Referee Of Sergio-Fowler Match Elaborates

Thanks to reader Patrick for sending in Dale Jackson's excellent roundup of his referree duties during last week's WGC Match Play match between Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia.

He explains the situation with the bees in which Garcia was well-within his right to ask for relief, and then tries to make sense of the strange concession by Sergio. Jackson comes away impressed by both players:

It quickly became clear that both Sergio and Ricky had made use of Rule 2-4, which sets, in part, “A player may concede his opponent’s next stroke at any time, provided the opponent’s ball is at rest.”  In language most golfers are used to, they had agreed their putts were “good for good”.  It was a very unusual move by Sergio to concede Ricky’s lengthy putt but he stated afterword he felt the bee incident on the previous hole had not been fair to Ricky who had a makable birdie putt that he missed.  The concessions by both players was sportsmanship of the highest level and it was consistent with how they conducted themselves throughout the match.  They were complementary of each other’s shots, seemed to enjoy each other’s company but played a hard fought and well played  match.

Update on 2014-02-26 04:43 by Geoff

**Meanwhile Golfweek Staff reports that Sergio would have given Rickie the putt if it were a Ryder Cup, too. Paging Captain Paul McGinley!

Elkington Keeping PGA Tour Fines Department In Business!

Lost in the outrage over Steve Elkington's latest distasteful Tweet is the job-creating work he's doing by keeping someone at 100 PGA Tour Boulevard gainfully employed to read these missives and report to Commissioner Fine'em Up!

Luke Kerr-Dineen on Elkington's latest conduct unbecoming moment on Twitter, which is pretty sad even for Elkington's twisted sense of social media. Ryan Lavner with the roundup of past conducts unbecoming, all raising an undisclosed amount for charity because of course, the PGA Tour does not disclose fines. But Elkington is a PGA Tour member, however, and it's a safe bet he's getting some money deducted from the account for these Tweets.

The offending Tweet, since deleted:

 ESPN's Jeff MacGregor with the best comeback:

A handbag-throwing joke FROM A MAN WHO PAYS ANOTHER MAN TO LIFT HIS GOLF BAG.

— Jeff MacGregor (@MacGregorESPN) February 25, 2014

Update on 2014-02-25 20:26 by Geoff

**Elkington has since Tweeted an explanation of his issue with ESPN's coverage:

It goes back to "a ball hit an oriental spectator".There's no oriental spectators..There just spectators.."like m Sam...He's just an athlete

— Steve Elkington (@elkpga) February 25, 2014

Update on 2014-02-26 06:31 by Geoff

**Jason Sobel takes on Elkington and says Tweeting has tarnished the legacy of a major champion with one of the all-time great swings.

There’s a good chance that if Elkington had never clicked the button to sign up for a Twitter account years ago, he’d be remembered for that buttery golf swing that earned him the 1995 PGA Championship title and nine other PGA Tour victories in a career that spanned parts of four decades.
That’s the beauty – and ugliness – of social media.

There’s another beauty to this whole story, though. Unlike in a news conference setting at a tournament, we can all just choose to ignore him.