The rules are supposed to be applied fairly to all participants. Since all participants are not on TV you cant apply a video decision exclusively to one participant. If her partner calls it who is supposed to protect the field then the penalty should apply until the next hole is started or round is completed.
Equity is not fairness, no. You'll never get "fairness" - more popular players have larger crowds that can spot or deflect balls headed OB, players play under different weather conditions because of tee times, etc.
How lousy would it be for a person seen to be breaking the rules, not be penalized because of some rule y'all want to create out of emotion right now, and then go on to win by one anyway?
Anyone saying video shouldn't be allowed to make this type of ruling is essentially saying players should be able to get away with this type of infraction. A player's fellow competitors are concentrating on his/her own putts and can't be looking like hawks to ensure everyone is replacing his/her ball in the right spot. Neither can officials be expected to do so, especially if they are prohibited from "going to the video" to confirm what they think they saw.
And to those arguing that the caller/emailer might have an agenda other than the pure protection of the rules, it's not as if he/she made the definitive call on it. The LPGA received the email, examined the evidence and agreed with what was emailed, and then instituted the penalty. If the content of the email wasn't proven true, there wouldn't have been an issue.
Yes.
So if a player is not on TV they can mark their ball anywhere and their playing partner has no responsibility to protect the field. Not a chance in hell.
That's not what he said.
My solution would be the following:
Unless the committee is convinced that the act was done intentionally and to gain an advantage over the field, any rules violation detected after the round is completed shall not be assessed a penalty.
No thank you. The rules are breached whether you intended to or not, and whether you gain an advantage or not. The rules are best when they look at the actions taken by the player, not the intent. Intent is only a part of a few rules for this reason (like in making a stroke, when it's usually pretty clear.)
Golfdigest think that the proposed rules would have allowed the rules committee could avoid giving Lexi a penalty under a 'reasonable judgement standard'.
I don't think it would. I know the proposed rule explanation says marking the ball, but you're not estimating or measuring anything there, and even if they expand it to include that, she didn't do a good job of putting it on the right spot. Her spot was not reasonable.
The fact that the caller may have an ulterior motive seems irrelevant to me. A violation is a violation. But why have the end of the tournament be the arbitrary cut off time? The day of the infraction makes more sense. If the violation is discovered later, so be it. Bad calls occur in all sports.
Because it's a 72-hole event, and the things that occur throughout that 72 holes "add up" to the final result. The close of the competition is as good a point as any to stop considering these types of disputes. Actually, the best spot.
Therefore, to protect the integrity of the competition, it is essential to minimize this risk of inequality by NOT accepting outsiders to submit rules infractions.
That makes no sense. Even if only 50% of unseen infractions are reported by "viewers," that's 50% of tournaments that are contested closer to what I'll call "the truth" than would otherwise. Restricting viewers from being able to call in means you're willingly overlooking or ignoring rules infractions.
Competitors are required to KNOW and FOLLOW the Rules of Golf. Lexi failed in this, yet people are quick to blame the person who emailed in. The emailer may have been Lexi's biggest fan. I was a Tiger fan in 2013… Maybe they were looking out for the integrity of the game. You have no idea.
It is fellow competitors job to pay attention to their fellow players in a tournament.
No, it isn't. It's the player's responsibility to know and follow the rules themselves. It's the player's responsibility to report rules violations they SEE, but they don't have to follow each other around the course and watch like hawks. That's not at all their "job."
I still believe--hope--that the new "reasonable judgment" standard in the proposed USGA rules would cause a different outcome in the future. That's what Golf Digest thinks. We'll see.
I think they're wrong. Her replacement wasn't reasonable.
As a player, and assuming we no longer accepted call ins, if you were in shape for a high finish and then it was revealed after a round and before the competition was over that you were in breach and should have been penalized what do you do? There are so many implications at the professional level and I wonder if a player who may have benefited from a missed call may not really benefit in the long run at all. Wouldn't there be lots of pressure to WD?
There were calls for Tiger to WD since he "should" have been DQed from the Masters in 2013… except that the "committee" had apparently already ruled, without talking to him, that his drop was "okay," only to reverse their decision after I contacted some people after Tiger's post-round interview. :-P But anyway, there were still people asking for Tiger to "do the right thing" and WD since he really should have been DQed (under the rules then there was no two-stroke option).