When I first heard of Michelle Wie’s recent DQ for not signing her scorecard, I thought, “How could she be so stupid?” But upon further thought, I shifted to, “How could this game have such a stupid rule?”
As I understand it, she mistakenly thought she had signed her card, walked out of the scoring tent, was stopped 5 feet beyond the tent’s boundaries, and immediately went in and signed a correct scorecard. Can anyone explain to me why this should merit DQ?
Shortly after Tiger won the US Open, a golfer remarked that on one occasion his caddy had extended a hand to help him out of a bunker, and asked if that had been impermissable provision of assistance to a player. As far as I know that was not a violation, but I really don’t know one way or the other. DiVinvcenzo’s (sp?) signing of an incorrect card (giving himself an extra storke) is the stuff of legend, and we all know that kneeling on a towel constitutes an impermissable “building a stance,” etc. seemingly ad infinitum.
I think such rules are flat out silly and to the detriment of the sport. What do you think?
That’ll be a two stroke penalty for questioning the rules of golf.
(Unless you issued said question from casual water in an unplayable lie due to temporary obstructions. Unless, of course, you were Out of Bounds, two or more club lengths from being in Bounds.)
On one hand golf has a long history of honorable, sportsmanlike play, where you are obliged to call a penalty on yourself (ball moved 3mm while you were addressing it, even if you were the only one who noticed).
On the other hand what happened to Wie seems very chintzy and nitpicky. They should have like a midnight (8pm) deadline for something like that. Now if she had signed for a lower score than she actually got, she would have fully deserved the DQ she would have gotten (DiVincenzo signed for a higher score than he actually got, and that became his official score, no DQ). I think someone on the PGA got DQed for doing precisely that, about 15-20 years ago IIRC.
Thanks for the correction. I would say that is an inexcusably stupid rule as well. What other sport requires that your opponent keep your score, and then you are responsible for checking and attesting to the accuracy of his scorekeeping.
I’m not sure if this was the practice in the 60s, but these days an official scorer accompanies every grouping. The requirement of individual scoring and signing just strikes me as unnecessary and overy penal.
I do think some rules are silly…like the one about what you can and can’t use to brush debris off a green (your hand, but not your glove, and not your club, except on thursdays when you can bring a handy-vac…). And the DQ rules around scorecards do seem dumb. But in general the game seems to go smoothly on TV, so I’d say it isn’t overburdened.
BTW, my first reaction to Wie’s DQ was to assume that someone in the scoring tent deliberately let her walk out without signing given how anal and overly attentive to details everyone there is…and that fact that its their sole job to make sure every card is correct and signed.
But then I thought…Wie probably has an obnoxious entourage around her at all times when she’s not on the course insulating her from having to talk to almost anyone, and people in the tent may not have had much opportunity to deal with her.
Golf is the most pretentious game ever. I mean this not as a condemnation of the people who play, but merely of the people who enforce idiot rules like “DQ for not signing your scorecard.” Way to ruin the match over a pointless technicality.
My younger brother once showed up to play a game of golf with his baseball cap turned backwards, and was told he had to turn his cap around before he would be allowed to play. Any sport that cares how amateurs have their caps oriented scarcely deserves to be called a sport at all.
You can’t judge the game by the dress code at one (presumably high end or exclusive) course or country club. There are restaurants that require a coat and tie, but most don’t. They are catering to a specific audience.
That said, the fuss over Tiger’s mock turtleneck at last year’s PGA (or was it the Masters…) made me chuckle. Like there aren’t more important things to do than debate whether a mock turtleneck technically has a collar
I hear you. I’ve only golfed twice in my entire life. The first time was on a vacation that my father-in-law paid for – he took us all to Colorado for a week to celebrate his retirement. I figured the least I could do in return was play a round of golf with him. Not being a golfer and not knowing what is “appropriate attire”, I wore khaki shorts and a t-shirt. I was informed at the clubhouse that I could not wear a t-shirt on the course and had to buy a collared golf shirt at the pro shop (somewhere in the neighborhood of $50). What a bunch of crap.
Signing your scorecard means you attest to the score and you see it as correct. It is not an autograph session.
I have never missed signing a scorecard. It is just the last part of the job. I played Publinx Golf and you would get DQd for it there too. If you missed signing ,you would get no sympathy. Everybody knows the penalty.
Is there any other sport in which the competitors are responsible for “attesting the score”?
I’m not denying that it is a rule, and in the Michelle Wie thread I questioned how on earth she could forget to do so. But nevertheless, I think it a stupid and unnecessary rule - at least at the professional levels where official scorers accompany the players.
Because golf isn’t another sport. Would you insist that their system be used in boxing, for instance? They why insist that they use a system from another sport?
It’s kind of a nod to the idea that golf is a sport with honorable participants, where you do not rely on officials to count the score, you score yourself, penalize yourself, without needing someone to look over your shoulder the whole time. You don’t kick the ball out from under the bush when nobody is looking, you don’t find “your” ball in the rough even though it’s got a different number.
In the pros, the golfer is still 100% responsible for putting the correct score down, and signing the card. The fact that someone IS looking over your shoulder is irrelevant.
An aside on “building a stance”. Your stance is critically important in golf. You need solid footing to get a good shot, the ability to improve that footing is something golfers desire. If you allow a towel to kneel on, do you allow a towel to step on? If you allow a towel to step on, do you allow a “super sharkskin ultragrip golf mat” to step on? At what point is the ground muddy enough to allow, or do you let people us it any time they want? It’s actually simpler to prohibit it entirely than set up a set of rules to allow it in one circumstance but not in another.
Of course, I believe it was Hale Irwin, back in the 80’s, who missed a short putt for birdie, and made a mad stab at the tap-in, which he whiffed on. Said stab didn’t look like a stroke. When his playing partner was about to put down a par 4, Irwin said, I tried to putt it and missed, so it was a 5. He basically admitted his error. Came back to haunt him on Sunday, when he missed out on a play-off by one shot.
It seems reasonable for the rules to require that scorecards be signed to attest to the score claimed, and thus to eliminate long-after-the-fact quibbling about exactly was achieved. It follows that there should be some limits governing when and where this signing should happen.
You have 150 golfers playing at the same time. It is not like a tennis match with 2 players against each other. Generally the opponent keeps your score. Then you go over it to make sure it is correct. You keep his score. He then goes over it to make sure it is correct. Then you sign saying it is correct. If it is not correct or not signed it is DQd.
Duh! Tennis tourneys can have several matches played at the same time. I think marathoners ought to submit their own times. What, exactly, is the function of the official scorer in pro golf if not to - I don’t know - keep the official score?
You think it a fine and dandy rule. That’s fine. I think it an archaic relic that casts the current game in a poor light.
