely flat calm day) would you add a stroke, or would you pardon yourself even though you didn't have a really strong alternate theory?

But there IS a strong alternate theory MT...the f'n green speeds and absence of normally frictive surfaces...cut to SO fine an edge that it well, well, well enters the mind as reasonable, competing evidence to an act of DJ's...and they had their day in court with the official, right there on the green...

Yeah, I'm not for a second arguing that the blame for the ball moving so easily is the stupid green speeds.  And the USGA botched it.  Both by not dealing with it initially and by then postponing it till after the round (it was grossly unfair on all the competitors). 


But I do think it's conceivable that the ridiculous green speeds meant that even wafting a putter near the ball would be enough to topple it so I do think the penalty was right, amidst a sea of madness from the USGA.

[Garland Bayley]

Admittedly I don't know how the rule originated. I can only guess that the rule originated in a effort to prevent a player from trying to take advantage by moving a ball, i.e., causing it to move.


The PGA advertises these guys are good. I must admit they are really, really, really good if they can cause a ball to move to their advantage by slowly, deliberately moving their putter from practice stroke position to hover it behind the ball so they can take their stroke.


  Really, really, really good.

[Tom_Doak]

But I do think it's conceivable that the ridiculous green speeds meant that even wafting a putter near the ball would be enough to topple it so I do think the penalty was right, amidst a sea of madness from the USGA.

I think it's conceivable that you killed OJ's wife.  Prove otherwise!  /sarc


That standing near the ball can cause you a penalty is beyond stupid.  The Decision is about as clear as the NFL's catch-or-no-catch rule, muddying the waters and making the players no longer the last word but accountable to the rules officials and lawyers.  So much for the USGA standing for the integrity of the game, a player's responsibility to attest his own score, and all those other virtues they pretend to espouse.


This Rule should be changed so that unless the player makes contact with the ball, there should be no penalty, and either the ball should be replaced, or not.  [It doesn't even really matter which way they want to go on that.]

[MClutterbuck]

Tom,


I go further. There is no advantage to moving the ball on a putting green if it is replaced. The rule should be changed so that any movement of the ball that is unintenionally caused by the player should result in the ball being replaced and NO penalty.

[Michael Tamburrini]

But I do think it's conceivable that the ridiculous green speeds meant that even wafting a putter near the ball would be enough to topple it so I do think the penalty was right, amidst a sea of madness from the USGA.

I think it's conceivable that you killed OJ's wife.  Prove otherwise!  /sarc


That standing near the ball can cause you a penalty is beyond stupid.  The Decision is about as clear as the NFL's catch-or-no-catch rule, muddying the waters and making the players no longer the last word but accountable to the rules officials and lawyers.  So much for the USGA standing for the integrity of the game, a player's responsibility to attest his own score, and all those other virtues they pretend to espouse.


This Rule should be changed so that unless the player makes contact with the ball, there should be no penalty, and either the ball should be replaced, or not.  [It doesn't even really matter which way they want to go on that.]

Were I within an inch of OJs wife - the closest person to her - wafting a putter in her general direction, I'm betting there's a fair chance I would have had to prove my innocence.


BUT, yeah, that analogy doesn't make much sense. 


I don't disagree about the rule.  But the rule being crap doesn't mean he didn't break it.  Something caused the ball to move.  Dustin Johnson was within a few mm of the ball when it happened.  If it wasn't him, then what was it?  (which I think is the big problem the USGA had, they couldn't blame it on anything else)


And yes, I know the greens are a ridiculous speed, but it still needs some force for the ball to move.  The greens were so fragile even a small gust of wind or a ground vibration could have caused it, with DJ being as likely as anything else. 

[A.G._Crockett]

But I do think it's conceivable that the ridiculous green speeds meant that even wafting a putter near the ball would be enough to topple it so I do think the penalty was right, amidst a sea of madness from the USGA.

I think it's conceivable that you killed OJ's wife.  Prove otherwise!  /sarc


That standing near the ball can cause you a penalty is beyond stupid.  The Decision is about as clear as the NFL's catch-or-no-catch rule, muddying the waters and making the players no longer the last word but accountable to the rules officials and lawyers.  So much for the USGA standing for the integrity of the game, a player's responsibility to attest his own score, and all those other virtues they pretend to espouse.


This Rule should be changed so that unless the player makes contact with the ball, there should be no penalty, and either the ball should be replaced, or not.  [It doesn't even really matter which way they want to go on that.]

Were I within an inch of OJs wife - the closest person to her - wafting a putter in her general direction, I'm betting there's a fair chance I would have had to prove my innocence.


BUT, yeah, that analogy doesn't make much sense. 


I don't disagree about the rule.  But the rule being crap doesn't mean he didn't break it.  Something caused the ball to move.  Dustin Johnson was within a few mm of the ball when it happened.  If it wasn't him, then what was it?  (which I think is the big problem the USGA had, they couldn't blame it on anything else)


And yes, I know the greens are a ridiculous speed, but it still needs some force for the ball to move.  The greens were so fragile even a small gust of wind or a ground vibration could have caused it, with DJ being as likely as anything else.

Michael,
Should I ever be accused of a crime and find myself on trial, I'll have to hope that you are not the judge, nor on the jury.  I like the reasonable doubt standard, and Johnson had repeated that preshot routine several hundred times already by the 5th hole on Sunday without causing the ball to move.  That alone strikes me as reasonable doubt. 

So now suddenly on Sunday, HE is the cause?  Without touching the ball?  Without touching the ground behind the ball?  And BTW, the closest thing to the ball wasn't Johnson, or even the clubhead; it was the ground!  The ground that had been triple-cut and rolled, and was estimated to be running 14.5!  And therein lies the rub...

The USGA guys looked at that grainy video and decided "WE can't be in the wrong for what we did to the greens, so it MUST have been the player!"  The USGA held all the cards, so they won.  That doesn't make it fair or equitable or right. 

It was amateur hour at its very worst; a bunch of guys who can't admit they are wrong, much less that they don't know what they are doing and aren't very good at it anyway.  They've made the Open my least favorite of the four majors, and they become a little bit more disconnected from reality every year. 

So search the archives and tell me this:  When was the last time the USGA got ANYTHING right?  Grooves?  Anchoring?  Playing alone?  Free drops for the pros at Pinehurst and Chambers Bay that amateurs don't get at the local muni?  This is only their latest shoddy work, not their worst.  I quit joining three years ago, and can't understand why anybody still does.

[Ulrich Mayring]

How I remember the golf rules:

- one stroke for being unlucky
- two strokes for being stupid

So DJ was unlucky. Sounds about right

Ulrich

[Greg Holland]

The ground that had been triple-cut and rolled, and was estimated to be running 14.5!  And therein lies the rub...[/size]


Heard Mike Davis on PGA Tour radio this morning, and he also said that DJ had an uphill putt on a 2 degree gradient.  And, the ball rolled down the gradient a mm.  [/color]

[Jim Nugent]

If you accidentally tap your ball off the tee, you don't get penalized.  You put the ball back on the tee, hit your tee shot, and lie 1 wherever your ball ends up.  Same if a gust of wind blows the ball off the tee.  This is true even after you have addressed the ball. 

Why is it different on the green? 

[jeffwarne]

If you accidentally tap your ball off the tee, you don't get penalized.  You put the ball back on the tee, hit your tee shot, and lie 1 wherever your ball ends up.  Same if a gust of wind blows the ball off the tee.  This is true even after you have addressed the ball. 

Why is it different on the green?

On a tee, the ball is not yet "in play". everywhere else, it is in play


One of the problems with the rules and rules changes are that most pros and nearly no ams know the rules, which actually are quite logical and well written.(but not easy)
This leads to a lot of hand wringing and complaining the rules are too complicated, but other games have pretty complicated rules also-but we're just spectating for the most part in those games.


What is very difficult is all the decisions being accepted as precendent, which can get crazy complicated

[JMEvensky]

One of the problems with the rules and rules changes are that most pros and nearly no ams know the rules, which actually are quite logical and well written.(but not easy)
This leads to a lot of hand wringing and complaining the rules are too complicated, but other games have pretty complicated rules also-but we're just spectating for the most part in those games.


What is very difficult is all the decisions being accepted as precendent, which can get crazy complicated

+1


I wonder how many guys playing slo-pitch softball can explain the infield fly rule.

[Ben Sims]

Here's the massive problem the USGA has, integrity. They asked DJ if he caused his ball to move. He said no. They continued play for 6 more holes then came up to him on the tee of the 12th and asked not, "hey DJ, are you sure you didn't cause your ball to move?" But instead the absurd, "hey DJ, is there anything else that could've caused your ball to move?" The ridiculous assertion is of course that unless he did it, there's nothing else it could've been. My cousin nailed it when he texted me within seconds of that being reported on air "Why wouldn't he say 'an earth tremor, the wind, a damned atomic test in North Korea?!'"

The absurdity continued unabated as once the USGA suspected he was at fault, that he and the entire field played the remaining third of the final round (often tied or only one shot separating them) with an incorrect score represented.

In my opinion, the entire episode marred a good tournament. Oakmont did what she does to nearly everyone and one guy was able to harness one aspect of his game to overpower the unconquerable. In doing so, he exercised one of the more notable demons in modern sports. Imagine Van de Welde winning on the Open Championship's most storied course, St Andrews, in 2000. That's what this was. And the USGA folded the sod over it like a hack.

[jeffwarne]

Here's the massive problem the USGA has, integrity. They asked DJ if he caused his ball to move. He said no. They continued play for 6 more holes then came up to him on the tee of the 12th and asked not, "hey DJ, are you sure you didn't cause your ball to move?" But instead the absurd, "hey DJ, is there anything else that could've caused your ball to move?" The ridiculous assertion is of course that unless he did it, there's nothing else it could've been. My cousin nailed it when he texted me within seconds of that being reported on air "Why wouldn't he say 'an earth tremor, the wind, a damned atomic test in North Korea?!'"

The absurdity continued unabated as once the USGA suspected he was at fault, that he and the entire field played the remaining third of the final round (often tied or only one shot separating them) with an incorrect score represented.

In my opinion, the entire episode marred a good tournament. Oakmont did what she does to nearly everyone and one guy was able to harness one aspect of his game to overpower the unconquerable. In doing so, he exercised one of the more notable demons in modern sports. Imagine Van de Welde winning on the Open Championship's most storied course, St Andrews, in 2000. That's what this was. And the USGA folded the sod over it like a hack.

+1
perfectly summed up

[A.G._Crockett]

If you accidentally tap your ball off the tee, you don't get penalized.  You put the ball back on the tee, hit your tee shot, and lie 1 wherever your ball ends up.  Same if a gust of wind blows the ball off the tee.  This is true even after you have addressed the ball. 

Why is it different on the green?

On a tee, the ball is not yet "in play". everywhere else, it is in play


One of the problems with the rules and rules changes are that most pros and nearly no ams know the rules, which actually are quite logical and well written.(but not easy)
This leads to a lot of hand wringing and complaining the rules are too complicated, but other games have pretty complicated rules also-but we're just spectating for the most part in those games.


What is very difficult is all the decisions being accepted as precendent, which can get crazy complicated

Jeff,
I'm guessing that you know the Rules pretty well, certainly better than most, and to KNOW the Rules of Golf means that you have to have thought about them quite a bit; they are, as you say, not easy.  So you see logic IN the Rules, as do I.  I think, though, that there is a BIG difference between a rule containing logic and that rule being logical, and that's what we saw on Sunday. 

What if the Rules treated a ball that had come to rest and then moved (for whatever reason) only one of two ways?  If the UNTOUCHED ball moves closer to the hole, put it back and play it, but if the UNTOUCHED ball moves farther from the hole, play it as it lies without replacing it.  No assessing probabilities of what made it move, no one or two stroke penalty issues, none of that.  Closer?  Put it back.  Farther? Play it. 

The irony on Sunday was that Johnson's ball moved AWAY from the hole, untouched by him.  Yet he was penalized by guys who weren't even on the scene at the time.  If you can make the case that such a rule is "logical", then have at it.  But I don't think the spectating public well equate the review and penalty after the fact on Sunday to Draymond Green's suspension, or an NFL review, or the like.

[Michael Tamburrini]

I'm not sticking up for the USGA here, far from it.  I hate the distance the ball goes, I hate modern equipment making courses obsolete for professional golf, I hate the ignoring of slow play (how many people even noticed it took nigh on 5 hours for the last group to play on Sunday, in twoballs?) and I hate the way they set up golf courses.  Hell, I doubt very much I'll bother watching another professional event after that on Sunday.

But I have a different criteria for calling a penalty stroke on myself than most in golf.  If my ball moves just as I'm putting my putter behind it and I don't have a good reason for why, I call a penalty on myself.  It sucks, but if there's any doubt in my head that I could be the cause, I'd have to.  Apparently I'm pretty much alone in that.


Having a playing partner say I shouldn't doesn't matter.  Most other players would always stick up for you in that situation, owing to how obviously unfair and lousy it is.  But - if there's a shred of doubt in my head (which, if there's nothing else I can blame it on, there would be) - then it's a penalty shot.


However, that we can even be considering DJ as a cause when he didn't touch the ball, should be the final nail in the coffin of obscene green speeds.  It was 100% the USGAs fault that a player was in a position that the ball could move without him touching it in such calm conditions. 

[Sean_A]

The rule is based on conjecture.  My bet is that in almost every case that a ball moves without being touched it is conceivably due to the player being in the vicinity of the ball...doing his normal thing...combined with wind or stupid green speeds/slope.  IMO it is wrong to penalize a guy for walking up to the ball, taking a few practice strokes or addressing the ball when on the putting green. Nevermind about the process of determining the penalty...that is another sticky wicket which requires a complete review of how rules are applied.  Golf must make a decision if it wants the game to be played in live time or recorded time. 


Ciao

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