Governing Bodies Must Act To Protect The Viewer At Home!

Forget Padraig, we need the rule changed on scorecard DQ's to protect the viewers at home who have been called every name in the book after the latest call-in violation.

Thankfully, most of the scribes (but not the players!) cooled off after their initial tweets over the sheer horror of a viewer pointing out a violation. Eventually they directed their emotions at the DQ rule the USGA and R&A refuse to rethink in the age of HD, DVR's and the Internet.

Lawrence Donegan in the Guardian:

Apparently, the R&A believes that the scorecard, once it is signed, it a sacred document, one that cannot be revisited. How quaint. How ridiculous. Dumber than carrots? You bet.

Here's what should have happened to Harrington – and here's what will happen once common sense prevails. He should have been assessed a two-shot penalty, he should have been allowed to "re-sign" his scorecard, this time for a 67, and he should have been allowed to go out and spend his weekend trying to win the Abu Dhabi Championship.

Alistair Tait reports that even the senior referee hates the rule.

“The problem I see is, the innocent penalty escalates very quickly from two strokes to disqualification,” said Andy McFee, the European Tour senior referee who disqualified Harrington. “I don’t like that. I really don’t like that.”

John Huggan quotes McFee as suggesting the topic is still under discussion, even though the USGA's Mike Davis made it sound as if it was off the table.

"One of the things currently being discussed with the R&A is how we penalize players for breaches that are evident only with the use of slow-mo technology," continued McFee. "We may well get to a position where, if the player couldn't know he had breached a rule, we could apply the relevant penalty by 'reopening' the card."
 
 Let's hope that day isn't too far off.

Paul Mahoney quotes Graeme McDowell, who also got a little carried away attacking the viewer before recovering in his typically intelligent fashion:

"Too much time on his hands," he said. "TV viewers are important to us, and high-definition and 3D and slow mo add to the experience of watching golf on TV. But we are under scrutiny to the nth degree. And 95 per cent of the field don't have to deal with that, only the five per cent that are on TV. We need to take a serious look at the Rules of Golf and make sure that, yeah, they are protecting people, but we need to have a look at some of these fiddly little pernickety stupid little rules. It's just not great for the game. Common sense has got to take over trial by TV and all this stuff."