Only In Golf Files: "Excuse me!"

A must read unbylined story from The Age involving Karrie Webb being saved from a two-shot penalty seconds prior to pulling the trigger on a putt.

Standing over the putt for a bogey after somewhat of a meltdown on the short par-four (she had already gone from bunker to bunker and missed the green with her third, leaving a Royal Melbourne special of a downhill slider from the fringe), Webb heard a loud voice saying: ''Excuse me!''

It came from a check-shirted man in the crowd, standing directly behind her line of putt - it sounded like a heckler. In fact, the man saved Webb from utter disaster and a two-shot penalty. That would have been the result had Webb hit the putt, because her ball had not been placed where it had stopped. Everyone was taken aback. ''It was awful,'' said Tseng.

Webb waltzed over to the man, a local club golfer, and handed him her golf ball after putting out. ''It saved me a couple of shots,'' she said later.

''Yani had asked me to move my marker and when I went to move it back, I told myself, 'You've got to move it towards you'.

''I just blanked it. I don't even remember moving it the other way, but I guess I moved it the other way. About 15 people standing on the other side of the hole (said). I was just about to pull the trigger and he spoke up. Which really caught me off-guard. In the end it saved a two-shot penalty. It was quite courageous of him, to speak up, and I'm thankful for it.''