"It was the arrogance to say, ‘I’m pulling her off the course.’"

Sean Martin fleshes out the story of Sarah Brown's terribly unfair DQ in a Duramed Futures Tour event. While the confusion of determining conforming vs. non-conforming wedges could be chalked up to a USGA rule implementation issue, you really have to wonder about the official who pulled her off the course. I'm guessing a retired school principal type missing the days of major power displays.

An anonymous person informed a rules official earlier in the round that Brown may be using wedges with nonconforming grooves. The official, whose identity could not be obtained by Golfweek, consulted the U.S. Golf Association’s Web site before determining the wedges were nonconforming. Instead of allowing Brown to complete her round as the matter was further investigated, the official removed her from the golf course.

Brown was using a Ping Tour-W wedge with 54 degrees of loft. Some models of the wedge do not conform with the new grooves rules, but Brown’s wedge conforms because the letters ‘XG’ were stamped on the hosel (‘X’ is the Roman numeral for 10, i.e. 2010, while ‘G’ stands for ‘grooves’).

“There’s nothing that can be done to rectify the situation,” said Sarah Brown’s father, Keith. “It’s not that (the rules official) made a mistake. Everyone makes mistakes. It was the arrogance to say, ‘I’m pulling her off the course.’ I said, ‘Let her finish the round and check with the USGA.’”