Villegas: he's no Paddy
News is filtering down from the ivory tower shared by golf’s ruling bodies, the R&A and the USGA, that discussions are already underway to coordinate an administrative response to the disqualification controversy. Mike Davis, the USGA’s Senior Director of Rules and Competitions, had this to say earlier on:
“We’re all bothered by what is a narrow set of circumstances where someone can get the facts right and still be disqualified… In Harrington’s situation, he thought ball was replaced and only television is telling us otherwise… He knew the rules, he thought he did everything right, he just didn’t know all the facts. So the USGA and R&A will open it up again, but we also have to make sure we don’t do something that has domino effect.”
Oddy enough, given the very specific manner in which Davis parsed his comments, ESPN have chosen to conflate this week’s Harrington incident with superficially similar Villegas DQ of a fortnight ago. But as my post of a couple of days ago outlined, the two are in fact very, very different situations. A rules change, should one be made, would likely only apply to a very limited set of circumstances; Villegas would still be DQed, Harrington might not.
Conor
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Stephanie Wei, Matt O'Keefe, PGA. Matt O'Keefe, PGA said: RT @stephaniewei: More DQ Talk: USGA Weighs In – http://tinyurl.com/6xeq56n [...]
In accounting we have the concept of materiality. Perhaps golf should do something similar. Does a dimple and a half closer to the hole materially affect the likelihood Harrington would make a putt of that length, probably not. You could almost make the argument the ball would likely not have hit Villegas’s divot, and if it had it would likely have left an almost identical next shot. If you had a camera trained on each and every shot out there you likely will see dozens of ball spotting infractions. OK, maybe materiality doesn’t work in golf. But every time I stroke a putt of ten feet and watch it roll to the cup I see slight movement left to right and a little bouncing up and down. I’ve seen this on every type of putting surface. I’ve practiced pitching the ball and watched some of the greats pitch a few dozen balls from roughly the same spot and seen variability of way more than the distance of where a ball would come to rest. Maybe what bothers me is how punitive it all is. I am a big fan of a penalty before the start of the next round but abhor disqualification. As someone said, passing the rules officials exam is similar to passing the bar… please let’s stop sucking the fun out of the world’s greatest game.
That’s the thing about the rules – they are what they are. There’s no “what if” over how far the ball moved – but that it moved.
The probem here is that in real time, the ball looked like it oscillated. You had to pull up a blown up, slow motion, HD picture and run it over and over to be sure that the ball had moved and not oscillated.
This is supposed to be a human game, and the human eye couldn’t tell.
On the USGA and the R&A looking at a rule change over these off site rules officials calling in violations unseeable by the human eye – this is not something they should be bothering with. The ruling bodies have to write rules that cover everybody. Most golf tournaments or private games don’t have TV cameras or rules officals or, worse, nosey neighbors sitting on their porch with a telescope ready to call the clubhouse if they see a violation.
This is something that should be left to the Tours. They are the ones who know what they can and cannot control. It’s not for the USGA to tell the PGA Tour, Nationwide Tour, Champions Tour, or LPGA Tour how they have to do things. The PGA Tour has a lot more resources at their fingertips than any of the others. One rule might work for one Tour, but not for the others.
Let the Tours decide on their own – it should be a local rule.
It’s very simple. Either you don’t allow call ins at all (my vote), or you allow them, and remove the DQ penalty from the equation. Those are the only two acceptable options.
They are similar only in people outside of the sport (fans) made the ruling.
I think we are going to see changes in the near future which will make the game better.
@mw – totally think ur the only one who got the point of wei’s article. Totally agree that PGA or USGA shouldn’t allow phone ins. What other professional league allows that???
I agree with John Feinstein’s take on this too he says PGA and USGA should have a rules official watching the telecast. USGA has something in place where a rules official volunteer accompanies every tour group already.