Who Forgets To Sign After A 61? Oh Right...A Golf Professional

The latest rules related debacle features the Canadian Tour's Jose de Jesus Rodriguez who fired a 61 Saturday in the Economical Insurance Group Seaforth Country Classic. 

Dustin Johnson and Intent**

One reason the Dustin Johnson penalty is not sitting well: he did not test the sand in the bunker. He did not intend to violate the rule. That said, he violated the rule. No question. But in a few well-known cases of late, rules officials have allowed intent to influence their decision to not penalize a player. Rory McIlroy kicking sand at the Masters and Kenny Perry mashing down rough behind his ball in Phoenix come to mind. (There is an old post with stellar comments well worth going back and reading for those interested in the intent debate, including one by Tom Kirkendall that will make you giggle at its prescience.)

While I understand the rule in question and the violation by Johnson, why isn't intent allowed to play a role here? After all, the only reason we know about this incident is because it happened on camera. The walking rules official did not see the violation happen and Johnson was not going to call a penalty on himself because he didn't realize he committed one. Had this happened Thursday off camera, no penalty would likely have been incurred. So since we have the addition of cameras, tape and viewers calling in, leading to penalties like this, shouldn't the rules also allow for that tape to take intent into account? It seems that precedent has already been set with the statements in the McIlroy and Perry episodes? No?

Rules gurus, please set me straight!

Update on 2010-08-18 03:17 by Geoff

**There's a nice response from John Vander Borght on his blog to the intent question.

"The point of the notice was to say that you wouldn't get a free drop."

I think we've all conceded that Dustin Johnson is at fault for this untimely PGA Championship mistake, but many elements clearly aren't sitting well based on the comments in earlier posts. (And by the way, so many great insights on both sides of the aisles, thanks for all of the thoughtful posts).

One of those posts comes from reader Ted Purdy, who responded on the Frank Hannigan thread about the wording of the PGA's notice, which was wheeled out as clear evidence that Johnson should have read it and therefore, he would not have made the mistake he made on 18. (Though if he didn't think it was a bunker, the notice is irrelevant as he is not going to ground his club in a bunker at any golf course.)

But as Ted notes, the supplementary local rule pertained to the lie and possible relief you would get in a bunker, not in actually determining which of the sandy pits at Whistling Straits was a hazard and what wasn't. Purdy writes:

The purpose of the local rule was not to say that all sandy areas constituted a hazard but to inform players that no relief would be granted to players for footprints, tire tracks or other "irregularities of surface" in a hazard. To say that it provided clear notice to all players that all sandy areas on the course would be considered hazards is misleading at best. The point of the notice was to say that you wouldn't get a free drop.

I disagree that the notice was created to define what would be considered a hazard, and the attempt by the PGA to use a notice worded as that one was to justify its decision to call the place where several hundreds of people were standing throughout the whole episode a bunker, is laughable.

Indeed, Purdy appears correct if you re-read the notice with that view in mind:

1. Bunkers: All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked. This will mean that many bunkers positioned outside of the ropes, as well as some areas of bunkers inside the ropes, close to the rope line, will likely include numerous footprints, heel prints and tire tracks during the play of the Championship. Such irregularities of surface are a part of the game and no free relief will be available from these conditions.

Again, Johnson made an enormous mistake and could have avoided his fate by simply slowing things down (God bless him for being a fast player!), asking Price what his options were, and getting a reminder not to ground his club. But as Purdy notes, the notice wasn't as clear as some have suggested.

This is one more reason why I believe the ultimate loser in this affair will not be the PGA, Dustin Johnson or even Whistling Straits, but instead, a growing hostility toward the complicated, unwieldy Rules of Golf.

Moral Of This Story: Don't Be So Quick To Pick Up Your Provisional

Nancy Amour on Mark Calcaveccia's nine Saturday:

Calcavecchia's drive landed in a bunker, and he had to play out sideways. His third shot, from the fairway, sailed right and disappeared into the gorse. Thinking the ball was lost, Calcavecchia played a provisional and then went to search for the first ball.

Told his ball had been found, Calcavecchia picked up the provisional. But then he discovered the found ball wasn't his, and he wasn't able to locate it before the five-minute limit expired.

That meant Calcavecchia took the stroke-and-distance penalty (two shots) under the lost-ball rule, and lost another stroke on the penalty for lifting a provisional without authority.

"A signature on a scorecard is an endorsement of integrity, not just a scrawl on the end of a piece of paper."

Colin Byrne details an incident at the Open de Andalucia that led to two DQ's. Not often you hear about this kind of thing...

Borja Etchart from Spain was disqualified from the first round of the Open de Andalucia for failing to add two penalty strokes for playing a ball from a wrong place on two of the last three holes of his round. Which, reading between the lines, would suggest that he was replacing his ball on the greens in a “careless” manner on previous occasions too.

If you see a playing partner doing something inappropriate on the course you have a duty to take action. The trouble is that, as a competitor, accusing a fellow player of incorrect actions will probably lead to some discussion and maybe a little bad feeling. As we all know, the game is difficult enough without any such contretemps. The right thing to do is take action. The easiest and wrong thing to do is ignore an action by a fellow competitor that you know is wrong. You are protecting yourself, your fellow competitors and the integrity of the game.

Etchart’s playing partners were Andrew Coltart and Erik Tage Johansen. The Norwegian, Johansen, was marking the accused’s card. Coltart and Johansen reported to the tournament committee after the scorecards had been returned that they had seen Borja incorrectly replace his ball on the 16th and 18th greens.