Don't know if it's been posted elsewhere, but here's Bamberger's side of the story:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/golf/10/19/bamberger.qandq/index.html

Carlyle,  

The primary justification is:

It is not required to determine intent.  Did she just make a mistake or did she cheat?  I think you would agree that if she knowingly cheated and it could be proven she should be DQ'ed.  The rule, which has been in effect since at least 1934, does this.  Once you have turned in your score, it is frozen and if it is found that you didn't count all your strokes, you are DQ'ed.  In order for some stability, after the tournament is complete, it must be proven that you cheated or an actual stroke wasn't counted (for which there is no excuse for missing.)

In a letter to a player who was DQ'ed in 1937 for having two scores reversed on his card and wanted to know why he should be DQ'ed when the total was correct, the USGA replied:

The penalty may seem severe, but the severity has had a very salutary effect down through the years in effecting scrupulous care on the part of all competitors.  So it has been found that the Rule works the greatest good for the greatest number especially when it is remembered that the competitor is playing against the entire field and each competitor who adheres strictly to the Rules is entitled to have all other competitors do likewise.  While the error occurred in your case despite your honest intentions, intent in all cases is not an easy matter of proof and therefore enforcement or waiving of the penalty is not and cannot be base upon intention.

This Bamberger/Wie story has gotten outta hand. Must be a low news time this week.

Here's the way I wish this thing had turned out.

1. Bamberger blows the whistle on Wie a day late leading to the 6-6, DQ possibilty.

2. The two Rules officials take Wie and her caddy out to the scene of the crime after the final round to review and establish the "facts" from Wie and her caddy.

3. They all agree on the established points, measure them and sure enough Bamberger is right, Wie is wrong and it looks like a "no way out" DQ for Wie with the loss of $53,000 in her first pro tourney.

4. At that point Wie rather sotto voce says to the two rules officials;
"Look guys, I've been watching you two glance at me furtively and lasciviously. I may be young but I'm not dumb, I know what's on your minds. So it looks like I was over the line by about 12-15 inches, maybe even 18 full inches, and I know to you guys, the "Committee, The USGA/R&A Rules of Golf  that means a "no way out" DQ and a loss of $53,000 to me due to Rule 6-6, Rule 28, Rule 20-7 etc. So here's the deal. You've got a choice. A/ I'll pay each of you guys a grand or B/ The three of us can go over there behind that "original lie" Golden Lantana bush and you two can cop a simultaneous feel not to exceed 3 1/2 seconds. If you're worried someone like Bamberger is spying on us I'll act like I'm bending over to inspect where the ball originally lay in the Golden Lantana bush and that I'm accidently falling forward and you two can catch me and cop a simultaneous feel not to exceed 4 1/2 seconds. And for this you two overlook this 12-15 or even 18 inches nearer the hole thing and rule this situation in my favor that my ball was not "nearer the hole"."      

And so that's what they do. The two rules officials catch Michelle on the way down over behind the Golden Lantana bush and actually cop about a 6 1/2 second feel, that mildly pisses Michelle off.

Unfortunately, Michael Bamberger happens to be hidden over behind a rock near the Golden Lantana bush and he not only videos this whole shennigan-like arrangement but gets it on audio tape. This whole thing breaks in SI, it becomes an National sensation---the two rules officials get slammed in the Brig for lascivious conduct toward a minor (their lawyer argues that Michelle is 6'1" and amazingly nubile for a 16 year old leading his clients to momentarily forget she was a minor but the jury and judge didn't buy that defense).

Michelle becomes an even bigger overnight financial and Pop-star success and replaces Parris Hilton on all the super-market checkout counter rags for at least a full two weeks (Of course featuring the color photo of the simultaneous copped feel behind the Golden Lantana bush under banner headlines that scream "Michelle is pregnant from this secret Dessert tryst!!!!"). Michelle Wie & Co, LLD. PCC, CPO, Inc. eventually rakes in about $3.29 billion in all kinds of marketing schemes.

Best of all, when Michelle finally consents to speak to the press (where she graciously agrees to invite Michael and seat him in the front row center) about this stunt she admits that even though she may've been vaguely unaware that a couple of inches the wrong way could've cost her $53,000 and a DQ under the USGA/R&A Rules of Golf in the Samsung thing, at least she knew there is absolutely NO PENALTY (not even a single shot) in the Rules of Golf for bribing (with an option of cash or a quickly copped simultaneous feel) a couple of lascivious rules officials into seeing things her way in some minor Rule 28, 20-7 and 6-6 cock-up.

Now, THAT woulda been a STORY!!  

(At the press conference LA Times golf contributor Geoff Shackelford asked Michelle how she feels now about the bribe option she offered those two rules officials, and Michelle says; "That's a totally great question Geoff---you know, like, thinking about that now I should've, like, offered those two, like, the option of A/ $1 million bucks each to be paid out over five years or B/ A simultaneous copped feel not to exceed 1 1/2 seconds" ).

Hall of fame post!

JerryK:

Are you sure you feel that way? Why don't you sleep on that opinion, and if you wake up tomorrow, or next week or next month and feel I should be cast out into oblivion, then so be it.

Doug:

Thanks for posting that interview with Bamberger.

I guess I should admit again as Joe Logan did in his article in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Tuesday; Full Disclosure: Michael Bamberger is a friend of mine.

That posted interview with him settled the issue with me. What he said is just about everything I know about Michael Bamberger, with the exception of one comment;

"Q: But by waiting until the press conference, did you know it would be too late to correct her scorecard?

"BAMBERGER: That never crossed my mind. I was there to write about Michelle; she was my subject. Even now when it is presented to me, it's very hard to imagine going to an official before going to my subject."

That, I'm not sure I get right now---I must say if that statement is honest, Micheal Bamberger doesn't know the Rules as well as I thought he did and as well as I suspected he might have, and I must admit I'm gonna ask him how much he understood Rule 6-6 and its ramifications at the time all this was going on, and if, or how, he felt about that when he was thinking about and apparently struggling with this issue either before or after she signed her score-card.

The rest, to me, is pure Michael Bamberger as I've known him and his feelings about golf and its principles, and the integrity of golf, for about fifteen years.

Bamberger got it right, even if his timing was amiss for reasons I don't understand right now. He went right to the heart of the issue--eg was a rule violated or not---and forget about the "attendant circumstances" of money, Wie's reaction, golf or golf fans' reaction, opprobrium towards him, or anything else.

The heart of the matter was a real fundamental principle of golf---was a Rule violated or was it not? Forget about fame, money, condemnation or the rest, it's the same for one as it is for the other.

Bamberger, reserving his timing, got it right, in my opinion. Some of you on this issue, and from your comments, aren't even in the same ballpark of understanding of golf's principles and golf's integrity, as is Bamberger.

I don't think anyone will lose on this one other than the clattering critics---as usual. Wie, Bamberger and certainly golf is gonna win on this one. Revelation, process, examination, decison.

Golf won again.

"I should quit?  You got it.  Let it be known that I will never play another tournament professionally on the LPGA Tour."

I realize that will be a very hard thing but I admire your integrity and "principle" for doing it. It must be very psychologically taxing to go back into the closet.

"P.S. If the PGA Tour has Tiger, then would the LPGA Tour now have a Cheetah (Wie)?"

 P.S.Obviously you must be in marketing and very good at it.

T

"TEPaul,
I find it hard to believe "golf won". It's more a case of "golf journalism lost"."

Mike:

Good point there. I know Michael and although he is a wonderful writer, he really is the type of guy who may have a problem with "two hats" at the same time. First and foremost Michael Bamberger has his "golf principle" hat on and it may not be that possible for his "journalist hat" to get on his head correctly and replace his "golf principle" hat.

Do you make some distinction in this issue between Bamberger the "journalist spectator" and Bamberger as just the "spectator"?  

after all this to and fro, I still think he was wrong not to bring it up at the time..

JerryK:

Good questions on the apparent need for disqualification. The best I can do is to quote you from Tufts book because essentially that really is what the rules-writers will go to on matters like this. At least that has very much been my personal experience with them over the years on rules questions, proposals and other matters. I gotta go out. I'll do the research and get back to you.

Dan Kelly,

In reponse to Mile Scaletta's post you wrote:

"I think Len Shapiro is dead wrong, by the way. There was absolutely nothing dishonorable about what Bamberger did. And journalism is not a "profession," either."

With repect, I think Shapiro was dead right and if journalism is not a profession, why do some of your brethren go to jail to protect their scources? A code of ethics, an obligation to report and not become part of the fabric of a story a la  Geraldo Rivera?  I would be loathe to say that Murrow et al were not professionals, you included.


 
 

Steve Shaffer,

if you knew about "the bar exam" in journalism you'd never read another sports page again.

Seriously, if I'm covering a local hearing for a golf course development and I witness the applicant presenting data to the committee that I think is wrong, I don't then go join the list of speakers and present alternative testimony to the committee. Instead,I write it up in good journalistic fashion in my magazine or newspaper and document the case. Then let the committee handle the fallout. Do I suborn perjury in that case? The question is moot, since it's my job to report, not to interject into the formal record and correct the evidentiary hearing.

By the way, if journalism is not a profession then I've been wasting my time for at least a decade.

By the way, if journalism is not a profession then I've been wasting my time for at least a decade.

Why would you say that? There are thousands of perfectly respectable and essential trades that do not qualify as "professions."

In the examples of both Mr. Thompson and Mr. Klein there was sufficient time for the reporter to write a story and get it read by the appropriate parties responsible for decisions/justice BEFORE the window for the final decision had passed.

Not so in the case of Wie/Bamberger