Dustin Johnson and Intent**

One reason the Dustin Johnson penalty is not sitting well: he did not test the sand in the bunker. He did not intend to violate the rule. That said, he violated the rule. No question. But in a few well-known cases of late, rules officials have allowed intent to influence their decision to not penalize a player. Rory McIlroy kicking sand at the Masters and Kenny Perry mashing down rough behind his ball in Phoenix come to mind. (There is an old post with stellar comments well worth going back and reading for those interested in the intent debate, including one by Tom Kirkendall that will make you giggle at its prescience.)

While I understand the rule in question and the violation by Johnson, why isn't intent allowed to play a role here? After all, the only reason we know about this incident is because it happened on camera. The walking rules official did not see the violation happen and Johnson was not going to call a penalty on himself because he didn't realize he committed one. Had this happened Thursday off camera, no penalty would likely have been incurred. So since we have the addition of cameras, tape and viewers calling in, leading to penalties like this, shouldn't the rules also allow for that tape to take intent into account? It seems that precedent has already been set with the statements in the McIlroy and Perry episodes? No?

Rules gurus, please set me straight!

Update on 2010-08-18 03:17 by Geoff

**There's a nice response from John Vander Borght on his blog to the intent question.

"The point of the notice was to say that you wouldn't get a free drop."

I think we've all conceded that Dustin Johnson is at fault for this untimely PGA Championship mistake, but many elements clearly aren't sitting well based on the comments in earlier posts. (And by the way, so many great insights on both sides of the aisles, thanks for all of the thoughtful posts).

One of those posts comes from reader Ted Purdy, who responded on the Frank Hannigan thread about the wording of the PGA's notice, which was wheeled out as clear evidence that Johnson should have read it and therefore, he would not have made the mistake he made on 18. (Though if he didn't think it was a bunker, the notice is irrelevant as he is not going to ground his club in a bunker at any golf course.)

But as Ted notes, the supplementary local rule pertained to the lie and possible relief you would get in a bunker, not in actually determining which of the sandy pits at Whistling Straits was a hazard and what wasn't. Purdy writes:

The purpose of the local rule was not to say that all sandy areas constituted a hazard but to inform players that no relief would be granted to players for footprints, tire tracks or other "irregularities of surface" in a hazard. To say that it provided clear notice to all players that all sandy areas on the course would be considered hazards is misleading at best. The point of the notice was to say that you wouldn't get a free drop.

I disagree that the notice was created to define what would be considered a hazard, and the attempt by the PGA to use a notice worded as that one was to justify its decision to call the place where several hundreds of people were standing throughout the whole episode a bunker, is laughable.

Indeed, Purdy appears correct if you re-read the notice with that view in mind:

1. Bunkers: All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked. This will mean that many bunkers positioned outside of the ropes, as well as some areas of bunkers inside the ropes, close to the rope line, will likely include numerous footprints, heel prints and tire tracks during the play of the Championship. Such irregularities of surface are a part of the game and no free relief will be available from these conditions.

Again, Johnson made an enormous mistake and could have avoided his fate by simply slowing things down (God bless him for being a fast player!), asking Price what his options were, and getting a reminder not to ground his club. But as Purdy notes, the notice wasn't as clear as some have suggested.

This is one more reason why I believe the ultimate loser in this affair will not be the PGA, Dustin Johnson or even Whistling Straits, but instead, a growing hostility toward the complicated, unwieldy Rules of Golf.

Moral Of This Story: Don't Be So Quick To Pick Up Your Provisional

Nancy Amour on Mark Calcaveccia's nine Saturday:

Calcavecchia's drive landed in a bunker, and he had to play out sideways. His third shot, from the fairway, sailed right and disappeared into the gorse. Thinking the ball was lost, Calcavecchia played a provisional and then went to search for the first ball.

Told his ball had been found, Calcavecchia picked up the provisional. But then he discovered the found ball wasn't his, and he wasn't able to locate it before the five-minute limit expired.

That meant Calcavecchia took the stroke-and-distance penalty (two shots) under the lost-ball rule, and lost another stroke on the penalty for lifting a provisional without authority.

"A signature on a scorecard is an endorsement of integrity, not just a scrawl on the end of a piece of paper."

Colin Byrne details an incident at the Open de Andalucia that led to two DQ's. Not often you hear about this kind of thing...

Borja Etchart from Spain was disqualified from the first round of the Open de Andalucia for failing to add two penalty strokes for playing a ball from a wrong place on two of the last three holes of his round. Which, reading between the lines, would suggest that he was replacing his ball on the greens in a “careless” manner on previous occasions too.

If you see a playing partner doing something inappropriate on the course you have a duty to take action. The trouble is that, as a competitor, accusing a fellow player of incorrect actions will probably lead to some discussion and maybe a little bad feeling. As we all know, the game is difficult enough without any such contretemps. The right thing to do is take action. The easiest and wrong thing to do is ignore an action by a fellow competitor that you know is wrong. You are protecting yourself, your fellow competitors and the integrity of the game.

Etchart’s playing partners were Andrew Coltart and Erik Tage Johansen. The Norwegian, Johansen, was marking the accused’s card. Coltart and Johansen reported to the tournament committee after the scorecards had been returned that they had seen Borja incorrectly replace his ball on the 16th and 18th greens.


Improved Lie?

Thanks to reader Aleid for pointing out that the replay of Richie Ramsay's incident during Saturday's Wales Open is now posted. 

Update on 2009-06-10 17:01 by Geoff

Reader Manny wrote in to point out that they were playing lift, clean and place, so for those of you who subscribe to that as a form of cheating, then perhaps your take on Ramsay might be more lenient.

"What I saw was very strange, very strange indeed."

Since there was so much complaining about coverage of Kenny Perry's FBR Open pre-shot routine, and since there is no video posted (yet), I've held off posting something on Richie Ramsay's rules incident Saturday. I had hoped video would be posted now, but we'll just have to rely on the accounts until someone at Sky puts it up on YouTube.

Here's a straightforward AP story, a more titillating tabloid report from Jim Black quoting rules official John Paramor.

Also, Mike Aitken reminds us that Ramsay has had other run-ins with the rules.

And I don't quite understand Douglas Lowe's logic here.

Let's make one thing clear: Richie Ramsay's integrity is not under question. He is an honest broker of the fairways and, yes, I would buy a second-hand car from him. A question mark, however, does hang over his knowledge of the rules of golf and, as they say in the best of legal circles, ignorance of the law is no excuse.

This Norman Dabell story recounts how the day after the incident in question, Ramsay did receive a one shot penalty for another violation.

"People like to bring up dirty laundry, I guess."

Bob Verdi writes about Kenny Perry's first remarks about the FBR Open incident.

Kenny Perry looks as though he has lost no sleep whatsoever over a "controversy" concerning an "incident" surrounding his victory at the FBR Open last February. In fact, he's somewhat puzzled that people are talking about it without talking to him.

Now I was out all day so I had only seen Verdi's take thanks to the readers who emailed the link to Bob's story. Only later did I read the transcript and the combination of Verdi's observation with the transcript probably won't make this go away.

Now, I know it's a bit unfair to Perry since there wasn't much he could say at this point that would help make the video more palatable. And it's perhaps unfair to parse his words from a transcript since the tone may have been tough to grasp, but sheesh, this is rough...

Q. Kenny, I know you talked about this earlier this morning. What do you suppose this playoff wedge thing from Phoenix has taken on such a life of its own on the Internet? I don't know that I've heard you talk about it. I was wondering what your take on all that is and why it won't go away.

KENNY PERRY: Well, I mean, I said the truth will set you free. I looked at it, and I thought it was crazy, my first impression.

I went to Charlie Hoffman, and I asked Charlie. Charlie, do you have a problem with it? That would be the only guy, if he had a problem with it, it would have really upset me, if he thought something was done wrong there.

You know, doesn't that mentality speak directly to something I wondered about recently: self policing gone awry to the point that the opinion of one's fellow competitors supersedes the Rules of Golf?

He said that's crazy. You didn't do nothing wrong. Patted me on the back. And saw the Tour came out -- I wasn't in the closed door. The Tour went in. I wasn't with the Tour staff when they made their -- they shot back with their remark saying, we saw nothing wrong. I mean, I just let it go.

That's life, isn't it? People like to bring up dirty laundry, I guess.

How is it dirty laundry if it is clearly not a violation?

Q. You were just trying to figure out how high the grass was and where the crowd was?

KENNY PERRY: You're allowed to.

To figure out how high the grass is? No kidding?

You're able to sole your club. Did you watch it? Did you actually watch that last hole?

Q. Everybody has seen it.

KENNY PERRY: I soled my club on the ball. Did you watch me sole it left of the golf ball? Then I went and hit the shot.

I don't think that quite describes how things transpired.

When you're in the rough, you just need to find the bottom so you can figure out how high the ball is sitting up in rough.

Find the bottom with about many stabs of the fire stoker? Sorry, here's the close up.

Q. You kind of hit a chunky running shot out of there anyway.

Oh, so the shot was lousy, therefore whatever precipitated didn't matter?

It wasn't like you hit some spinner that stuck it a foot from the hole, right?

KENNY PERRY: I hit it 25 feet from the hole. It's not like I hit a great shot. I mean, I don't know. What do you all think? Someone brings something up four months down the road. I didn't understand. We're going to go looking in the archives of all the players who have been on TV and see what they've done? I didn't understand that part of it.

That is a fair point that no one has been able to answer. Then again, the Super Bowl had started, so we now know just how many people were watching golf.

I've got a camera guy five feet behind me. He's right there looking. I turned around and looked at him.

If I thought I was doing something wrong, I definitely wouldn't have done it there.

Scribblers in attendance, did Kenny leave behind a large hole and a mound of dirt next to the podium?

Once that was -- I didn't hear nothing about it after that. There was nothing else said. So I just assumed it was dead. not after this press conference!

Q. When was this brought to your attention?

KENNY PERRY: When I finished the Sunday round at the Players. They came and told me about it. I was just stunned.

Q. Did they just walk up to you and say, by the way, you didn't cheat?

KENNY PERRY: No. They said you're going to have to answer some questions about this video. I didn't quite understand.

Rick George came and talked to me. And then I met with Alex Miceli. He was out there. And talked about have you heard anything about this video? Which I didn't know.

And then the Tour came out with their saying there was nothing been done wrong here.

After this press conference? Maybe not.