Marking Controversy in Irish Open

[Niall C]

I didn’t see it myself but heard there was another incident where a player replaced their ball incorrectly after marking it but wasn’t penalised when the incident was subsequently pointed out. Did anyone see it and can they comment ?
 
Niall

[David_Tepper]

http://golfweek.com/2017/07/09/european-tour-jon-rahm-no-penalty-for-mis-marking-ball-at-irish-open-explanation/

[Buck Wolter]

Marked it to the side of the ball and replaced it in front. Didn't effect the outcome but surprisingly sloppy by Rahm.

[JESII]

All I can say is that it's disappointing that so few of these professionals err on the side of honor...it happens (the Irish guy? At Hilton Head a few years ago), but all too rarely.

[MClutterbuck]

It is a clear sloppy mistake. I watched carefully and he returns the marker to the correct position, exact same angle. He just fails to remember that he had marked his ball on the side, not at the back. It is a clear penalty, 2 strokes. But I think this is an honest mistake, no bad intent whatsoever.


I don´t understand the ruling. And Rahm should have givenhimself a 2 stroke penalty even if the official



The Lexi situation is completely different. There is no time between marking and placing incorrectly. So the mental mistake from her was a lot sloppier. Both clear penalties.

[Carson Pilcher]

.

[Kalen Braley]

i watched it, and it looked like a clear penalty. The part I don't get is...


Why would pros or any players of this caliber ever mark thier ball in any fashion other than directly behind it?  Seems to me, it was a clear attempt to get away from a spike mark or other bump in the green.  These guys have marked thier balls thousands of times, literally, and I just can't see how marking it on the side, to move it on the replace, is anything else but intentional.

[Carl Nichols]

I don't understand the "he didn't remember that he marked it to the side".  At the professional level, I would think that they would mark their ball the exact same way every time.  Why would you changed the way you mark the ball during the middle of a round all of a sudden?

He marked to the side because otherwise his mark would've been right on top of the other competitor's mark.  He then moved his mark one putterhead to the right to let the other player putt.  After that happened, he moved his mark back one putterhead (to the left), but then put his ball back in front of, rather than to the side of, his mark. 


The rules official explained his thinking.  Paraphrasing, he thought that the original mark was not quite at a right angle (say, 10 o'clock) and then the replacement was not quite right behind (say, 11 o'clock), and thus while the mark wasn't perfect, the difference was only millimeters/immaterial.  That, coupled with new rules about video evidence, led him to conclude there should be no penalty.

[MClutterbuck]

If you actually look at how he moves the marker to the side, and then back, I would say that if anything he marks it slightly behind original mark. The angle is further from the hole. To me this indicates clear lack of intent to gain advantage.

[Carl Nichols]

If you actually look at how he moves the marker to the side, and then back, I would say that if anything he marks it slightly behind original mark. The angle is further from the hole. To me this indicates clear lack of intent to gain advantage.

I agree that he didn't intend to gain an advantage.  I didn't think that was the test, however.

[Michael Whitaker]

If you actually look at how he moves the marker to the side, and then back, I would say that if anything he marks it slightly behind original mark. The angle is further from the hole. To me this indicates clear lack of intent to gain advantage.

I agree that he didn't intend to gain an advantage.  I didn't think that was the test, however.

I agree, Carl. This is a very slippery slope. If the officials can start legislating "intent" then everything can be open to interpretation. He mismarked his ball... period. It's a two shot penalty. Would not have effected the outcome, but the "no call" sets a bad precedent for future violations.

[Ulrich Mayring]

Well, intent does play a role in the rules already. For example, taking a swing and hitting the ball can either be a practice swing (penalty, replace) or a stroke (no penalty, play as it lies) and it is up to the player to declare what his intent was. So I suppose we do trust declared intent in general, because it's a gentlemen's game.

Ulrich

[MClutterbuck]

If you actually look at how he moves the marker to the side, and then back, I would say that if anything he marks it slightly behind original mark. The angle is further from the hole. To me this indicates clear lack of intent to gain advantage.

I agree that he didn't intend to gain an advantage.  I didn't think that was the test, however.

I agree, Carl. This is a very slippery slope. If the officials can start legislating "intent" then everything can be open to interpretation. He mismarked his ball... period. It's a two shot penalty. Would not have effected the outcome, but the "no call" sets a bad precedent for future violations.

Agreed, as I stated before, it should be the same 2 shot penalty that Lexi received for the marking violation.

[John Kavanaugh]

Does a larger marker allow more or less leeway? I can't support anything that encourages these poker chip markers that have become so fashionable.

[Kalen Braley]

I think intent is certainly a difficult standard to use...


If my ball lies in the weeds and I move a twig 3 inches away and my ball moves, it wasn't my "intent" to make my ball move, but my action still caused it either way, and the penalty should be applied.


So in this case, even stipulating that it wasn't his intent to replace his ball in a different spot, it happened, and the penalty must be applied regardless.

[A.G._Crockett]

This was one of the really bizarre things I've ever seen in tournament golf.  The MOST bizarre part of it was listening to the Euro Tour official explain afterwards why they did NOT penalize Rahm, despite saying that Rahm had clearly replaced the ball in a different spot; it's just an automatic penalty, no question about it.  For the life of me, I can't understand that; intent doesn't matter, the size of the change doesn't matter, advantage gained (or not) doesn't matter.  Either the ball goes back in the same place, or it doesn't, and this didn't.  I would think the other players would be furious.

As to Rahm himself, I have a REALLY hard time believing that he just forgot that he had marked the ball to the side.  How many times does that situation come up?  Even in casual play, it is such an unusual way to mark your ball that I'm afraid somebody will see me put the ball back in the wrong place.  This was pretty egregious, and VERY hard to understand.

I don't mean for any of this to sound holier than thou; we've ALL done what Lexi Thompson did when the is an old ball mark or an aeration hole, or the like.  We have NOT all done what Rahm did, though, whether he gained advantage or not.

[John Kavanaugh]

As the size of your marker increases it goes without saying that your ball is more likely to remain in front of your mark no matter what your intent may be. I would therefore question the intent of anyone with a marker larger than a quarter. In simpler terms...Golfers use poker chip style markers with the intent of getting that extra 1/4 inch they can't get with a dime.

[Pete_Pittock]

IF
1. Rahm replaced the ball in the wrong place.
2. Rahm did not know he had replaced the ball in the wrong place.
3. Rahm was not informed of this before he completed the round and signed his score card.
4. The officials were not informed until after the results were announced.
THEN
the results are final and Rahm cannot be penalized or disqualified because he was not aware he broke a rule.



AND
if during the round a referee told him incorrect information about any penalty about the breach, Rahm was correct when signing his scorecard if he was not otherwise informed.

Under the rules this is different than what happened with Lexi Thompson because that breach was discovered in a subsequent round, but before the conclusion of the tournament.

[Matt_Cohn]

I wish we'd get over this idea that golfers are somehow better people if they penalize themselves even when they don't have to. The rules official said there was no penalty and people STILL want him to take a penalty? That's a bit high-horse for my taste.

[Carl Nichols]

I wish we'd get over this idea that golfers are somehow better people if they penalize themselves even when they don't have to. The rules official said there was no penalty and people STILL want him to take a penalty? That's a bit high-horse for my taste.

I don't still want him to take a penalty.  I just thought it was a weird decision by the rules official, as he explained it himself. 

[Kalen Braley]

The ref admitted he did it wrong:


"Do I think he got the ball exactly back in the right place? No, I don't. I think the ball is slightly in the wrong place, but we're talking about maybe a couple of millimeters here and there"

And they still didn't penalize him. I think this is what people are taking issue of.  If the ball has been sitting in the fescue and he moved a twig and it moved a couple of millimeters, they sure as hell would have enforced that rule. 

Whatever happened to protecting the field?

[Pete_Pittock]

Rahm can now be mentioned in the same breath as Henry Cotton.

[Kalen Braley]

Phil's quote from a couple months back...[/size]

"Rather than address that specific instance, what I would say is this: I know a number of guys on Tour that are loose with how they mark the ball and have not been called on it," Mickelson said. "I mean, they will move the ball two, three inches in front of their mark, and this is an intentional way to get it out of any type of impression and so forth and I think that kind of stuff needs to stop."[/color]

[Ally Mcintosh]

I am so glad I am interested in golf course architecture and not the rules of golf which sometimes make me want to give up the game.

[Ulrich Mayring]

I think intent does come into it. Jon Rahm had the intent of replacing his ball correctly and, to his mind, he did. TV pictures now show that his assumption about the correct spot was wrong.

Suppose a player hits into a water hazard and takes his drop in the position where he thought the ball crossed the line. TV pictures later show that the ball entered the water hazard on a different line and his drop was in the wrong place. Penalty? That would result in a lot of calling in by TV watchers!

The debate can only be whether the player's stated intent should be believed or not. In the case of the water hazard, if the drop is taken 100 yards away from the real spot, it becomes very hard to believe the stated intent. On the other hand 1 yard away would be within a negligible margin of error if the player took his shot from 200 yards away. Still, TV pictures could conceivably show that the ball hit the yellow stake and therefore the position could be determined to within inches.

In this case the difference apparently was a few millimeters, which made Rahm's stated intent plausible. The ruling is that it is simply not reasonable to expect a human being without a TV camera and slow motion replay at his disposal to be able to replace the ball any closer to the real spot than he did.

Ulrich