In one fell swoop, it's less about the course

[Joe Hancock]

Now this Open is all about people. The Rules Committee is now the focal point, rather than the course. Maybe the competitors can steal back the thunder, but it definitely feels different now than before they informed DJ he might be penalized..."Hey, we might ding you. But don't worry about it. Go back to business as usual and we'll get back with you later." "Oh, and don't let it bother you, DJ."

Not sure what option they had, but he did say he didn't cause the ball to move.

[V. Kmetz]

amen

[jeffwarne]

I think it's funny that Fox lands the Open and Azingrr is openly RIPPING the USGA...

+1


and it hasn't been about the course all week, but rather the agronomy

[Joe Hancock]

I think it's funny that Fox lands the Open and Azingrr is openly RIPPING the USGA...

+1


and it hasn't been about the course all week, but rather the agronomy

When Jack was in the booth today, he said the fairways are likely as fast as greens were back in the day.

Lengthen course, make fairways roll out more.....makes sense.

[jeffwarne]

I think it's funny that Fox lands the Open and Azingrr is openly RIPPING the USGA...

+1


and it hasn't been about the course all week, but rather the agronomy

When Jack was in the booth today, he said the fairways are likely as fast as greens were back in the day.

Lengthen course, make fairways roll out more.....makes sense.

eliminate sidehill lies as well-add a second cut so drives that eventually leave fairway due to zero friction don't find actual rough-until you regrade fairways-for fairness of course.
The USGA "grow the game -not the grass"

[Peter Pallotta]

I complained when they started the graduated rough, and I complained when they feel in love with moving up tees and creating driveable fours, and I complained when it appeared that increasingly the pros were playing US Open "set-ups" instead of US open "courses". Maybe I've just become a sour-patch and a chronic complainer, and/or maybe today's incident is wholly in keeping with a leadership that seems determined to make the "championship" the story and not the "champion", and seems convinced that this is perfectly in line with their historical mission and mandate.

Peter

[MCirba]

Amen Peter.

[Bruce Katona]

I applaud the drive-able par 4's.....I personally thought they brought 2 & 5/6 into play.....taking 2 hours to decide on a penalty....a 4 year old could make a decision faster.

[jeffwarne]

I complained when they started the graduated rough, and I complained when they feel in love with moving up tees and creating driveable fours, and I complained when it appeared that increasingly the pros were playing US Open "set-ups" instead of US open "courses". Maybe I've just become a sour-patch and a chronic complainer, and/or maybe today's incident is wholly in keeping with a leadership that seems determined to make the "championship" the story and not the "champion", and seems convinced that this is perfectly in line with their historical mission and mandate.

Peter

Look at me
Mike Davis

[Paul Rudovsky]

i absolutely think the USGA fxxxed up...but for different reasons.  The problem is with the rule governing this situation...it is both ambiguous and not determinable in a short time. 


Reality is that under the rules of golf as written...the USGA made the right decision...it is the rule that is stupid.  How about the following:


one stroke penalty applies if and only if player or any piece of his/her equipment touches the ball causing it to move and not return to its original position


regarding notification of other players...that should be a "local" rule for particular tournaments.  remember, the rules of golf for notification are very different for match and stroke play

[Michael Felton]

i absolutely think the USGA fxxxed up...but for different reasons.  The problem is with the rule governing this situation...it is both ambiguous and not determinable in a short time. 


Reality is that under the rules of golf as written...the USGA made the right decision...it is the rule that is stupid.  How about the following:


one stroke penalty applies if and only if player or any piece of his/her equipment touches the ball causing it to move and not return to its original position


regarding notification of other players...that should be a "local" rule for particular tournaments.  remember, the rules of golf for notification are very different for match and stroke play

Having just argued against the rule in another thread, the one issue with this proposed change is that I suspect it is far more common for a ball to move after address when it's sitting in the rough. If a ball is sitting up on a matted area of grass and someone grounds a club, moving the grass that the ball is sitting on, the ball probably moves. You haven't touched the ball with the club, but you definitely caused it to move. In that instance, I think a penalty should be applied.


I have also played on occasions when it was very windy and as I moved the putter in behind the ball, the effect on the airflow around the putter makes the ball move. Was that me or the wind? Should I be penalised. Tougher call. I think on the green, if the ball moves and you didn't touch it, it was probably not you.

[Niall C]

I played a club match at the weekend where my opponent called a penalty on himself because the ball moved in the rough when he went to address it. I suggested that if the ball was in a hanging lie and that it moved back to its original position once he took his club off the surrounding grass then it wasn't a penalty but he still called it as a penalty.


Not sure if I was correct but I certainly thought he was being overly harsh on himself.


Niall

[Ronald Montesano]

Fitting that At/In One Fell Swoop has its origins in Macbeth, that closet Scottish golfer


https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2012/05/24/explaining-fell-in-one-fell-swoop/

[Tom_Doak]

I complained when they started the graduated rough, and I complained when they feel in love with moving up tees and creating driveable fours, and I complained when it appeared that increasingly the pros were playing US Open "set-ups" instead of US open "courses". Maybe I've just become a sour-patch and a chronic complainer, and/or maybe today's incident is wholly in keeping with a leadership that seems determined to make the "championship" the story and not the "champion", and seems convinced that this is perfectly in line with their historical mission and mandate.

Agreed.  I have spent a bit of time with Sandy Tatum, the former USGA President and a great gentleman, and it was he who at Winged Foot in 1974 delivered the line that they were "not trying to embarrass the best players in the world, we are trying to identify them."  But I had a problem with that quote even as a teenager.


Ultimately, it's the players who identify themselves, not the USGA and their overwrought "set-ups".  You've got them on a great golf course.  Just let them play.

[Matt Glore]

 


I have also played on occasions when it was very windy and as I moved the putter in behind the ball, the effect on the airflow around the putter makes the ball move. Was that me or the wind? Should I be penalised. Tougher call. I think on the green, if the ball moves and you didn't touch it, it was probably not you.

I couldn't care less about calling it on you, but if you read this again, didn't you just make the ball move?  Again, it's the rule and a bad one, but you did cause it to move.  If you put the putter behind the ball, causing a change in wind direction that that made it move, you caused it to move.

[Joe Hancock]

Not sure if it was David Duval or Nobilo or who, but one of those guys pointed out how still the air was yesterday. They made a comment that had the wind been blowing even 10 MPH the tournament would have been halted due to balls moving on the greens.

[Bill_McBride]

I complained when they started the graduated rough, and I complained when they feel in love with moving up tees and creating driveable fours, and I complained when it appeared that increasingly the pros were playing US Open "set-ups" instead of US open "courses". Maybe I've just become a sour-patch and a chronic complainer, and/or maybe today's incident is wholly in keeping with a leadership that seems determined to make the "championship" the story and not the "champion", and seems convinced that this is perfectly in line with their historical mission and mandate.

Agreed.  I have spent a bit of time with Sandy Tatum, the former USGA President and a great gentleman, and it was he who at Winged Foot in 1974 delivered the line that they were "not trying to embarrass the best players in the world, we are trying to identify them."  But I had a problem with that quote even as a teenager.


Ultimately, it's the players who identify themselves, not the USGA and their overwrought "set-ups".  You've got them on a great golf course.  Just let them play.

I remember cringing at that quote.   All the competitors play the same course, why not make it fun to watch and play?   Instead we got a long series of Scott Simpson and Lee Janzen winners.   Good guys but it would have been fun to see more wide open golf. 

[Steve Burrows]

This whole situation is a black eye on the USGA, and maybe even the game of golf.  I am guessing we might be no better off today binding ourselves to their bloated, 200 page rule book rather than playing by the original 13 rules established by the Gentleman Golfer’s of Leith in 1744?  As follows:

• You must Tee your Ball, within a Club's length of the Hole.
• Your Tee must be upon the Ground.
• You are not to change the Ball which you Strike off the Tee.
• You are not to remove Stones, Bones or any Break Club, for the sake of playing your Ball, Except upon the fair Green, & that only within a Club's length of your Ball.
• If your Ball come among Water, or any wattery filth, you are at liberty to take out your Ball & bringing it behind the hazard and Teeing it, you may play it with any Club and allow your Adversary a Stroke for so getting out your Ball.
• If your Balls be found anywhere touching one another, You are to lift the first Ball, till you play the last.
• At Holling, you are to play your Ball honestly for the Hole, and, not to play upon your Adversary's Ball, not lying in your way to the Hole.
• If you should lose your Ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the Spot, where you struck last, & drop another Ball, And allow your adversary a Stroke for the misfortune.
• No man at Holling his Ball, is to be allowed, to mark his way to the Hole with his Club or any thing else.
• If a Ball be stopp'd by any person, Horse, Dog, or any thing else, The Ball so stop'd must be play'd where it lyes.
• If you draw your Club in order to Strike & proceed so far in the Stroke, as to be bringing down your Club; If then, your Club shall break, in any way, it is to be Accounted a Stroke.
• He whose Ball lyes farthest from the Hole is obliged to play first.
• Neither Trench, Ditch or Dyke, made for the preservation of the Links, nor the Scholar's Holes or the Soldier's Lines, shall be accounted a Hazard; But the Ball is to be taken out Teed and playd with any Iron Club.

[Mike_Young]

Would any fortune 500 company allow the CEO to remain in power if they came to a public ceremony in the condition Murphy did yesterday?  We should have already seen a press release relieving her of her duties.  That says asmuch about the organization as the ruling.

[Peter Pallotta]

Tom -

"overwrought" is a terrific word, and a succinct description that I will now shamelessly steal and use constantly!

It captures the essence of the detailed and almost dictatorial championship "set-ups" we now see (both in actual championships like the two Opens as well as in countless tour events), and it describes the overall attitude of the governing bodies -- an attitude that seems to want the "drama" to happen behind the scenes (with their own machinations and cleverness) instead of on the field of play (with the best golfers in the world and their talent).

But it strikes me that it also describes the actual design/architecture of the many modern courses/CCFAD that sprung up in the 80s and 90s and that lined up to charge big dollars in return for a pristinely artificial constructs and environments. "Overwrought" -- the word Joe H might've been thinking of when he opined that "there was no money in doing less".

Peter         

[Tom_Doak]

Would any fortune 500 company allow the CEO to remain in power if they came to a public ceremony in the condition Murphy did yesterday?

I did read several opinions online today that she might have just been flustered by the feedback loop of trying to speak while the speakers amplified her words a couple of seconds behind.  It's very hard to speak under those circumstances if you aren't reading from a text.


Again, I did not see the speech, but there have been several accusations of public drunkenness and even less proof than for what moved DJ's ball.  See where guilty until proven innocent leads?

[Michael Felton]

 


I have also played on occasions when it was very windy and as I moved the putter in behind the ball, the effect on the airflow around the putter makes the ball move. Was that me or the wind? Should I be penalised. Tougher call. I think on the green, if the ball moves and you didn't touch it, it was probably not you.

I couldn't care less about calling it on you, but if you read this again, didn't you just make the ball move?  Again, it's the rule and a bad one, but you did cause it to move.  If you put the putter behind the ball, causing a change in wind direction that that made it move, you caused it to move.

You don't think the wind had a hand in it?

[Mike_Young]

Would any fortune 500 company allow the CEO to remain in power if they came to a public ceremony in the condition Murphy did yesterday?

I did read several opinions online today that she might have just been flustered by the feedback loop of trying to speak while the speakers amplified her words a couple of seconds behind.  It's very hard to speak under those circumstances if you aren't reading from a text.


Again, I did not see the speech, but there have been several accusations of public drunkenness and even less proof than for what moved DJ's ball.  See where guilty until proven innocent leads?

TD,
You are correct there is less proof.  And yes, it could have been reverb or whatever it is called from delay of speakers etc but did not seem that way.  Wish you could see the ceremony.  It was extremely obvious.