A WD "Epidemic"?

That's what one player vented to Jason Sobel after Dustin Johnson departed the Shell Houston Open on Thursday.

Of course, we've known there was already a WD epic at US Open and Open Championship qualifiers, but now that culture of quitting for reasons unknown might be coming to the tour too? Or has it been more of a high profile player WDfest that's gotten our attention.

From Sobel and the player who raised the issue with him:

“I guess when anybody shoots 80 now,” he said, “they can WD and come up with an excuse or an injury.”

This player quickly followed by insisting he didn’t know anything about Johnson’s possible injury/illness status. He wasn’t implicating him as part of any ploy to simply take his ball and go home, cutting his losses after a round that included two double-bogeys on his first four holes, a quintuple-bogey on the sixth and a career-worst front-nine 43.

He did, however, point out that this strategy is part of an ongoing epidemic. In fact, he even used that exact word. Epidemic. So did another player via text message, independent of the first.

The message was evident: There is a large faction of players who are dubious of a few of their well-known peers.

Sobel explains the policy, which requires a valid medical excuse if a player leaves during the round (like Rory and his wisdom tooth!). But no excuse if they turn in their card. Sobel had previously written about the world ranking component in this, as it related to Rory. These WD's are treated as a missed cut.