Fan involvement in golf is normally viewed as a positive thing by the powers that be. After all, the more interest in the game, the better.
But the opening month of 2011 competition on the world’s major tours has demonstrated, once again, that sometimes fan participation can lead to controversial outcomes.
The disqualification of Camilo Villegas at the PGA Tour’s Hyundai Tournament of Champions, and of Padraig Harrington at last week’s European Tour Abu Dhabi Championship — both as a result of TV viewers notifying tournament officials of rules infractions — has prompted a re-examination of this phenomenon.
There’s nothing new about these incidents. In fact, coincidentally, one of the most memorable such occurrences took place at the predecessor to this week’s PGA Tour event, and it involved a current resident of Colorado.
In 1987 at the Andy Williams Open in San Diego, Craig Stadler, who now lives in Evergreen, hit a shot in the third round that lives with him to this day. In deciding to play the shot from his knees due to his ball’s proximity to a tree, Stadler put down a towel to avoid kneeling on damp grass. The Walrus went on to complete the third round, and the final round as well, apparently finishing second in the tournament. But a TV viewer questioned whether Stadler had built a stance with his towel in round 3, and because Stadler hadn’t penalized himself for the rules violation, he was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.
A number of other tour players — including Paul Azinger (1991) and Juli Inkster (2010) — have subsequently been disqualified by viewers similarly notifying tournament officials about inadvertent rules infractions.
Ed Mate and Robin Jervey, executive directors of the CGA and CWGA, respectively, are both respected rules officials — having served in that capacity at major championships, in fact. Both were recently asked to weigh in on armchair rules officials and the recent hubbub they’ve caused.
But first, a brief review of the cases of Villegas and Harrington, who both were DQ’d a day after their rules violation was reported by viewers.
In the opening round of the Tournament of Champions, Villegas was on the Golf Channel when a chip shot did not get over a hill and his ball rolled back toward him. With the ball still moving, he swatted away some lose impediments, violating Rule 23-1. A TV viewer from Daytona Beach, Fla., noted the infraction and eventually reached Tour officials. Villegas viewed a tape of the incident the next day and was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard, having failed to add a two-stroke penalty to his first-round score.
As for Harrington, his 65 in the first round of last week’s Abu Dhabi Championship went for naught as a TV viewer e-mailed in to say that the Irishman had moved his ball with his hand — ever so slightly — as he removed his ball mark on a green. Because the ball was not replaced, Harrington should have taken a two-stroke penalty, but since he didn’t, he too was DQ’d for signing an incorrect scorecard.
“It’s an unintended consequence of televised golf,” said Jervey, a rules official at the Masters who made a televised ruling for Matt Kuchar during last spring’s tournament at Augusta National. Tournament officials are “responsible for acting on any information they receive, and it never says where the information can come from. So how can you not act on the information?
“The part I don’t like is the delay because of TV. That’s unfortunate, but you can’t ignore it if people report it.”
For his part, while Mate isn’t particularly enamored by the way these situations play out, he doesn’t have any major issue with viewers reporting possible rules violations.
“I don’t lose any sleep over it,” he said. “I feel good that people are watching and that they’re knowledgeable enough to call.”
Mate is far more concerned with the best players in the world and their sometimes-marginal knowledge of the Rules of Golf.
“I find it interesting when something like this happens that apologies are made for people not knowing the rules,” he said. “The real focus should be on players who should know the rules. There’s sometimes an incredible lack of understanding of the rules.”
In the cases this month, Mate indicated he has no sympathy for Villegas because his ruling was so clear-cut. But Mate might give Harrington some slack because he may have been a victim of technology — in his case, high-zoom, slow-motion, high-definition cameras. That technology revealed that Harrington’s ball oscillated slightly and perhaps moved when he accidentally touched it. If it moved, it must be replaced, and because Harrington didn’t replace it (he thought at the time that the ball ended up in the same position as it was originally), he should have incurred a two-stroke penalty. Because he didn’t add those two strokes before signing his scorecard, he was DQ’d.
After examining the replays, Harrington said the ball “moved maybe three dimples forward and maybe one dimple back.”
“Under that kind of lens, it probably happens a fair amount where a ball may move from dimple 310 to 311,” Mate said. “What bothered me is that people are held to that level. I would have asked Padraig, “˜Did you see the ball move?’ Now, if it rolls over a half-rotation, that’s different. In that case, the benefit of the doubt wouldn’t go to the player.
“You have to consider the evidence in the case of Harrington. The magnitude of the lens should be considered. A movement (on a high-tech TV camera) maybe couldn”˜t be perceived (by the naked eye).”
Another issue is that in both the case of Harrington and Villegas, they were disqualified because it wasn’t brought to their attention before they signed their scorecard. Had they known beforehand, they could have added a two-stroke penalty but not been DQ’d.
PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem is concerned enough about this whole issue that he plans to talk to the USGA Executive Committee about it next week. The USGA and the R&A are responsible for the Rules of Golf.
“I would hope that we could have a global conversation about the rule and certainly the penalty that is attached to it, because it obviously troubles a lot of people in terms of how it shakes out from time to time,” Finchem said.
For Stadler’s part, it should come as no surprise that he’s no fan of TV viewers reporting rules violations.
As he told Golf.com several years ago, “I don’t agree with that (practice). We police ourselves just fine.”
