"The four biggest events in golf are too important to be compromised to the extent that last week was."

John Huggan makes two valid points with regard to the PGA, Whistling Straits and Dustin Johnson. The first:

Much has already been written about Johnson's culpability or otherwise during those farcical few minutes and, sadly, most has been childishly simplistic in its condemnation of the 26-year-old American. To say he got what he deserved - "rules are rules" - because he failed to read the local rules sheet handed out to every competitor is to miss the point by the widest of margins.

Let's say Johnson had read the sheet and familiarised himself with every intricacy and nuance of the "extra" rules in place over owner Herb Kohler's and architect Pete Dye's endlessly eccentric layout. What difference would that have made to what happened on the 18th? None whatsoever.

Think about it. Johnson's unfortunate and, it must be conceded, dopey mistake was not that he didn't know the rules; surrounded by spectators, he simply did not realise that his wayward drive had finished in a hazard. That much was obvious when he grounded his 4-iron behind the ball, it being safe to assume that someone playing golf at the highest level is aware that such a move is illegal.

And this regarding local rules and majors.

Anyway, the bottom line is this. If we assume that the presence of local rules represents an admission that something is amiss with a course - which they do - then Whistling Straits, in its present state, can surely have no place in major championship play. The four biggest events in golf are too important to be compromised to the extent that last week was. At one point Sky TV showed pictures of children building sand castles in what were, technically at least, bunkers. Before 2015, when the USPGA is due to return to rural Wisconsin, 90 per cent of them should either be filled in or deemed to be something other than hazards.