Pro Golf Questions--Inspired by Happy Gilmore

[Green_Bean]

The other night, I was watching Happy Gilmore for the umpteenth time. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Adam Sandler plays a hockey player turned pro golfer. His antagonist is Shooter McGavin, a veteran pro who badly wants to see Happy fail.

Partway through the movie, Shooter hires a guy to distract Happy while he’s trying to hit the ball. While the crowd is being quiet so Happy can concentrate on his swing, this guy yells insults at him, causing him to mess up.

Now, everything I know about pro golf I learned from Happy Gilmore and one rainy afternoon of watching some tournament with my Aunt Ethel, so I have no idea what the rules are regarding spectator conduct. Please enlighten me on this issue:

It seems that the spectators are always silent when the golfer is hitting the ball. Is this simply customary, or is it an actual rule? In a real tournament, would a person who yelled things during that silent time be asked to leave? Forced to leave?

And if it was discovered that a player had done as Shooter McGavin did and hired someone specifically to distract another player, what rules violations would he be guilty of? It would kill his public image, of course, but are there any rules that actually prohibit this action?

And leaving aside the improbability of a novice being able to play at the same level as seasoned pros, would it be possible for someone to just come out of nowhere and be allowed into major tournaments?

Thanks in advance.

[shelbo]

@Green Bean

In a real tournament, would a person who yelled things during that silent time be asked to leave? Forced to leave?

Warned, then forced to leave.

And if it was discovered that a player had done as Shooter McGavin did and hired someone specifically to distract another player, what rules violations would he be guilty of? It would kill his public image, of course, but are there any rules that actually prohibit this action?

“In the case of a serious breach of etiquette, the Committee may disqualify a player under Rule 33-7.”

33-7: “A penalty of disqualification may in exceptional individual cases be waived, modified or imposed if the Committee considers such action warranted.
Any penalty less than disqualification must not be waived or modified.
If a Committee considers that a player is guilty of a serious breach of etiquette, it may impose a penalty of disqualification under this Rule.”

[shelbo]

Oh yea, cite: http://www.usga.org/playing/rules/rules_of_golf.html

[RealityChuck]

@Green Bean

And leaving aside the improbability of a novice being able to play at the same level as seasoned pros, would it be possible for someone to just come out of nowhere and be allowed into major tournaments?

Most PGA events require that you qualify, which involves their “Qualifying school”, a series of tournaments. Top finishers move on, and the top finishers of the final get their tour card.

The US Open is an exception: it is open to all, but, again, you have to win qualifying tournaments to play in the actual event.

[RickJay]

@RealityChuck

Most PGA events require that you qualify, which involves their “Qualifying school”, a series of tournaments. Top finishers move on, and the top finishers of the final get their tour card.

The US Open is an exception: it is open to all, but, again, you have to win qualifying tournaments to play in the actual event.

This is true of the British Open as well.

[crowmanyclouds]

@Green Bean

…And leaving aside the improbability of a novice being able to play at the same level as seasoned pros, would it be possible for someone to just come out of nowhere and be allowed into major tournaments?..

Sort of, the U.S. Open,[

The U.S. Open is open to any professional, or to any amateur with an up-to-date USGA Handicap Index not exceeding 1.4. The field is 156 players. Players may obtain a place by being fully exempt or by competing successfully in Qualifying.

Around half of the field is made up of players who are fully exempt from qualifying. There are seventeen full exemption categories, including winners of the U.S. Open for the last ten years and the other three majors for the last five years, the top 30 from the previous year’s PGA Tour money list, the top 15 from the previous year’s European Tour money list, and the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings as of two weeks before the tournament.

Would be competitors who are not fully exempt must enter the Qualifying process, which has two stages. Firstly there is Local Qualifying, which is played over 18 holes at over 100 courses around the United States. Many leading players are exempt from this first stage, and they join the successful local qualifiers at the Sectional Qualifying stage, which is played over 36 holes at several sites in the U.S. and one each in Europe and Japan.

](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Open_(golf))and the Open Championship aka, the British Open,[

The field for the Open is 156, and golfers may gain a place in three ways. Around two thirds of the field is made up of leading players who are given exemptions. The rest of the field is made up of players who were successful in “Local Qualifying” and those who came through “International Qualifying”.

There are almost thirty exemption categories. Among the more significant are:

* The top 50 on the Official World Golf Rankings. This key sweep up category means that no member of the current elite of world golf will be excluded.
* The top 20 in the previous season's PGA Tour money list and European Tour order of merit. Most but not all of these players will also be in the World top 50.
* All previous Open Champions who will be age 65 or under on the final day of the tournament.
* All players who have won one of the other three majors in the previous five years.
* The top 10 from the previous year's Open Championship.

Among other things, the additional exemption categories ensure that all the member tours of the International Federation of PGA Tours are represented, and that there are some amateur competitors. Full details of all the exemption categories can be found here.

Local Qualifying is the traditional way for non-exempt players to win a place at The Open. It comprises 16 eighteen hole “Regional Qualifying” competitions around Britain and Ireland a week and a half before the event, with successful competitors moving on to the four thirty-six hole “Local Final Qualifying” tournaments a few days later. There are now twelve places available through Local Qualifying, though there used to be far more.

Local Qualifying is open to players from all over the world, and it used to attract some big names. In order to make it easier for professionals from outside Britain and Ireland to compete for a place, the R&A introduced International Qualifying in 2004. This comprises five 36 hole qualifying events, one each in Africa, Australasia, Asia, America and Europe. Only players who have a rating in the Official World Golf Rankings may enter, which is a more stringent standard than for Local Qualifying. Thirty six places are available in International Qualifying. Eligible players may choose whether to enter local qualifying or international qualifying, but they may not enter both.

](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Open_Championship)
CMC fnord!

[John_Mace]

@Green Bean

TAnd leaving aside the improbability of a novice being able to play at the same level as seasoned pros, would it be possible for someone to just come out of nowhere and be allowed into major tournaments?

Since you say you don’t know much about golf, let me point out that “Major tournamnets” means something very specific on the PGA, referring to the 4 “Majors”: The Masters, The US Open, The (British) Open, and the PGA Championship*. Each has it’s own rules to get in, and it depends on what you mean by “come out of nowhere”. Augusta can invite anyone it damn well pleases to play in the Masters, but typically they invite

the U.S. Amateur champion and runner-up, British Amateur champion and winners of the U.S. Public Links Amateur and U.S. Mid-Amateur.

*not to be confused with the recently held Player’s Championship, which is sometimes called “the 5th Major”, even though it is not technically a major.

[LionelHutz405]

Also keep in mind that spectators pay big bucks for tickets to these events. They aren’t going to do that to see just any bum play. So individual tournaments may vary in their method of selecting who plays, but you can be sure it ensures only damn good players make it.

[Balduran]

A few years ago there was a news article about a guy who had absolutely no previous experience in golf. Being independantly wealthy he had decided to devote the next two years of his life solely to golf and fully believed this was enough time to get good enough to join the pro tour. Did anybody else hear about him/know how far he got.

[Chronos]

Wasn’t Happy actually unnerved by the silence, and encouraged the spectators to cheer enthusiastically while he was shooting? It’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.

And for that matter, if an actual golfer did make it known that he preferred the noise, would the tournament organizers allow it in that case?

[Green_Bean]

Thanks for the answers.

IIRC–I haven’t seen the beginning of the movie in a while–Happy won some kind of local amateur tournament. It sounds like the rules of who will be invited to participate in some of the major tournaments are sufficiently vague that it would be possible (no matter how unlikely) for a Happy Gilmore to end up playing in them. I guess this would be true for the minor tournaments, too. In the movie, the pro golf administration very much wanted Happy to be “on the tour” because of the publicity, ratings, and revenue that he brought in, and I’d assume that in real life, they would have a lot of influence.

Two more questions:

1. If a golfer hit a ball that landed on a spectator’s foot, what would actually happen?

2. At the last hole of the big tournament, between Shooter making his shot and Happy’s turn, a media tower collapsed and fell across the green. How would something like this be handled in real life? Would it be handled differently if the event was caused by one of the golfers’ “breaches of etiquette” rather than just ordinary negligence or bad luck?

[Edward_The_Head]

@Green Bean

1. If a golfer hit a ball that landed on a spectator’s foot, what would actually happen?

If the ball landed and stayed on someone’s foot, the golfer would be able to move the object, here a foot, and place the ball where the foot was. Usually this happens to someone’s blanket or something like that. Usually people are out of the way at most places.

2. At the last hole of the big tournament, between Shooter making his shot and Happy’s turn, a media tower collapsed and fell across the green. How would something like this be handled in real life? Would it be handled differently if the event was caused by one of the golfers’ “breaches of etiquette” rather than just ordinary negligence or bad luck?

I would say they would move the tower. As a mater of fact I’m almost positive of it since you can move obstructions that are man made. Or you can move your ball out of the way of an object that can not be moved normally.

There are other ways into tournaments. Many times the sponser will allow local pros to play, usually it’s only one or two. I’m sure they have their own rules, but here in DC it’s usually someone who has been on the Tour before, or one of the minor tours. I know the few times I went to the Kemper Open, now something else, there were a few local players, one of which had won an event years ago and didn’t play much.

[crowmanyclouds]

@Green Bean

…1. If a golfer hit a ball that landed on a spectator’s foot, what would actually happen?..

24-1 Movable Obstruction
A player may take relief without penalty from a movable obstruction as follows:
(a) If the ball does not lie in or on the obstruction, the obstruction may be removed. If the ball moves, it must be replaced, and there is no penalty provided that the movement of the ball is directly attributable to the removal of the obstruction. Otherwise, Rule 18-2a applies.
(b) ** If the ball lies in or on the obstruction, the ball may be lifted and the obstruction removed. The ball must through the green or in a hazard be dropped, or on the putting green be placed, as near as possible to the spot directly under the place where the ball lay in or on the obstruction, but not nearer the hole.**

CMC New Jersey, Exit 135

[RickJay]

@John Mace

Since you say you don’t know much about golf, let me point out that “Major tournamnets” means something very specific on the PGA, referring to the 4 “Majors”: The Masters, The US Open, The (British) Open, and the PGA Championship*. Each has it’s own rules to get in, and it depends on what you mean by “come out of nowhere”. Augusta can invite anyone it damn well pleases to play in the Masters,

Augusta also has an open invitation to anyone who has ever won the Masters. Even if Ian Woosnam and Mike Weir totally lose their games and have +15 handicaps, they can still take thier shot.

[BF]

@Edward The Head

There are other ways into tournaments. Many times the sponser will allow local pros to play, usually it’s only one or two. I’m sure they have their own rules, but here in DC it’s usually someone who has been on the Tour before, or one of the minor tours. I know the few times I went to the Kemper Open, now something else, there were a few local players, one of which had won an event years ago and didn’t play much.

Called Sponsor’s exemptions, the tournament sponsor can invite just about anyone to play in their tournament. This explains how Annika played in the Colonial three years ago, and how Michelle Wie has played in the number of men’s tournaments the last two years. Some pros complain that this takes away a slot for a dues paying member, but in most cases it’s only one or two spots and in most cases, the exemption doesn’t even make the cut.

[Trunk]

@Green Bean

And leaving aside the improbability of a novice being able to play at the same level as seasoned pros, would it be possible for someone to just come out of nowhere and be allowed into major tournaments?

There are people who qualify for the US Open (and probably British Open) through the local scene, and do quite well.

From here. . .

1969: Qualifier Orville Moody captured the U.S. Open title. Moody was the last champion to come from local and sectional qualifying.

Anyone who does that is still a pretty good golfer, but that’s about as close to “coming from nowhere” as you’ll get. If one of these guys is in contention, usually the gallery knows it and will rally around him. That’s also true if the guy is just an amateur and/or is likeable for some other reason (like he’s chubby).

[BF]

Case in point, Jason Gore last year

Gore – the 818th-ranked player in the world who finished tied for second in a regional qualifier to get here – got plenty of attention all weekend with solid golf and quick wit.