Frank Hannigan On CBS's Coverage Of The Dustin Johnson Penalty

From the former USGA Executive Director, Frank Hannigan:

The CBS handling of the Dustin Johnson conviction was disgraceful. All that mattered was that Johnson grounded his club in a bunker. Two shot penalty. Sad. End of story.

It meets the definition of a bunker: "a hazard consisting of a prepared area of ground, often a hollow, from which turf or soil has been removed and replaced with sand or the like."

The PGA of America didn't create this silly course. They had to deal with it and the Dye-Kohler brand of creativity. Having bunkers where gallery HAS to walk is stupid but it somehow appeals to the egos of the creators.

Anticipating the problem, the PGA of America put the matter at the head of its local rules sheet. Each player got an individual notice, it was plastered in the locker room and surely at the 1st and 10th tees.

Trust me,  no one can make a living if it depends on Tour players ingesting reading matter. When they don't it is their fault when something bad happens.

But how about CBS not telling us until the misery was long decided that the PGA of America at a TV production meeting put the subject of those troublesome trampled bunkers at the head of the meeting agenda. Jim Nantz should have both recounted that meeting immediately AND read the PGA local rules sheet aloud to the audience which might then have understood that Johnson wasn't being lynched.

And how about all that talk about it being a "waste area" a piece on nonsense Pete Dye sold to Deane Beman when the Players Club was concocted. There is no such creature as a "waste area." It's either a bunker or "through the green." (The USGAs Tom Meeks stamped and hollered for years about so called waste areas until the Tour finally saw the light.)

Another sin on CBS was not having a bona fide rules official in the booth to speak for the committee immediately.  The USGA has the now familiar bow-tied image of its David Fay in the main TV  booth. Had the Johnson sadness happened at a US Open the world would have known about it instantly. Moreover, in the USGA mode of operations Fay might very well have interceded by warning a rules official on the spot by radio that Johnson should be warned he is in a bunker.

Nick Faldo hemmed and hawed, not willing to tell Nantz, Feherty and Co. to get on with it. I saw Faldo win six majors. I have no doubt that in the same position Faldo would have sought out an official and asked "What is this thing I am standing in?"

My friend David Feherty might be excused. He has a congenital need to stir up trouble, was embarrassed he never thought it might be a bunker (part of his job), and, overall, thinks the rules should be made on an ad hoc basis depending on the romanticism of the outcome.

David needs to be reminded that this is not Dublin in 1916 and there is no need for him to storm the post office, using his opera training, roaring out a revolutionary aria.