It was linked by Lamar Mundane in post #78.
I’m curious how this aligns with Tiger’s statement that he dropped a couple of yards back of his first shot. He certainly intended not to be as close as possible to the first shot, and believed he hadn’t. Maybe he was just wrong about this.
No, it really is fundamentally different, as Stratocaster has noted: Harrington was unaware of an essential fact (that his ball had moved); Tiger was aware of all relevant facts, but unaware of (or simply wrong about) the rule.
And the Rules of golf (and probably all sports) do not allow for their effects to be evaded through ignorance of them.
I missed that when Lamar posted it. That’s very interesting. If that’s accurate, and if Tiger dropped in virtually the same spot, what do the rules say about a “false confession”? Hmm.
I would think it still should have resulted in a DQ, based on what info the Committee had after the round–i.e., what appeared to be a different drop point and Tiger’s “confession” that he dropped 2 yards back because he wanted a better distance. If this photo is accurate, it would be a technically accurate DQ, but one that was later shown to be based on false info (the biggest false info being the player’s comments). Stated differently, they can’t determine that a 2 stroke penalty should have occurred (even if later they determine that was wrong) and not DQ Tiger, based on what they knew at that point. Those two things don’t go together.
IOW, if these photos are accurate, if the Committee had all available info at the time of their ruling, they should have said “no penalty, no DQ, and Tiger needs to stop taking drugs because apparently he was hallucinating when he thought he dropped 2 yards back.” Based on the info they actually had, “penalty and DQ” was the proper ruling. “Penalty and no DQ,” the ruling they made, was always incoherent. And before some quarters start crowing about how they were right all along, the allegedly Solomon-like ruling the Committee actually made that many found fair was, again, also incorrect relative to these new details (if the details are right).
(One of my major character flaws is showing through in this thread. I love these rules lawyering discussions.)
Those pictures do look very similar. Unfortunately that’s about the worst angle for determining whether he’s moved back. A long zoom shot like that compresses distances and makes it difficult to judge.
Exactly, bad angle and if you look at Tiger he is noticeably “taller” in the left photo than he is in right photo. Head is slightly higher and feet are definitely lower.
My $.02…
There ought to be a rule that states:
“People who call up golf tournaments to complain about possible rules violations they saw while sitting on their asses at home should have all golf programming, including the Golf Channel, removed from their cable programming for 1 year. Golf tournament officials who accept such calls should be thrown into the nearest water hazard and then rolled in the nearest sand trap. Rules officials who change their rulings based upon such calls should be fired, never allowed on a golf course again.”
Nobody would care if this wasn’t Tiger. Where’s the debate about that kid who got hit with a penalty that hadn’t been assessed at a PGA event since 1995? A delay of game penalty… thrown at a 14 year-old? Really? This is the first time in 18 years that a player has taken over 50 seconds to swing a club at a PGA event? Really?
So we have an event where a 14yo nobody has a rules official so tight-assed they’re going to assess a penalty for slow play, but the most famous golfer in the world (possibly) does something incorrect… and nobody catches it as it happens? Not the rules officials, not the crowd following him, not his caddie, not the announcers - nobody? Until some dipshit with a DVR calls up after the match is over and that, coupled with Tiger’s interview (an interview that came after he discussed his 15th hole shot with tournament officials who then determined that he acted in accordance with the rules), causes these same idiotic rules officials to reverse their ruling?
What a crock of shit. If they can’t be bothered to get it right on the field of play, well, that’s the breaks. IMHO, there’s something fundamentally unfair in regards to after-the-fact rulings made by the same people who didn’t get it right in the first place. It’s akin to David Stern ruling that “hey, you know, looking at the video Jordan really pushed off on Byron Russell back in 1998. I’m going to penalize the Bulls two points, give Utah the win, and demand that the teams get back together to determine the championship.”
My take: IF you take all of golf’s rules extremely seriously, then yes, Tiger should have been disqualified.
BUT… I don’t take all of golf’s rules extremely seriously. Some people think it’s WONDERFUL that, say, Roberto De Vicenzo was denied a Masters title on a technicality. I don’t think it’s wonderful at all- I think a little common sense was in order, and De Vicenzo deserved his green jacket.
I think Tiger deserved whatever stroke penalty the rules called for, and nothing more. I’d say the same for any player, whether I liked him or not (and I’ve never liked Tiger).
Sounds good with one sub-part… “The above rule does not apply if the golfer admits that he cheated when being interviewed after the round.”
But he didn’t admit he cheated. He stated what he did, discussed it with rules officials who gave their OK, signed off on the card, then gave an interview where he talked about what he discussed with the rules officials.
He didn’t discuss it with anyone before he signed off on the card.
Right - they should simply accept what they see and not try to compare it to what they think the rulebook says. Kind of like what fans of other televised professional sports do - I mean, how often do you see baseball or football fans get all worked up over the officiating?
Officials in charge of running high-level competitions in pretty much any sport are supposed to take their rules seriously. When they don’t, it reliably leads to problems, often along the lines of “How come player A got different treatment from player B?”
I think you’d have a hard time finding many who thought this was “wonderful”. I expect you could find many - probably including RdV - who believe that the decision to apply the rules that were in effect and known to all was in the best interests of the sport
Everyone here seems to accept that Woods did hit the 2nd shot 2 steps further back that he hit the 1st. Based on what? That post round TV interview? So correct or not if Woods said he made the 2nd shot 2 steps farther back that the 1st then everyone just assumes that’s the case.
What if he was wrong and hit it from almost exactly the same spot as these photographs indicate?
It’s stunning to me that any official would base any ruling on a post event interview with a player regardless what the player said.
So what if Tiger had not “admitted” his crime until say after the final round, lets assume after he won, as they ask him to reflect on the turning point in Round 2, etc. What is the statute of limitations?
What most people seem to have problem with is that there is no set process. There really needs to be a set of guidelines such as (The details are illustrative, just the idea that there needs to be a far more formal process).
If a player asks and receives a ruling from a rules official at the time, then that ruling is final, regardless of it being determined to be incorrect at a later time (No other sport ex-post changes a ruling of an official.
Any shot not ruled by an official in the course of play may be reviewed by the rules committee at any time up until the start of the following round, or if it is the final round within two hours of that round. The rules officials have up until the first players tees off in the following round.
Any reviewed shot will be given a definitive ruling.
Any player who is having a shot reviewed will be notified of the review and the ruling.
If the player signs his card before a final ruling, then he may risk DQ if the score is incorrect. The rules committee will make every effort to rule prior to the player needing to sign their scorecard, but cannot guarantee such an outcome.
I am sure there would be a lot more, but you get the point.
I have a separate question, what if a player gives themselves a one or two-stroke penalty for some perceived infraction on their part, and signed their card as such. But in reality they did not violate the rule, can the rules committee DQ them for still signing an incorrect scorecard?
If you sign a card with a hole score that’s too high, then you just have to take the higher score. There’s no DQ.
There was a famous “near example” of this in the 2003 British. Mark Roe and Jesper Parnevik didn’t exchange scorecards properly, so Roe’s score (an excellent 67) was submitted on Parnevik’s card and vice-versa. Roe almost escaped a DQ, because he had only scored worse than Parnevik on one hole (IIRC). If they’d scored the same on that hole, then Roe would not have been DQed, but would have had to take Parnevik’s score for the round. This specific rule about exchanging cards has since been changed.
His statement described actions that are specifically against the rules - done (according to Tiger) to give himself a better chance of putting the next shot close to the hole. So the assumption that there has been a rules violation is sound.
(Note that the linked photos are far from conclusive.)
If it was determined that he in fact dropped the second ball very close to the where the first was played, it would be an interesting situation: player explains that he intended to do something that violates the rules, but in fact didn’t do what he intended. The ruling would almost certainly be that no penalty applies.
Really?
Suppose after a shutout a pitcher said “I found this special grease in a tube they sell in my local hardware store, and you can’t believe how a little bit of that on my fingertips improves the ball’s action.” Don’t you think that would lead to some official action?
How about an NCAA basketball player who said “Sure, we were motivated: five grand in cash yesterday, and the promise of twice that tonight if we won? That would motivate anyone.”
You are right in that he didn’t admit to cheating… he admitted doing something against the rules of golf.
… and as mentioned above, he didn’t discuss it with the officials until the next day. They talked amongst themselves before his admission, decided they didn’t have enough evidence, and then did nothing. They didn’t even tell him the problem was on their radar screen.
Let me clarify a couple of things.
First of all, there has been no slow play penalties called at PGA Tour run tournaments. There have been slow play penalities called at the PGA Championship, and the US Open (and even the LPGA). But those tournaments are not run by the PGA Tour.
And the reason why PGATour pros penalties have not been assessed on the PGATour is:
When a PGATour player gets warned for being out of position, they get “put on the clock”. But the clock only measures their pre shot routine. It does not measure how long it takes them to get from Point A to Point B.
What the player does is send their caddie ahead, and the caddie gets all the pertinent information. yardages, wind direction etc. The player dilly dallies and walks slowly to his ball while the caddie does the homework.
Player walks up to his ball, gets information, grabs a club and hits the ball.
Tianlang Guan’s problem is that he didn’t know how to work the system. He will learn, and hopefully play faster (because he was playing really slowly) and fortunately the added stroke was basically inconsequential. He still was the only amateur to make the cut so therefore low amateur.
In the baseball example, it wouldn’t vacate the games already played. They didn’t remove George Brett’s 3 hits and 2 RBI’s in the pine tar game even though he used the same bat, they just disallowed the HR and the 2 resultant RBI’s that he hit when the allegation was made.
In the NCAA example, it would prompt the NCAA to vacate the games… years later, after nobody cared. 