Ex PM Gordon Brown: Royal And Ancient's Position An "unacceptable blot on Scotland's traditions of justice for all."

That's what Gordon Brown was quoted as saying by the Scottish Daily Record in a speech at the Scottish parliament festival of politics in Edinburgh Friday.

The Guardian's Severin Carrell also had this quote:

"If the golf club in Augusta can admit women, then shouldn't St Andrews? If they can do it in South Carolina, can we not do it in Scotland?" 

South Carolina, Georgia-schmeorgia. We know what you meant. Those bastions of progressivism to all kind of bleed together.

Scottish Gov Rep Reiterates Call On End To Male-Only Clubs

They've said it before and post-Augusta, they've made the call again, this time from Shona Robison, the Minister for Sport. From an unbylined Star story:

"The First Minister is on record in saying that all clubs should be open to women members but then there is nothing we can do to force them," said Robison.

"However the direction of travel now is clearly to admit both men and women members and hopefully we will see an end to not allowing women to become members."

“To hold otherwise would be to turn federal judges into referees for a game in which they have no place, and about which they know little.”

Thanks to reader Jim for noticing Judge Sam Sparks' ruling in the Lance Armstrong case, as quoted in Juliet Macur's story.

USGA legal might want to take note of this:

Judge Sam Sparks of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, in Austin, who acknowledged that the case had “troubling aspects,” said that the United States courts should not be involved because the antidoping agency’s arbitration rules were robust enough to deal with the matter. He also said Armstrong had agreed to be governed by those rules when he signed for his cycling license.

“Federal courts should not interfere with an amateur sports organization’s disciplinary procedures unless the organization shows wanton disregard for its rules, to the immediate and irreparable harm of a plaintiff, where the plaintiff has no other available remedy,” Sparks said in his ruling. “To hold otherwise would be to turn federal judges into referees for a game in which they have no place, and about which they know little.”

A PDF of the entire ruling is here.

Lawyers and those who think they are, thoughts?

Rulings Roundup, Open Championship Edition

There is an unbylined piece posted by the R&A analyzing the 339 rules incidents handled by the "international team of referees" at the 2012 Open Championship, with a numerical breakdown of the Rules situations that arose.

I'm not sure why I found this surprising considering the severity of the rough, but it did sound like a lot of unplayables:

One of the most commonly used Rules in golf is the unplayable ball Rule (Rule 28).  In total, 32 unplayable ball rulings were dealt with at the Championship, including Phil Mickelson’s drop after he found the deep rough above a bunker on the 8th hole. Click here to read more.

The weather, of course, can have a big impact on the Rules and 2012 was no exception.  Due to the unusually wet weather that Britain has experienced this summer and, in particular, following a heavy rainfall on the Thursday night of the Championship, no less than 58 casual water rulings were overseen by referees.  Of these, 37 related to casual water in a bunker where Rule 25-1b(ii) was applied. Click here to read more.

Rule Violation Files: R&A's Boys Amateur Championship

There's just so much to love in this R&A press release, starting with the special notation for the Scots in the quarters, and spiraling from there!

SCOTS PAIR REACH THE QUARTER FINALS OF THE BOYS AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

17 August 2012, Nottingham, England: Scotland’s Alasdair McDougall claimed two fine wins on his way to battling through to the quarter finals of the 86th Boys Amateur Championship at Notts (Hollinwell) Golf Club near Mansfield.

The diminutive 17 year-old international

Diminutive is so much better than the alternatives...so go on...

from Elderslie defeated leading qualifier, Romain Langasque from France, by 2 & 1 in the third round and then dispatched Italian Renato Paratore, winner of the recent European Young Masters tournament in Hungary, by one hole in an engrossing fourth round match.

McDougall, who represented Scotland in last week’s Boys’ Home Internationals at Co. Louth, will face Championship favourite, Austrian Matthias Schwab, losing finalist in this year’s Amateur Championship, in tomorrow’s first quarter final match.

The Scot will be joined in the last eight by his compatriot, Jamie Savage, who also won twice on a blustery day marred by intermittent showers. The 17 year-old from Cawder, who turns 18 next week, gave himself an early birthday present when he defeated James Rooney from West Lancs by 2 holes in the morning and then beat Liam Cox, from Burhill, by 3 & 2 in the fourth round.

Earlier in the day, Cox had been awarded his third round tie after his opponent, Adam Chapman from Windermere, was disqualified for contravening the Championship’s policy governing the use of distance measuring devices.

He contravened the championship! It sounds like he smuggled in drugs. Well, almost. And there's more...

McDougall arrived in Robin Hood country fresh from scoring 2 ½ points out of 5 for Scotland in last week’s Boys’ Home Internationals in Ireland and he was quickly in command against his impressive 17 year-old opponent from Rome.

The Scot won three out of the first four holes and was still three ahead when Paratore reduced the deficit with a birdie from 10-feet on the 414-yard par-4 10th. The Scot then lost both the 14th and the 15th to pars before sealing the match in somewhat bizarre circumstances down the last where he secured a par four after his opponent had been penalised one stroke for picking his ball up in the rough.

I'm guessing attending a rules seminar wouldn't have helped these lads much.

The First Nagging Question From the '12 Open: Will This Win Eventually Have An Asterisk Next To It?

I don't want to rain on Ernie's parade, but this was a question brought up by my colleague John Huggan when we thought Adam Scott would win and make it three of the last four majors claimed by a player anchoring a putter against their torso.

A major is a major, and I would contend Barry Bonds was facing fellow steroid users when there was no drug testing, so no asterisk. And Ernie has won the Open along with two U.S. Opens with a traditional stroke, so his credentials are hardly suspect.

Still, with all the talk of a rule change, a career resurrected admittedly by an act of "cheating" in Ernie's view and the increasing likelihood that we may see something happen by 2016, will this and other recent wins be viewed differently by history because the winners used a non-stroke stroke?

Loopers Lashing Out: "The R&A are sipping their gin and tonics in the clubhouse and we’re having to pay full price to get our wives in."

Charles Sale talks to caddies who are in a rage over having to use Strokesaver yardage guides and the R&A's ticket policy.

Mick Donaghy, caddie for Jamie Donaldson who was two under par after the first round, said: ‘The way we’re treated here is nothing short of a disgrace. The R&A are sipping their gin and tonics in the clubhouse and we’re having to pay full price to get our wives in. The other golf organisations give us proper respect, but that’s never been the case at The Open.’

Dave Clark, who carries Vijay Singh’s clubs, said: ‘There’s still a stigma around caddies. We’re regarded as the lowest of the low. Surely we shouldn’t have to rely on the players to help us out with passes all the time.’

R&A chief executive Peter Dawson countered: ‘Our pass policy is generous and caddies have a fantastic time here.’

Always smoothing things over, Peter is!

Flashback: Contrasting R&A And PGA Tour Slow Play Stances

The R&A's Jim McArthur yesterday. Well worth reading again:

I have to say to you, we are intent on doing what we can to improve the pace of play in golf.  I mean, I think we feel that particularly maybe not so much at professional golf but certainly amateur golf that slow play is, in some ways, if not killing the game, is killing the club membership because of the time it takes to play.  And whatever we can do in our events, and bear in mind that we are not seeing the players week in, week out.  We see them two or three times a year, professionals once a year, amateurs two or three times a year, we're doing whatever we feel we can in the circumstances to contribute to improving the pace of play.

But it needs to be a concerted effort, not just the R&A, not just the Tours, but the golf unions and other golf organisations to, I think, come to a coordinated effort to improve the speed.

And I think we should ‑‑ personally I think we should be aiming in club amateur golf for three and a half hours maximum for a threeball, perhaps elite amateur four hours.  These should be maximum times, and we should be trying to improve these at all times.

Tim Finchem in May at The Players, talking about how the PGA Tour is a different beast than the everyday game: 

Anything we can do from‑‑ we reach all of the fans.  Anything we can do from a communications standpoint to encourage people playing faster, we will do.  But clubs have got to take the initiative to drive play, and the average player has got to take the initiative and say, guys, let's go out here and play in three hours and 45 minutes, and that doesn't happen too many places.

So if I'm watching‑‑ I'm giving you a long answer, but I've been talking about this for a long time.  If I'm watching a PGA TOUR player, and I'm going to go through the same pre‑shot routine that that player takes, and he's hitting it 69 times and I'm hitting it 93, I'm going to be playing a lot longer than that guy.  So it's a different game from that perspective.

At least one of the Five Families talks a good game.