Diogenes:
Unless they investigate, (that’s what I mean by “do anything”) how will they determine what’s credible or not?
Maybe they’ve never done it because they didn’t think that they had power to influence official play, but now that it’s been demonstrated, the floodgates are open for abuse.
I suppose this is true, that it puts golf in a unique circumstance to allow it with minimal (if any) disruption in play.
Thanks for the information Dio.
I feel somewhat stupid not knowing that fans having been calling in perceived rule-breaking for such a long time. This is literally the first I have heard of it, and I actually am a fan of the sport.
I also play ‘at’ it, but I am so very very bad at it that I almost never admit to it.
As others have said, TV watchers have been calling in to report pro golfers fouls for some time now. My question is, assuming I was watching, saw a foul and wanted to call in, who the heck would I call? Do the LPGA/PGA/USGA have 1-800 hotlines for such things?
this is the instance that i was thinking of. i have a major problem with this. the competitor did not think she was breaking a rule. her co competitors saw no rules infringement. neither did the rules officials or marshalls at the competition. she signed off and that should have been it. i think someone mentioned upthread about other sports. if that’s the way it works then how many other professional sports outcomes could be changed after the clock is off and everyone has left if a spectator at some future date calls into question a ruling on the field. i mean we’d have at least one more no hitter this year in mlb if you could pull this.
Viewers at home have been given a powerful tool, video. They can only catch what the officials have missed if the officials have missed it. So this is really a case for instant replay or video review; make the same tools available to the officials that the people at home have. If we had instant replay in MLB operating the way it does now in the Little League World Series, there would be another no-hitter on the books. And it wouldn’t have been because of a fan calling in after the fact–the umpires could have corrected themselves on the spot. Look for this subject to come up at the baseball winter meetings.
Do pro golfers not have any knowledge of what scores they need to beat? I would think that if I’m in the last group on the 18th hole at -3, there would be a difference in how I would play between knowing someone is in the clubhouse at -4 and knowing that I’m in the lead.
See Michelle Wie. As Dio notes, this doesn’t appear to be all that new.
I don’t really see this as good or bad. I’m generally against instant replay, but since golf is essentially self-policed, I think there does need to be a way to make sure people aren’t violating the rules.
IMO, fog of war is perfectly applicable and part of any live sporting event. If the ref didn’t catch it the first time, and there’s no instant replay, it never happened. The spectators are spectators, and should be 100% out of the game.
But There IS instant replay. There is no rule that says the officials have to see something live in order to call a penalty. As a matter of fact, the officials aren’t really supposed to be the first to call penalties at all. The players are. The “fog of war” analogy is not applicable. Golf is not “refereed,” as such, the way other sports are. It’s a self-policed sport. A player doing that dishonestly or incorrectly is DQ’ed. It doesn’t matter who catches them doing it. It doesn’t have to be an official. It could be another player or someone in the gallery. Golf has always been that way.
Is the “instant replay” in this case (also used to penalize Dustin Johnson in the PGA recently) part of the official rules of the tour(s) in question? If it isn’t then nothing seen on any replay, be it by a fan or an official, should be enforceable or “overturnable.”
I don’t think people are really grasping it with the “replay” thing. The officials in golf don’t rule on things on a stroke-by-stroke basis as they go. The golfers are supposed to do it. The officials can use any means of investigation they want to determine whether a player has failed to do this correctly. Nothing is being “overturned” because there is no official ruling in the first place, only what the players themselves have claimed.
but dio you kind of make my point. if the tour continues down this path then if i was a competitor i’d being getting an official ruling before i did anything. golf is self policing and for the most part i think most folks try to do the right thing (and if i ever play with someone that is overtly cheating or purposely making crappy rules decisions then i call them on their crud and never play with them again). and if i ever have any really grey area question i typically get someone in my group involved in a discussion over what the play should be. or i’ll announce before hand does anyone have a problem with what i am going to do? now, of course, this is typically the normal 50 dollar nassau bet on the weekend and not the millions that the pros play for. but to have a viewer call in post event and change the outcome seems ludicrous. what other sport would allow that?
In a sanctioned event, it’s completely within your rights to get a ruling from an official if there is some ambiguity in a situation.
I’m with Dio.
I don’t really have an issue with this, but, just to play Devil’s advocate, the problem with this practice is that only a relative handful of players get a lot of TV coverage, which exposes them to millions of potential referees (or, in the case of the LPGA, thousands). This means that, say, Phil Mickelson is going to be held to a higher standard of fidelity to the rules than the vast majority of the field (in practice, though not in theory).
Basically, the problem is that it’s unfair.
Jim Furyk just got himself DQ’d from tomorrow’s tourney, before it began. He slept through his alarm and missed the Pro-Am.
but that is kind of the problem. take the stadler example. obviously one can not build a stance but is laying a towel down so you don’t get your trousers dirty consitute that infraction. and since you can repair ball marks on a green what constitutes that. one that was today or one that was made a week ago or maybe is just an irregularity in the surface. my only point is that if these types of rulings are upheld that if i was playing for millions that i wouldn’t even mark the ball on what appears to be the putting green without getting an official ruling. and then we will have twelve hour rounds.
I think Dio already made this point, but I’ll just follow up on this. Basically, there is no instant replay in golf. The rules are that if you do x, y or z you take a stroke (or two) penalty. If the officials determine that you did x, y, or z and then sign your card without incorporating the penalty, you are DQ’d. The rules of golf don’t really care how the officials determine if you did x, y or z.
Funny. Sad, but funny.
But then it’s much more important to make sure those who come in 1st, 2nd etc. are playing by the rules than those who come in 30th, 31st, … It’s a bit like only testing the winning (and placing and showing) horses for drugs .
Professionals have the obligation to know the rules of whatever they do. That’s why they’re professionals. If one of them knows the rule but ignores it or breaks it purposely, that’s the definition of being “unprofessional.” Inkster did the right thing and acted professionally. She admitted it, apologized, and moved on. Regardless of how she got caught, she did the right thing.
Now whether the rule itself is stupid and needs to be changed is a different story. But imagine if some golfer actually tried to cheat and get away with it?