The merits, morality of applying golf’s many rules
The general theme of this column was to debate the merits, the morality and perhaps the misapplication of one of golf’s many rules during Friday’s second round of the Masters.
Fourteen-year-old Tianlang Guan, trying to become the youngest player to make the cut in 77 playings of the Masters, was assessed a stroke penalty for slow play on the 17th hole. He had been warned four times on the back nine about his pace and nothing changed. At one point, Guan’s group fell two holes behind the group ahead of them.
That made international news because for almost four hours, Guan sat by anxiously, no knowing whether that penalty shot would keep him from making the cut. As it turned out, it didn’t.
So the golf world got what it wanted, seeing the kid play two more rounds. The bottom line was, however, the fact that he had been given ample warning and there really wasn’t any question about whether or not he should have been penalized.
And then came the overnight and Saturday morning. Questions were raised about the legality of a drop Tiger Woods made in the 15th fairway, originating from a viewer of the ESPN broadcast. Thus began frantic scurrying inside the walls of the historic Augusta National Golf Club clubhouse, frantic frenzy in the Twitterverse and on radio talk shows across the country.
The possibility was raised that after viewing and reviewing the tape of the incident, Woods might have been disqualified from the tournament.
In a nutshell, he had just taken the lead Friday afternoon and had 87 yards left to the green at 15. He zipped a 60-degree wedge that nearly flew in the hole, but hit the stick instead. The ball caromed off the stick and then spun into the pond in front of the green.
After reviewing his options, Woods decided to take a drop from where he hit his first wedge. He dropped it a couple yards behind his first divot and hit that shot perfectly, stopping it within a few feet of the hole.
“I went back to where I played it from, but I went 2 yards further back and I tried to take 2 yards off the shot of what I felt I hit, ” Woods said in an interview with ESPN.
The issue is that Woods admitted he dropped the ball behind the spot of his original shot in order to get a better yardage for his next shot. Golf’s rulebook (Rule 26) says, a player has to “play a ball as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played.”
Because he admitted the reason for dropping where he did, it could have and should have been cause for disqualification. But Woods was saved from that fate basically because of the advent of high definition television.
Because viewers can sit at home with HDTVs and see a ball wobble or a blade of grass moving ever so slightly that could violate a rule while the player might not realize it, the ruling bodies of golf enacted what is basically known as the HDTV rule. The local committee can choose to waive disqualification under that rule and assess a penalty, which is exactly what the Masters committee did.
It’s a decision that will be debated for years to come and will always cast something of a shadow on Woods and this tournament. The perception might be that Woods was being given preferential treatment, but Masters officials insist they would have ruled the way they did regardless of the player.
The rules of golf are a voluminous, wordy collection of many times confusing language that often leads to awkward situations. And with Tiger Woods being the lightning rod for attention that he is, it’s not only confusion, you can count on this one being contentious for a long time.
The rules make golf the great game that it is, but they also can lead to some of the craziest situations you could imagine.
Such was the case Friday and Saturday at Augusta.
This column will appear twice weekly on the Herald-Standard sports pages. Its intent will be to provide insight and commentary on golf, whether it’s local, national or international. It will highlight local happenings as well as local courses and people. If you have story ideas or suggestions, send them to mike.dudurich@gmail.com.