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Family and Friends is my everyday journal. Captain's Log is where I pontificate on religion and politics.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Tiger Woods Compromise

Tiger Woods had a bad 15th hole on day two of the Masters. The best I can figure this is what happened: His approach shot hit the flag stick and bounced into a water hazzard. He then had three choices A. hit from the drop zone B. rehit from his original spot or C. In a straight line from where the ball entered the water on the other side of the hazzard he could drop as far back as he wants. He didn't like the drop zone saying the grain of the grass was against him and it was soggy, so he dropped a couple of yards behind the drop zone.
He suffered a bogey on the hole and no one whether tournament officials or news commentators thought anything was wrong with his drop. He finished the round, signed his scorecard and by end of play the officials verified all scores as official and that should have been the end of it. In my humble opinion.
Enter some pinhead who calls the tournament officials overnight to basically say Tiger couldn't, according to the rules, drop from behind the drop zone and that when he signed the scorecard without a 2 stroke penalty the card is inaccurate and he should be disqualified.
Purists would say the rules are the rules and that's that. Well there are loopholes for every rule in golf. Or should I say compromise rules.
I'm a different kind of purist which says the rules should be overseen by officials in real time like just about every other sport. Some pinhead watching on TV may see a guy throw the first punch which starts a fight in a football game or basketball game, but the official only saw the retaliation and player 2 gets the flag or foul. You don't after the game is over and score is official then say oops someone watching the game on TV says that was a penalty on the other team and they should lose the game. There would be riots in the streets of the team shafted by such a ruling.
So there are two sides here: Side A says he broke a rule and should be penalized even if it is over twelve hours since play ended and the card was ruled official by end of play. Side B says once all scores are ruled official they're set in stone and can't be changed even if some pinhead using HDTV and a pause button is technically correct.
Enter the compromise HDTV rule, which says Tiger is not disqualified, but does have to accept the two stroke penalty. That turns hole 15 from a bogey to a triple bogey. That's tough, but better than being disqualified and losing whatever money he's going to collect at the end of the tournament.
Side A fusses because he should be disqualified for signing an inaccurate scorecard.
Side B fusses because the score was ruled official by the end of play and should stay as recorded, no delayed penalty.
As with all compromises both sides get a little of what they want and aren't happy because they didn't get all that they want. But it is a practical solution to stop the argument and get on with playing the game.

On a later broadcast the information I had was incorrect (surprise surprise) Tiger took a drop at the original spot saying he stepped back two yards. On picture evidence using divot marks he was only a few inches off from the original mark- so the two stroke penalty was assessed because he opened up his big mouth and shot it off without thinking.

4 comments:

One Fly said...

The PGA should be penalized! They do little for the average hack and also even less for those who work in the business.

Unknown said...

This was an interesting look at things, P. M. One bright side to this is that should it happen again to anyone else, there will be a precedent for handling it. I'm no expert on golf, but the men competing with Tiger Woods wanted him to remain in the game.

P M Prescott said...

One Fly, so true. They desperately need to simplify the rules.

P M Prescott said...

Michael, because it happened to Tiger it will be remembered, if it was someone else it would be forgotten by all but the rabid fans in a year.