When you come to think of it that is the secret of most of the great holes all over the world. They all have some kind of a twist. C.B. MACDONALD
Thanks to reader Aleid for pointing out that the replay of Richie Ramsay's incident during Saturday's Wales Open is now posted.
Reader Manny wrote in to point out that they were playing lift, clean and place, so for those of you who subscribe to that as a form of cheating, then perhaps your take on Ramsay might be more lenient.
Since there was so much complaining about coverage of Kenny Perry's FBR Open pre-shot routine, and since there is no video posted (yet), I've held off posting something on Richie Ramsay's rules incident Saturday. I had hoped video would be posted now, but we'll just have to rely on the accounts until someone at Sky puts it up on YouTube.
Here's a straightforward AP story, a more titillating tabloid report from Jim Black quoting rules official John Paramor.
Also, Mike Aitken reminds us that Ramsay has had other run-ins with the rules.
And I don't quite understand Douglas Lowe's logic here.
Let's make one thing clear: Richie Ramsay's integrity is not under question. He is an honest broker of the fairways and, yes, I would buy a second-hand car from him. A question mark, however, does hang over his knowledge of the rules of golf and, as they say in the best of legal circles, ignorance of the law is no excuse.
This Norman Dabell story recounts how the day after the incident in question, Ramsay did receive a one shot penalty for another violation.
Bob Verdi writes about Kenny Perry's first remarks about the FBR Open incident.
Kenny Perry looks as though he has lost no sleep whatsoever over a "controversy" concerning an "incident" surrounding his victory at the FBR Open last February. In fact, he's somewhat puzzled that people are talking about it without talking to him.
Now I was out all day so I had only seen Verdi's take thanks to the readers who emailed the link to Bob's story. Only later did I read the transcript and the combination of Verdi's observation with the transcript probably won't make this go away.
Now, I know it's a bit unfair to Perry since there wasn't much he could say at this point that would help make the video more palatable. And it's perhaps unfair to parse his words from a transcript since the tone may have been tough to grasp, but sheesh, this is rough...
Q. Kenny, I know you talked about this earlier this morning. What do you suppose this playoff wedge thing from Phoenix has taken on such a life of its own on the Internet? I don't know that I've heard you talk about it. I was wondering what your take on all that is and why it won't go away.
KENNY PERRY: Well, I mean, I said the truth will set you free. I looked at it, and I thought it was crazy, my first impression.
I went to Charlie Hoffman, and I asked Charlie. Charlie, do you have a problem with it? That would be the only guy, if he had a problem with it, it would have really upset me, if he thought something was done wrong there.
You know, doesn't that mentality speak directly to something I wondered about recently: self policing gone awry to the point that the opinion of one's fellow competitors supersedes the Rules of Golf?
He said that's crazy. You didn't do nothing wrong. Patted me on the back. And saw the Tour came out -- I wasn't in the closed door. The Tour went in. I wasn't with the Tour staff when they made their -- they shot back with their remark saying, we saw nothing wrong. I mean, I just let it go.
That's life, isn't it? People like to bring up dirty laundry, I guess.
How is it dirty laundry if it is clearly not a violation?
Q. You were just trying to figure out how high the grass was and where the crowd was?
KENNY PERRY: You're allowed to.
To figure out how high the grass is? No kidding?
You're able to sole your club. Did you watch it? Did you actually watch that last hole?
Q. Everybody has seen it.
KENNY PERRY: I soled my club on the ball. Did you watch me sole it left of the golf ball? Then I went and hit the shot.
I don't think that quite describes how things transpired.
When you're in the rough, you just need to find the bottom so you can figure out how high the ball is sitting up in rough.
Find the bottom with about many stabs of the fire stoker? Sorry, here's the close up.
Q. You kind of hit a chunky running shot out of there anyway.
Oh, so the shot was lousy, therefore whatever precipitated didn't matter?
It wasn't like you hit some spinner that stuck it a foot from the hole, right?
KENNY PERRY: I hit it 25 feet from the hole. It's not like I hit a great shot. I mean, I don't know. What do you all think? Someone brings something up four months down the road. I didn't understand. We're going to go looking in the archives of all the players who have been on TV and see what they've done? I didn't understand that part of it.
That is a fair point that no one has been able to answer. Then again, the Super Bowl had started, so we now know just how many people were watching golf.
I've got a camera guy five feet behind me. He's right there looking. I turned around and looked at him.
If I thought I was doing something wrong, I definitely wouldn't have done it there.
Scribblers in attendance, did Kenny leave behind a large hole and a mound of dirt next to the podium?
Once that was -- I didn't hear nothing about it after that. There was nothing else said. So I just assumed it was dead. not after this press conference!
Q. When was this brought to your attention?
KENNY PERRY: When I finished the Sunday round at the Players. They came and told me about it. I was just stunned.
Q. Did they just walk up to you and say, by the way, you didn't cheat?
KENNY PERRY: No. They said you're going to have to answer some questions about this video. I didn't quite understand.
Rick George came and talked to me. And then I met with Alex Miceli. He was out there. And talked about have you heard anything about this video? Which I didn't know.
And then the Tour came out with their saying there was nothing been done wrong here.
After this press conference? Maybe not.
John Huggan looks at the intent question in light of the Kenny Perry video surfacing and offers this summation:
Let's go back to Perry and the clump of grass he did or did not deliberately pat down, thereby improving his lie. During the recent Players Championship, I showed a recording of the incident to a prominent PGA Tour player. He took one look, snorted, and announced: "Half the players on tour do that."
Again, such revelations come as no surprise. Every tour on the planet is rife with rumour when it comes to those who cheat for a living. And why, you may ask, is nothing ever done about it? The reason is simple: professional golf, to a large extent, is sold to commercial sponsors on the basis that it is whiter than white. Unlike footballers and rugby players, all golfers, ahem, play strictly by the rules. Or so, predictably, the tours would have you believe. Their economic health depends on public perpetuation of that myth, so they look the other way when naughty things happen.
Since Donegan's story Sunday and over 35,000 views of the video, a few writers have spoken out in Kenny Perry's defense. Steve Elling and Scott Michaux both say it's time to move on, that cheating was clearly not Perry's intent. John Hawkins also is fired up about Perry's reputation coming into focus.
The Perry situation didn't receive an ounce of attention when it happened at the FBR Open back in early February. For it to resurface now would be laughable if it didn't involve a good man's reputation being called into question due to insufficient reasoning.
Perhaps, but suppose a bigger issue is at stake here: the wink-wink, look-the-other-way blurring of certain rules that has become all too common in professional golf. (You know, the same sport where the guys don't need to be drug tested because they police themselves.)
After seeing the Perry video several players said something to the effect of, "that goes on all the time on the tour." (And we've all watched guys fix ball marks in their line without blinking, much less pointing out to their playing partner as a courtesy that they were performing major surgery on their line).
I point these out in the context of the Perry episode because I vividly recall as a young, impressionable lad, studying how tour players walked, dressed and behaved. For a few weeks after taking in tour golf at Riviera or Sherwood, I'd typically play better after absorbing the tempo, gentle grip and overall relaxed-but-focused demeanor exuded by such elite players.
Particularly fascinating was a player's care around the greens or when making a recovery shot from the rough or trees. Both situations provided unique opportunities to get close and hear the conversation with the caddy and to observe their actions.
Consistently I was always fascinated by the manner in which they treated their ball. It was as if a meteor had landed off the fairway and they didn't want to get too close until they had to bat the thing back into play. I remember watching many players gently approach the ball--maybe stare at the lie or delicately lift away a leaf--but always treat a live ball as something to be careful around. Practice swings--if they even took one--were often a bit away from the ball and the player was typically cautious not to be seen as testing the surface in anyway by pressing their clubhead down behind the ball. Furthermore, when that final moment arrived many would just barely lay the club behind their ball.
And again, I'd take this image of gentle club placement for a few weeks and that absorption of studied, careful and gentle demeanor would lead to better golf. Then I'd eventually revert back to old bad habits.
So it's with that image in my mind that I watch Kenny Perry pull his club and walk up to his ball, jabbing away like he's armed with a poker, trying to jumpstart some stubborn logs. And as you can see in this longer version of the playoff posted, the mashing does not occur at the address position, as many defenders have noted. It happens in the moment that he initially arrives, long before the honor has been established or the shot is actually addressed.
I hope the takeaway from this is not to demonize Perry. The event is long gone and we'll never know just how close that clump of grass was to the ball.
However, let's hope this encourages tour players to take the rules and club grounding a bit more seriously. In other words, to take the rules of golf more seriously.
Thanks for all of the great comments on the "intent" issue. John Huggan wrote about it today for GolfDigest.com and reminds us that intent was part of the Rory McIlroy discussion that took longer than Reds to resolve.
This intent thing is a funny one though, and hardly an exact science. Gray areas abound. I mean, how far can using "intent" as an excuse take a player? Yet again, even in a game that sells itself to sponsors largely on the basis of its supposed honesty, integrity and lack of cheating, it depends. But what is certainly true is that golf, it seems to me, wants it all ways.
In writing about the Kenny Perry dust-up over his FBR Open playoff actions, Lawrence Donegan quotes the European Tour's top rules referee, John Paramor:
"The fact is the player is allowed to put his club behind the ball, otherwise he would never be allowed to address his ball in any circumstance. As soon as any player puts his club on the grass behind the ball, then the grass will be flattened," he says. "The issue is, is there excessive pressing down with the club?" In other words, was there intent? "Looking at this, I don't think Kenny Perry did use excessive pressure when he put his club behind the ball. It does look bad, it does look like the lie was improved but, as long as there was no intent to do so, and I don't think there was, then it is not a penalty."
To our rules gurus out there, I'm curious, is this intent concept used commonly in the rules of golf?
After all, Roberto de Vicenzo did not intend to sign an incorrect scorecard...
Lawrence Donegan follows up with a more extensive piece sharing a variety of opinions on the Kenny Perry-FBR-Open-controversy first noted earlier this week.
"When I first heard stories about the video I thought, 'I hope Kenny is not being maligned.' And then when I saw it, I was shocked," says Brandel Chamblee, a former PGA Tour player and now a well-respected analyst with the Golf Channel. "What you can say in his defence is that there is no way he was trying to get away with something on a grand scale. The camera was right there and he knew there were millions of people watching on TV. But I was also shocked that no one who was watching at home called in, or that no one who was doing the television coverage mentioned anything about it on air."
It should be noted that the Super Bowl had begun, so the audience at that point was tiny.
John Huggan says this about the incident.
Even the man beaten in the play-off, Charley Hoffman, wanted nothing to do with pointing out the obvious. "I have no problem with that," he gasped. "We all do it."
If what Hoffman claims is true, not only does golf at the highest level have a serious problem, but some education in the area of what does and does not constitute "improving one's lie" is badly needed.
This zoomed in version of the original is below and also on YouTube in a slightly wider version. Note David Feherty's description of the lie as Perry places his club behind the ball.
Lawrence Donegan reports that Kenny Perry has been cleared of a possible rules violation that occurred during the FBR Open playoff. Video evidence suggested that Perry had improved his lie. I've seen it. Not good. But also not hard to come away feeling like there was intent of any kind. Then again, the rules of golf don't care about intent.
Rule 13–2 of the Rules of Golf states that a player is not allowed to improve "the position or lie of his ball". Mark Russell, a senior rules official with the PGA Tour, said he had "no problem whatsoever" with Perry's actions, adding that the footage was "inconclusive".
"During the course of the telecast of the FBR Open‚ we received no calls from viewers reporting a potential rules violation involving Kenny Perry. When a question was raised this week, several members of the tournament committee reviewed the videotape of Kenny Perry, and no evidence of any rules violation was found ... We will have no further comment on the matter,'' he said.
The Super Bowl had started at that point so I'm pretty viewership was light to non-existent.
Derek Lawrenson notes in the Daily Mail:
By waving his wedge behind his ball before playing a chip shot during a play-off against Charley Hoffman, Perry raised the question of whether he had improved his lie, and thereby broken the rules. After a further review on Sunday, US Tour rules officials exonerated the personable man from Kentucky, who charmed everyone with his grace in defeat at the Masters.
But will his fellow pros be so lenient, once they have all had a chance to see it? Or will this be like the Colin Montgomerie saga in Indonesia a few years ago, when he was cleared by the referee at the time of wrongdoing, only to be declared guilty a month later by a court of his peers?
It's $9.99 and looks pretty slick. Anyone used it yet?
It would be super if the USGA developed an application with the Decisions book, but there are only so megaybytes on an iphone.
From the AP story on Will MacKenzie's costly mistake Saturday at the Viking Classic.
MacKenzie's triple bogey Saturday on the par-5 18th left him tied for second with Brian Gay, two strokes behind Turnesa on the Annandale course. MacKenzie was penalized for moving impediments in the hazard while his ball was also in the hazard.
Turnesa, a PGA TOUR rookie who also topped the second-round leaderboard, shot a 6-under 66 for a 17-under 199 total. MacKenzie and Gay had 67s.
MacKenzie, who has one TOUR victory, the Reno-Tahoe Open in 2006, opened with birdies on the first two holes and made the turn at 32. His only stumble before 18 was a bogey on the fourth hole.
MacKenzie said he "spaced out" after a day of being able to lift, clean and place his ball because of wet conditions. There were a a few blades of grass near his ball, not anything that would be a problem, he said.
MacKenzie said he brushed them away with his hand, then he realized what he had done and told an official, who assessed the penalty.
Bill Pennington files a nice profile on the USGA Rules Department and the unsung work they do.
Monday through Friday, 40 hours a week, it is their full-time job to answer the phone calls, e-mail messages and mailings of everyday golfers who are perplexed or confounded by some element in the 181 pages of the Rules of Golf. How perplexed or confounded?
The U.S.G.A. fields and answers about 20,000 rule queries every year.
“They come in year-round but we are busiest from late May to September,” Fahleson said. “When we leave on a Friday, it’s not unusual for the rules e-mail in-box to be empty. When we come back Monday morning, there are several hundred questions in there.”
In most other sports, be it beer-league softball or youth soccer, there is an umpire, referee or official presiding over the action to make decisions and enforce rulings. In golf, 99 percent of the time, the players are on their own trying to figure out what the appropriate ruling should be. And let’s face it, people don’t understand the rules as well as they think. And the rules can be unduly complicated.
“We do try to make the rules as simple as possible, but we’re dealing with a game played across thousands of acres, with so many outside factors like weather and wildlife,” said Bernie Loehr, U.S.G.A. manager for the Rules of Golf. “There are a lot of situations that can happen and so many possibilities to consider.”
...unfortunately it had nothing to do with the golf ball. Instead, it was to address a stupid rule change and not anything of consequence.
Stewart Cink will not be DQ'd in the future for practicing basic etiquette based on today's USGA release.
Though based on something John Vander Borght interpreted in his blog entry, I'd still say this needs work. If you are in a front bunker and hit it in the back bunker, don't rake the front one until you've finished making a mess of the hole.
Why can't we just play it as it lies? I'm so glad Max Behr isn't here to see this disaster.
Geoff Shackelford is a Senior Writer for Golfweek magazine, a weekly contributor to Golf Channel's Morning
Copyright © 2022, Geoff Shackelford. All rights reserved.
