Photographer (and my friend) Allan Henry of Golf Chronicles / US Presswire was kneeling four to five feet behind Dustin Johnson when he grounded his club on the 18th hole. Allan was so close to DJ that he was almost hit by DJ’s club in one of his practice swings. When he first arrived at the scene, he said it was “pretty nuts” with the amount of people that had congregated in the area.
Initially, he set up where the other photographers had — looking toward Johnson — but he knew there were something like 15 photographers following the group, so he figured he’d try to get behind the ball. A few polite Wisconsinites moved to make room for him. But as he was walking toward the ball, he instinctively snapped a few shots of it lying on the ground. Like this one.
From Allan’s perspective, he wasn’t thinking if DJ was in a bunker or not — he was thinking of how he was going to capture the moment, not to mention avoid getting hit by Johnson’s club. On Monday night as he was going through his pictures at the scene, he texted me, “It’s clearly a bunker, no question.”
He remembers that Johnson never grounded his club during his practice swings (which I explained was probably because most players don’t if they’re on hard pan or dirt in the case it might cause the ball to move).
“At that moment, with how he played and what he had done, nobody thought to take an extra couple of minutes,” said Allan. Everyone was living in that second. It’s somebody’s responsibility to step back and go, ‘What are we missing here?’ The most relevant part of this is that it’s the golfer’s responsibility to know what the rule is and to take some more time.”
According to the time stamp on Allan’s pictures, DJ took about four minutes from the time he arrived to the scene to the second he made contact with it. In those few minutes, he had the marshals move the crowd, take a few practice swings, make a few jokes with the gallery and then hit it.
Allan wonders what would have happened if DJ would have taken a little more time. He described DJ as “relaxed, loose and almost jovial,” “I don’t think his pulse was above 65,” he said. “The immensity of the moment didn’t get to him. Maybe it should have gotten to him. Maybe he should have said to the gallery, ‘Can you guys move a little bit?’”
There was no tension in the air. If it hadn’t been for the gallery, Allan said it felt like a practice round — not the 72nd hole of a major championship with Johnson having a one-stroke lead.
“When I’m in a similar situation with Tiger, he’s moving people,” he said. “Tiger doesn’t joke or talk to people in that situation. He’s thinking what he has to do. He goes through a mental checklist of stuff.”
When Allan heard on Sirius XM radio that Johnson may have grounded his club, his first instinct was to return to the scene to see where he had been sitting and to tell officials that Johnson didn’t ground the club in his practice swings. He thought Johnson knew it was a hazard, which was why his practice swings were in the air about ankle high.
“The whole area was enclosed with people by the time I got back up there about a half-hour after he hit the shot,” Allan described. “People were literally standing inside the area DJ was standing from. Someone wrote a note, ‘This is not a bunker.’ At that stage when I was standing there, I couldn’t see any of the contours because people were in it. My first thought was they should have cleared out the people. But when I looked at my pictures, it looked like there were enough people cleared out because you can see the contours.
“Do I feel bad for Dustin? Without question, I feel bad for him. But that’s the thing about golf, you call penalties on yourself, it’s about knowing the rules, moralities and awareness. It’s about the lessons of life.”
I’m pretty sure DJ will be a little more cautious in the future. Thing is, he did know the rule and he did know that bunkers inside and outside the ropes were hazards — Johnson just didn’t recognize that he was in a bunker. And therein lies the problem.
Steph – you should spend more time with Allan – he has terrific understanding and perspective of the game – not to mention a really nice eye with the camera ! That is the best synopsis of the situation and atmosphere that I have seen. 99% of what I have read and heard has been an emotional reaction to what happened, completely disregarding the facts.
Well done, Allan. Thanks for sharing the pictures and story.
Great photos and an interesting in light of DJ’s comment about why he didn’t think he was in a bunker (interview with Doug Ferguson) “But all the bunkers on the course had a darkish color to the sand. This was white dirt.”
Those pictures seem to show darkish sand not white.
[...] Still talkin’ Dustin Johnson, Whistling Straits, plus photos of the famous bunker [Wei Under Par] [...]
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A pretty sensible outline of the situation. Everyone’s argument, it seems, boils down to ‘But he didn’t know it was a bunker!’ Regardless of whether or not the positioning of the fans was unusual, his ball was lying in sand and there was a lip visible within the vicinity of the ball. It should have, at the very least, triggered alarm bells. And it’s the player’s responsibility to respond to them, regardless of the various other coulds/shoulds/woulds that fail to intervene on his behalf. His situation is heartbreaking and understandable, but the fact that he’s in earnest doesn’t make his infraction any less real.
In golf, players have to adhere to a very strict reading of the rules regardless of how exceptional the circumstances become– it’s the mechanism that makes the competitive game function. There’s really no point crying ‘foul’ over the enforcement of a well-defined rule and I find the support of so many players for Dustin’s position both absurd and a little disturbing. Sympathy is one thing, but seeing many so-called ‘professionals’ rally around ‘I didn’t know it was a bunker’ as if it was a statement that carried any sort of weight in a court other than the one of public hysteria is pretty dispiriting. This incident (and the furore surrounding it) is one of several in recent times that have served to underline the extent to which the current crop of tour pros aren’t all that familiar with the rules under which they’re playing or the sense of broader purpose under which they’re formed.
On a personal note, I’m also pretty amused by the nay-sayers’ insistence that a bunker be a well-defined, immaculately-manicured pocket of sand, clear of both debris and spectators.
And fair play to Dustin, who’s handled all this pretty well.
OK guys we all understand that this meeting is secret. nobody talks about what goes on here. Is everybody clear about that?
OK we’ll all aging and pudgy. We’re never going to win a golf tournament. Heck We’re never going to be able to even enter one. But by damn we can influence the tourney! By being here each and every one of us promises to seek out situation where it’s not the golfers that decide the tourney, it’s the rules. We have a long tradition of activism DeVicenso, Stadler, Wei, Johnson, Wei, Player. ‘Zinger, Roe, Woosie. Now these are just the high profile ones and don’t count the lower level tourneys and amateur events. We can do better! Rules officials at all levels have the power bow get out there and lose one for the cause.
LOL @ “… it’s about knowing the rules, moralities and awareness. It’s about the lessons of life.”
Real lessons of life are learning how to circumvent rules, understanding that morality is for losers and an awareness of how to screw someone over.
Art, I think it’s “Wie” not “Wei”. You’re confusing your attractive young women.
We all know that Dustin and his caddy screwed the pooch, but the fact remains imo that an area of trampled down sand where galleries are permitted to roam should never have been deemed a “hazard” within the local rules. Bunkers/hazards could be maintained inside the ropes, where the public, carts, etc. cannot possibly interfere, and the rest of the course can be played through the green. No controversy, no “black eye” for the rules officials, just a difficult shot off a sandy lie. Ground your club to your heart’s content.
The moral of the Dustin Johnson story – When you have a shot to hit and you are surrounding by fans, your focus should not be to interact with the fans, but focus on the job at hand – clear the fans out, survey the surroundings of where the ball landed by walking around and reviewing the landscape, confer with your caddie to corrobate your findings, speak with the rules official etc, then make your decisions. DJ was too caught up with the fans by joking to properly discern where he was.Alan pointed out that Woods would be more business like and thus would perhaps have readily identified his location.
@Fleg – that’s brilliantly said.
still a stupid rule and gave him no advantage.
this is a funny (but true) article on some of the dumber rules of golf by rick reilly:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5470940
Being bound by the score you sign for is a ‘dumb rule’? Rick Reilly is a dumb journalist.
This post is by far the best description of the situation, allowing me to finally come to a conclusion on this. #1, in a rules-driven sport, DJ doesn’t read the local rules sheet (so much for golf being a sport of the over-educated elite). #2, in a sport that reveres its history, DJ doesn’t remember a similar mess that Appleby got into. #3, the course is renowned for its many bunkers, #4 the pictures in this post clearly show a lot more sand than grass. So, I’m on the side of DJ completely blew it.
I agree that the PGA’s bunker-outside-the-ropes rule is flawed and should be changed in the future for these major events. But then I’m one of those hackers that think the rule of taking a stroke on a lost ball is a bad rule, since I’m already penalized for having lost a $4 pro-v.
“This incident (and the furore surrounding it) is one of several in recent times that have served to underline the extent to which the current crop of tour pros aren’t all that familiar with the rules under which they’re playing or the sense of broader purpose under which they’re formed.”
@fleg: you’re quote there illustrates why it’s a dumb rule. the pros (or in what you say “so-called professionals” (wtf?)) understood that it gave him no competitive advantage, and he was in a situation that was hardly obvious to multiple people on the ground. I replayed the telecast and people on the ground with great golf knowledge (Feherty et al) didn’t think that it looked like a bunker.
As for the photographer’s assertion that Johnson did not ground his club, just take a look at the video. The ultimate evidence that he did ground his club was Johnson’s lack of denial regarding grounding. It’s part of his preshot routine and he didn’t think he was in a bunker. If he didn’t ground the club, then he would have complained and argued that even if it was a bunker, i didn’t ground my club, so you shouldn’t penalize me.
All in all, right ruling, but dumb rule. Don’t they change and alter the rules in all other sports? And don’t give me this “golf is a traditional sport and we can’t alter the rules in order to adhere to the spirit of the game bs,” because if that’s the case, we’d still be using persimmon drivers with hickory shafts and gutta percha balls.
Non-sequitur Question – Is the photo above labeled correctly? – “Dustin Johnson golf ball in the bunker on the 18th hole during the Fourth Round of the 2010 PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.”
It doesn’t look the same based on other photos and videos of the scene. I base this purely on the angle of the ball brand label and the dead grass next to it. Of course there are 2 labels, one on each side of the ball, but the angle doesn’t look the same at all. no footprints either.
http://www.geoffshackelford.com/display/ShowImage?imageUrl=/storage/2010PGA18bunker2.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1281969229831
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stephanie Wei, Ted Vickey and TheAPosition, TheAPosition. TheAPosition said: RT @stephaniewei: If you haven't read @golfchronicles' account of Dustin Johnson in the bunker, check it out. http://bit.ly/br0jnw And f … [...]
very informative post
that is so not a bunker.
@Grimmer
re: ‘so-called professionals’– If you’re going to be intensely literal about the whole thing, then yes, this is a strange phrase, but I’m trying to get at an idea of professionalism that’s about more than making money and actually involves a deep contextual knowledge of your chosen profession. Most tour pros today seem to lack that and examples of that being the case abound.
I’d suggest that your argument’s reliance on ‘no competitive advantage’ is another ‘but he didn’t know it was a bunker’, ie. it doesn’t mean anything. If you’re in a hazard the very act of grounding your club gives you an advantage, whether you’re aware of it or not. Even acting unconsciously, as in Dustin’s case, offers an advantage; it means, for example, that what is often the most disruptive part of being in a hazard (reminding yourself not to ground the club and changing your routine accordingly) has been circumvented entirely. And if by ‘no competitive advantage’ you mean he then hit a ‘bad’ shot, cancelling the perceived advantage accruing to the previous shot, then that’s a retrospective judgement that relies on A) a load of assumptions/conjecture and B) an idea of the rules as mutable. In short, it’s bullshit.
“And if by ‘no competitive advantage’ you mean he then hit a ‘bad’ shot, cancelling the perceived advantage accruing to the previous shot, then that’s a retrospective judgement that relies on A) a load of assumptions/conjecture and B) an idea of the rules as mutable. In short, it’s bullshit.”
be careful when you ass-ume because that is not what i meant. although the arguments you pose are not bullshit, i do think they are the residue of excessive mental masturbation.
@Grimmer
At least finding ‘the residue of excessive mental masturbation’ on your computer monitor is easier to deal with than just plain old residue of excessive masturbation.
Don’t get all uppity and mud-slingy when someone tries to fill in the gaps you’ve left in your own argument. And for the record, the rules of golf do change– with great regularity, in fact. Just not mid-tournament when something you don’t like happens.
If anybody is interested, Allan is going to be on the radio this Sunday morning at 9:25 eastern. You can listen in on 790theZone.com.