"In what has to be one of the craziest rulings I’ve ever witnessed on the PGA Tour..."

Bob Weeks says the latest bizarre rules incident involving grounded clubs and intent was driven by viewer phone calls, despite the claims of tournament officials otherwise. That it happened to Mike Weir at the Canadian Open only adds to the intrigue.

Yesterday, Weir was in a strange situation on the 18th hole. After placing his ball on a good lie on the edge of a divot (lift, clean and cheat, don’t ya know) in the fairway and getting ready to hit his shot, the ball toppled over into the hole. Initially Weir was assessed a one-shot penalty. Then later, after reviewing the tape of the situation, he was cleared and his par was turned into a birdie.

Then today, after he was called off the course by the rain delay, officials told him they wanted to review it again. Remarkably, the four was turned back into a five because Weir may have cause the ball to move.

So what would cause the Tour to suddenly re-visit the situation after it had been finalized the night before? Television viewers, that’s who. According to two different sources, the Tour received a flurry of phone calls form arm-chair rules officials who lambasted the decision that was made after seeing the situation on television. They referred to Rule 18-2A which says something about the player being guilty until proven innocent in such a situation. Now the only reason these folks with too much time on their hands called in was because Weir was being given wall-to-wall coverage by CBS. If he’d been some lower-profile golfer, the situation would never have been on tv and he might have been cleared. Of course, it also works the other way -- if he wasn't on tv, he might not have had the initial help which gave him the birdie.