Why Golfers Don't Understand The Rules Of Golf, Volume 3,490

Buried at the end of Rhonda Glenn's wrap-up of Tuesday's U.S. Senior Women's Amateur play.

Andrea Kraus, 50, of Baltimore, Md., was playing in her first USGA Senior Women’s Amateur. In her match against Maggie Leef, 51, of Brookfield, Wis., Kraus was 7 up after the 11th hole when she was disqualified. Kraus’ caddie had a short string of yarn attached to his divot repair tool that he used to judge wind direction. It was a violation of Rule 14-3b, which stipulates that a player may not use any artificial device “for the purpose of gauging or measuring distance or conditions that might affect his play.”

 A Rules official spotted the infraction. The penalty for breach of Rule 14-3b is disqualification and the match was awarded to Leef.  

(click on image to enlarge)According to a Ron Bush story in the Chatanooga Times Free Press (not online, partial scan included here courtesy of reader Carlton), the match ended at 8&6, when the official revealed he had observed that caddie Randy Duckett, a longtime looper at The Honors Course and beloved figure, had used his special yarn-attachment to test the wind. Duckett has used the makeshift item when caddying in the U.S. Mid-Amateur at the Honors and in regular rounds for members, but no one had ever noticed the violation before.

We seem to have two versions of the story, one saying it was discovered when she was 7 up, another when she had won 8&6, but either way, disqualification was the penalty.

The obvious question for those trying to make sense of this: why can you pull grass from the ground (testing the surface), then toss it in the air to see what direction the wind is blowying, yet a simple string attached to a ball mark repair tool is a violation?