For those who want to see what John had to say, here is the entry from his blog.
The Golf Channel just concluded showing Michelle Wie appealing the ruling made by the LPGA Rules Officials that she was penalized two strokes for grounding her club in the hazard.
There is no dispute regarding the fact that she grounded her club after making her first shot from the hazard with the ball still in the hazard. Normally this would be a clear violation of Rule 13-4b. However, when Wie came into the scoring area, she said that she was trying to prevent herself from falling. Exception 1 to Rule 13-4 says that “there is no penalty if the player touches the ground … as a result of or to prevent falling”.
The officials argued that it didn’t look like Wie was about to fall so the Exception didn’t apply. Decision 34-3/9 gives a lot of guidance on how to make rulings of this kind. The first thing is to gather the facts. The fact is Wie did ground her club. The second is to get the testimony of the player(s) involved. Wie’s testimony was that she did touch her club to prevent herself from falling. There was no testimony or fact to dispute that other than the official’s opinion.
Only she knows if she was concerned she might fall and put down the club to prevent falling. If the official really believes that she wasn’t doing that, as in this case, he could penalize her, but he is also saying that she is not telling the truth or at least mistaken when she says she was trying not to fall.
Wie has certainly had her share of rules issues since she started playing out on the LPGA Tour. Most have been her fault.
In this case, I believe the officials should have listened to her and given her the benefit of the doubt.
I also believe it was wrong for the LPGA to allow the Golf Channel to broadcast from the trailer. These kind of things should be conducted in private, not with the entire world looking on. Wie did a good job of arguing her point, but it seemed the official had his mind made up and wasn’t about to give in to her. She handled it all with dignity and class.
I think she should have asked for the entire Rules Committee to make the ruling, not just the official who made the original ruling. That would be within her rights.
The ruling cost her nearly $90,000.I have met John, in fact we took a USGA seminar together when he scored 100, and I did not, although I was close! He is a knowledgeable and experienced official with a lot of on course experience. However, in this case I disagree.
The incident was brought to the attention of a LPGA rules official, Doug Brecht, who then, I believe, assessed a 2 stroke penalty to Wie while she was still out on the course. (I watched the telecast last night and the announcers intimated the penalty was assessed while Wie was still playing, but were not definitive.)
Wie then asked, as is her right, that the incident be reviewed and all available information about the incident was gathered. That included, most importantly, Wie's statements and video coverage of the incident. He had other officials view the video to get their opinion. He then met We in the scoring tent and they, together with Jim
, who is the LPGA's senior rules official, reviewed the video several times in the Golf Chanel production trailer.
When Wie asked for a review of the incident, she was asking the Rules Committee at the tournament to undertake the review, and by having three of the officials on-site review the video, the Committee did so, although only two of them dealt directly with Wie. The Committee had gathered all available evidence, including Wie's statements both on the course and in the production trailer, and upheld the penalty.
When applying the rules, officials will, and should almost always, side with the player, unless there is convincing evidence to the contrary. In this case they felt there was convincing evidence - the video of the incident. I must say I watched the video several times myself and would have agreed with the LPGA officials if I was in their shoes, I saw no indication Wie was off balance or that her grounding the club was done to prevent a fall.
As for John's statement about the impropriety of cameras being in the trailer to listen to Wie and the officials, I could not agree more. I would hope this was a one time occurrence and the LPGA will make clear it will not happen again.
Some have asked/speculated that she may have used the club to balance with later in her play in the hazard and that might negate the penalty. Under the rules, that is irrelevant, once she grounded the club, she was subject to penalty. Nothing that occurred later could absolve her of that penalty.