ANA - LPGA Penalty on Lexi Thompson

[BD80]

Thanks.

To me there are two levels of stupid happening here.

Level 1, which was discussed above, is the notion that fans at home can identify penalties and get the official pro sports organization to enforce them. It is pretty crazy, but there is a long golf tradition of that. I truly think there can be a reasonable debate about the merits of whether that makes sense.

But level 2 is the additional penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard. That is the one that makes no sense at all to me. At the time the scorecard was signed, everyone (except one loser at home) thought it was correct. There was no effort to conceal or cheat in the scorecard signing. To add a second harsh penalty for an improper scorecard is just insane. That is the part that I think goes beyond the scope of a debate. How can anyone defend that rule?

To put it in basketball terms: There are less than 2 minutes left in a college hoops game. Billy Basketballer is racing along the baseline in a tie game. He dishes a dazzling pass to Daryl Dunker who slams it through and gets fouled on the play. But, the officials go to the monitors and see that Billy touched the out of bounds line as he was dribbling along the baseline. As a result, the 2 points Daryl just scored are wiped out... but the officials also deem that by continuing to play after stepping out Billy committed a delay of game technical foul. They award 2 free throws and the ball to the opposing team and the technical is Billy's 5th foul so he is disqualified.

That's about how insane this scorecard stuff is... except the penalty is muuuuch bigger. It is like awarding 10 free throws, not 2.

-Jason "stupid, stupid, stupid... I can't wait until this someday happens in a men's major... the outrage will really get good when that happens" Evans

Does Duke have a shot in the recruitment of Billy or Daryl? Where are they ranked? Are they in the first round at DraftExpress for 2018 or 2019? Can they play defense?

[jaytoc]

To supplement Trippin's report, one of the points being made last night by Chamblee et al was that golf is one of the few, if only, games that has more than one ball/puck/shuttlecock etc. in play at one time. With as many as 70 players on course, heretofore it has been considered impossible, even were it advisable, to have rules officials observing and overseeing every action undertaken in the field. And, presumably, in addition to self-policing, that brings the armchair official aspect into play, as well.

I'm okay with the penalty, if somewhat troubled by the process. I agree that the additional two strokes makes little sense. As far as whether this incident regrettably resulted in an American losing a major, while I respect that view, I suppose, my interest is in great golf being played by good sports- men and women, regardless of their nationality.

On a related front, I've become a Lexi fan since watching this play out Sunday night (even though Lydia remains my favorite).

[camion]

To supplement Trippin's report, one of the points being made last night by Chamblee et al was that golf is one of the few, if only, games that has more than one ball/puck/shuttlecock etc. in play at one time. With as many as 70 players on course, heretofore it has been considered impossible, even were it advisable, to have rules officials observing and overseeing every action undertaken in the field. And, presumably, in addition to self-policing, that brings the armchair official aspect into play, as well.

I'm okay with the penalty, if somewhat troubled by the process. I agree that the additional two strokes makes little sense. As far as whether this incident regrettably resulted in an American losing a major, while I respect that view, I suppose, my interest is in great golf being played by good sports- men and women, regardless of their nationality.

On a related front, I've become a Lexi fan since watching this play out Sunday night (even though Lydia remains my favorite).

Hypothetically, if I disliked a certain golfer (let's call this person Grayson) would it be okay for me to follow this golfer and video their tournament rounds, pointing out any rules violations Grayson might commit?

[gus]

-Jason "stupid, stupid, stupid... I can't wait until this someday happens in a men's major... the outrage will really get good when that happens" Evans

Maybe like Tiger Woods at the Masters? He was saved from a DQ because the call got in before he signed his card. It's happened to a few other players too. Harrington was DQ'd for moving a replaced ball such a minor amount, that it was only visible on HD TVs.

[mr. synellinden]

He says almost everyone marks their ball incorrectly from time to time, and some take more liberty than others.

PM.jpg

[Newton_14]

Once a day is done, it's done. It's bad enough to penalize her after the fact for a minor (but real) infraction, but it's worse to penalize her for the scorecard error when no one at the course knew it happened until the USGA checked it's e-mail.

If you are going to allow callers and e-mailers to be rules officials, you have to have a point where a score becomes concrete. If the sanctioning organization can't make a ruling prior to the start of the next round, at least the scorecard penalty, if not the whole thing, should be waived

What about all the players who did not have every shot shown on TV? What if they unintentionally broke a rule? What about the winner? Did the winner have everyone of her shots shown on TV?

The whole thing is freaking ridiculous and only in America do we do idiotic things like this.

1. Lexi should have said screw you and walked away right then
2. The "winner" should have done the right thing and lost the playoff hole on purpose.

[dudog84]

To supplement Trippin's report, one of the points being made last night by Chamblee et al was that golf is one of the few, if only, games that has more than one ball/puck/shuttlecock etc. in play at one time. With as many as 70 players on course, heretofore it has been considered impossible, even were it advisable, to have rules officials observing and overseeing every action undertaken in the field. And, presumably, in addition to self-policing, that brings the armchair official aspect into play, as well.

I'm okay with the penalty, if somewhat troubled by the process. I agree that the additional two strokes makes little sense. As far as whether this incident regrettably resulted in an American losing a major, while I respect that view, I suppose, my interest is in great golf being played by good sports- men and women, regardless of their nationality.

On a related front, I've become a Lexi fan since watching this play out Sunday night (even though Lydia remains my favorite).

I know you are informing and not arguing the point, but not everyone is getting the same coverage on TV. Wouldn't that be the point of fairness? Whatever, it's just ludicrous that a couch potato can affect a major sporting event. 24 hours after the "violation". Stupid.

I would have liked to see the "winner" give the trophy to the true champion, even though it was obviously not her fault so that is not a criticism. I'll save ALL my criticism for the LPGA.

Edit: I see Newton 14 beat me to the same argument.

[SoCalDukeFan]

First of all the winner Ryu did nothing wrong. She played her best and she won. I don't think she should have intentionally lost the playoff and I also doubt if Thompson wanted her to. I also think she should keep the trophy.

Secondly I don't think Thompson should have just walked off the course. She still could have won and almost did. She also has become a lot people's favorites.

The pro tours and the USGA do need to get together tomorrow and adopt a rule such this type of thing never happens again. To start with anything brought up a TV viewer that was not outright cheating or provided a significant advantage would have no standing.

SoCal

[Indoor66]

To start with anything brought up a TV viewer that was not outright cheating or provided a significant advantage would have no standing.

SoCal

Bingo. The entire process\situation is ludicrous.

[killerleft]

First of all the winner Ryu did nothing wrong. She played her best and she won. I don't think she should have intentionally lost the playoff and I also doubt if Thompson wanted her to. I also think she should keep the trophy.

Secondly I don't think Thompson should have just walked off the course. She still could have won and almost did. She also has become a lot people's favorites.

The pro tours and the USGA do need to get together tomorrow and adopt a rule such this type of thing never happens again. To start with anything brought up a TV viewer that was not outright cheating or provided a significant advantage would have no standing.

SoCal

After thinking about it, and finally seeing the mark and re-mark a few minutes ago, I have to agree with Chamblee.

Did she gain an advantage? Not that I could tell. The green was flawless and she was NOT going to miss that putt from either position. But the penalty is there to protect those who follow the rules, and Thompson did not.

The added two strokes IS ridiculous, however. The original penalty is sufficient to cover the infraction.

[Mal]

I agree with everyone that the end result here - golfer who almost undoubtedly innocently made a mistake is assessed a 4 stroke penalty that costs her the tournament, the day after the incident at hand, because a TV viewer called in - feels unjust.

It's helpful to go back and start at the beginning, though, to assess what the real problems are and from where they stem. Because I think at the end of the day, there are a lot of individual components to what happened to Thompson, each of which are minor injustices or feel anachronistic or whatever, but aren't separately enough to justify a huge amount of outrage; it's the collective effect of them cascading on one another that leads to what feels like an overly penal, random injustice. And some of that rests on applying our expectations from other sports to this one.

Golf has always been a sport where players (a) are responsible for their own scoring and (b) need to assess rules violations on themselves. It is unique among all sports in both those regards. That's really out of necessity, though. The nature of the game is individual, rather than head-to-head where another player's actions are in direct response to your own. You play the game by yourself. Think how limiting and ridiculous it would be if you could only head out to the course to play a round if you took a sanctioned referee with you. The rules must be enforced by the player. The only way to ensure fairness in assessment and application, then, is to instill a rock solid culture within the game that creates an expectation of honorable self-enforcement. We can complain about snootiness and insufferability all we want, but golf would be like fishing stories if it weren't for that deeply ingrained culture. I know plenty of amateurs who carry vanity handicaps and pick up from 4 feet and improve their lie if their drive ends up in a divot depression - imagine if the professional ranks looked the other way about that sort of thing. The game would have zero integrity.

Against that backdrop, then, you have a couple of standards/rules that can be problematic in situations like Thompson's, because it sort of creates a Catch 22. The two utmost directives in golf rules in the situation at hand are (i) not placing your ball correctly where it had been marked is a rules violation and a penalty, and (ii) you must call penalties on yourself (on your scorecard which you sign and turn in) or be further penalized, because it's that important to the game's integrity. This all works well enough when the player is aware of a violation. You ground your club in a bunker and feel it, there's no question what's supposed to happen - you're supposed to tell your playing partner and assess a penalty on yourself. If you don't, the penalty doubles if you don't stew in your guilt enough to fix the situation on your scorecard before you turn it in. The problem comes when, like Thompson, a player unknowingly commits an infraction. Their mental innocence causes them to commit an additional infraction by not calling it on themselves. But it's critical to note that the additional two stroke incorrect scorecard penalty is there to allow for the possibility that a violation was innocent and unknown. Otherwise, the old rule of you turn in a wrong score and you're out of the tournament would still prevail. I think we'd all agree that would be even more unjust to Thompson.

As a general matter a rulebook can't distinguish between, allow for different treatment for, or make a judgment call on whether a player knowingly or innocently broke a rule, or got an advantage from doing so. So it has to either go draconian and act on the legal fiction that all violations are intentional/noticed, or risk undermining the backbone of the entire system by allowing players to make their own determination. I think we all know how that would go. And frankly, even if we had impartial judges following every player around a course, it's hard for them to know whether something was intentional or not in most situations. Ergo, there is no difference, as a base matter, between intentional and unintentional rules infractions. Massive can of worms if we start distinguishing. Which can of worms is probably greater than the harm from the occasional perverse result of someone who doesn't even know they committed a violation being punished as much or more than someone who did it on purpose.

As to the calling in issue: imagine a situation where, instead of what Thompson did, some golfer found themselves off in the woods where they didn't see any fans, and used a foot wedge to get out from behind a tree trunk. Blatant, dishonorable behavior. Some fan, however, did see it on TV, as the player was visible in the background while the camera focused on his playing partner hitting, and calls the PGA. Is our response not "They cheated and deserve whatever punishment they get!" Remember, we're in a universe in which, by necessity, (a) we treat all rules violations as equal regarding player intent, and (b) we place a very high value on players calling their own penalties. In that universe it's hard to lay down a bright line about it being OK for a third party to notify officials of a rule violation in one situation but not OK in another. I have to say, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the LPGA head's response on this, which boiled down to: it was a rule violation, what am I supposed to do, pretend it didn't happen? A tree fell in the forest, but someone heard it. Similarly, would we be substantially more sympathetic to the blatant ball mover if officials didn't get an e-mail with a screen capture until the next morning? I mean, they cheated and knowingly signed an incorrect scorecard. Who cares when the penalty comes? Otherwise you're rewarding them for beating the system.

I don't know of a perfect solution for this stuff. I think you can go the route of "Fan input will not be heard" as long as you're comfortable that players can police themselves and one another enough to make the disincentives high enough that you're never in a situation where cheating is seen on TV by millions but there's no penalty assessed because the players and rules officials didn't see it. Or, put enough officials out there that you can justifiably say "Hey, they're gonna miss some things, people" the way you can for a basketball game. The trouble there is that now you've a pro game that's disconnected from the amateur game in that one is effectively policed by players and one by third party officials. I don't think that's a big enough issue to object to it as a solution, though.

[Tripping William]

I agree with everyone that the end result here - golfer who almost undoubtedly innocently made a mistake is assessed a 4 stroke penalty that costs her the tournament, the day after the incident at hand, because a TV viewer called in - feels unjust.

It's helpful to go back and start at the beginning, though, to assess what the real problems are and from where they stem. Because I think at the end of the day, there are a lot of individual components to what happened to Thompson, each of which are minor injustices or feel anachronistic or whatever, but aren't separately enough to justify a huge amount of outrage; it's the collective effect of them cascading on one another that leads to what feels like an overly penal, random injustice. And some of that rests on applying our expectations from other sports to this one.

Golf has always been a sport where players (a) are responsible for their own scoring and (b) need to assess rules violations on themselves. It is unique among all sports in both those regards. That's really out of necessity, though. The nature of the game is individual, rather than head-to-head where another player's actions are in direct response to your own. You play the game by yourself. Think how limiting and ridiculous it would be if you could only head out to the course to play a round if you took a sanctioned referee with you. The rules must be enforced by the player. The only way to ensure fairness in assessment and application, then, is to instill a rock solid culture within the game that creates an expectation of honorable self-enforcement. We can complain about snootiness and insufferability all we want, but golf would be like fishing stories if it weren't for that deeply ingrained culture. I know plenty of amateurs who carry vanity handicaps and pick up from 4 feet and improve their lie if their drive ends up in a divot depression - imagine if the professional ranks looked the other way about that sort of thing. The game would have zero integrity.

Against that backdrop, then, you have a couple of standards/rules that can be problematic in situations like Thompson's, because it sort of creates a Catch 22. The two utmost directives in golf rules in the situation at hand are (i) not placing your ball correctly where it had been marked is a rules violation and a penalty, and (ii) you must call penalties on yourself (on your scorecard which you sign and turn in) or be further penalized, because it's that important to the game's integrity. This all works well enough when the player is aware of a violation. You ground your club in a bunker and feel it, there's no question what's supposed to happen - you're supposed to tell your playing partner and assess a penalty on yourself. If you don't, the penalty doubles if you don't stew in your guilt enough to fix the situation on your scorecard before you turn it in. The problem comes when, like Thompson, a player unknowingly commits an infraction. Their mental innocence causes them to commit an additional infraction by not calling it on themselves. But it's critical to note that the additional two stroke incorrect scorecard penalty is there to allow for the possibility that a violation was innocent and unknown. Otherwise, the old rule of you turn in a wrong score and you're out of the tournament would still prevail. I think we'd all agree that would be even more unjust to Thompson.

As a general matter a rulebook can't distinguish between, allow for different treatment for, or make a judgment call on whether a player knowingly or innocently broke a rule, or got an advantage from doing so. So it has to either go draconian and act on the legal fiction that all violations are intentional/noticed, or risk undermining the backbone of the entire system by allowing players to make their own determination. I think we all know how that would go. And frankly, even if we had impartial judges following every player around a course, it's hard for them to know whether something was intentional or not in most situations. Ergo, there is no difference, as a base matter, between intentional and unintentional rules infractions. Massive can of worms if we start distinguishing. Which can of worms is probably greater than the harm from the occasional perverse result of someone who doesn't even know they committed a violation being punished as much or more than someone who did it on purpose.

As to the calling in issue: imagine a situation where, instead of what Thompson did, some golfer found themselves off in the woods where they didn't see any fans, and used a foot wedge to get out from behind a tree trunk. Blatant, dishonorable behavior. Some fan, however, did see it on TV, as the player was visible in the background while the camera focused on his playing partner hitting, and calls the PGA. Is our response not "They cheated and deserve whatever punishment they get!" Remember, we're in a universe in which, by necessity, (a) we treat all rules violations as equal regarding player intent, and (b) we place a very high value on players calling their own penalties. In that universe it's hard to lay down a bright line about it being OK for a third party to notify officials of a rule violation in one situation but not OK in another. I have to say, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the LPGA head's response on this, which boiled down to: it was a rule violation, what am I supposed to do, pretend it didn't happen? A tree fell in the forest, but someone heard it. Similarly, would we be substantially more sympathetic to the blatant ball mover if officials didn't get an e-mail with a screen capture until the next morning? I mean, they cheated and knowingly signed an incorrect scorecard. Who cares when the penalty comes? Otherwise you're rewarding them for beating the system.

I don't know of a perfect solution for this stuff. I think you can go the route of "Fan input will not be heard" as long as you're comfortable that players can police themselves and one another enough to make the disincentives high enough that you're never in a situation where cheating is seen on TV by millions but there's no penalty assessed because the players and rules officials didn't see it. Or, put enough officials out there that you can justifiably say "Hey, they're gonna miss some things, people" the way you can for a basketball game. The trouble there is that now you've a pro game that's disconnected from the amateur game in that one is effectively policed by players and one by third party officials. I don't think that's a big enough issue to object to it as a solution, though.

I understand and appreciate all of what you have said here, and I agree with much of it. All I will add, at this point, is that I listened to Gary Player's interview with Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio this morning, and they asked him directly about this matter, and did so in the broader context of last night's being the Champions Dinner at the Masters. Player said that, uniformly, "we all" (his words, and I assume by that he means those with whom he discussed this at last night's dinner, probably a group as steeped in golf culture as exists) thought the outcome was ridiculous. When asked directly about the manner in which the issue was brought to the attention of rules officials (by a television-watcher emailing it in a day after the fact), his key point was that this process has no "equity" because, in his view, there are 156 players in an event but only approximately 15 being followed on television. Why are those 15, Player asked, held to an even higher standard than the other 141? Player did not mention (so this is my addition) the inequity associated with a fan deciding whether or not to communicate the infraction he/she saw. I'm way more likely, for instance, to call foul on Patrick Reed than I would be on Jason Day. Player did, however, rhetorically ask about "the kind of person" who phones-in (or emails-in) a rules violation in a golf tournament he/she watched yesterday.

The most practical solution I have heard is two-fold: (a) do not accept call-ins/email-ins of claimed violations from fans and (b) have a rules official (or set of rules officials) assigned to monitor the TV broadcast for infractions that may escape the players or the player-accompanying rules officials. That still injects more scrutiny to those on TV more often, but we kinda have that anyway.

Further affiant sayeth not . . . .

[Indoor66]

I understand and appreciate all of what you have said here, and I agree with much of it. All I will add, at this point, is that I listened to Gary Player's interview with Mike & Mike on ESPN Radio this morning, and they asked him directly about this matter, and did so in the broader context of last night's being the Champions Dinner at the Masters. Player said that, uniformly, "we all" (his words, and I assume by that he means those with whom he discussed this at last night's dinner, probably a group as steeped in golf culture as exists) thought the outcome was ridiculous. When asked directly about the manner in which the issue was brought to the attention of rules officials (by a television-watcher emailing it in a day after the fact), his key point was that this process has no "equity" because, in his view, there are 156 players in an event but only approximately 15 being followed on television. Why are those 15, Player asked, held to an even higher standard than the other 141? Player did not mention (so this is my addition) the inequity associated with a fan deciding whether or not to communicate the infraction he/she saw. I'm way more likely, for instance, to call foul on Patrick Reed than I would be on Jason Day. Player did, however, rhetorically ask about "the kind of person" who phones-in (or emails-in) a rules violation in a golf tournament he/she watched yesterday.

The most practical solution I have heard is two-fold: (a) do not accept call-ins/email-ins of claimed violations from fans and (b) have a rules official (or set of rules officials) assigned to monitor the TV broadcast for infractions that may escape the players or the player-accompanying rules officials. That still injects more scrutiny to those on TV more often, but we kinda have that anyway.

Further affiant sayeth not . . . .

Just what we need - a "replay" monitor for golf. 🙄😏😣

[camion]

Just what we need - a "replay" monitor for golf. 🙄😏😣

To counteract the inevitable slowing of play we could implement something similar to the new intentional walk rule in baseball.

Let viewers at home declare a "gimme" for easy putts and text the officials on the course. We could set up a poll where viewers vote on this.

[Tripping William]

Just what we need - a "replay" monitor for golf. 🙄😏😣

Any alternate solution to offer? To quote Ross Perot: "I'm all ears."

[Indoor66]

Any alternate solution to offer? To quote Ross Perot: "I'm all ears."

None needed. Do not accept volunteer claims of rules violations from TV viewers. Golf has done quite well with self policing since the 17th Century. Having TV viewers have this role is ridiculous. Do they have a view from more than one angle? Do they have a view that gives them depth perception that allows accurate perception of distance and position? I don't think so, in most instances.

[JasonEvans]

The folks behind the Masters would be in favor of a change that got rid of TV viewer penalties.

"We are encouraged to know that this issue is something that is being considered as part of the rules modernization effort that's going on right now, and we understand that there is a proposal that's being discussed that would limit the use of video evidence,'' said Fred Ridley, chairman of the Masters competition committee, during club chairman Billy Payne's annual media address.

"So we hope very much that something appropriate, an appropriate solution to this would be reached. We would be very supportive in that and we hope that that will happen sooner, rather than later.''

[Tripping William]

None needed. Do not accept volunteer claims of rules violations from TV viewers. Golf has done quite well with self policing since the 17th Century. Having TV viewers have this role is ridiculous. Do they have a view from more than one angle? Do they have a view that gives them depth perception that allows accurate perception of distance and position? I don't think so, in most instances.

But that does not address Mal's scenario of blatant cheating, caught on camera, but unseen in real time.

[sagegrouse]

Any alternate solution to offer? To quote Ross Perot: "I'm all ears."

I thought that was Barack Obama who said that.

[sagegrouse]

Is this about a sloppy replacement of a ball on a one-foot putt? The ball was about one-half inch from its proper location. Lexi was reportedly on the side of the ball not in line when she replaced the ball. This results in a four-stroke penalty when some fan wrote an e-mail the next day to point out the possible error.

Hay-soos Maria!!!! And this totally upends the entertainment value on TV 'cuz results are altered later -- in this case, after Lexi had already played about one-half of the holes on the following day! Lessee... the basketball equivalent is that Hicks was out-of-bounds on the held ball play in the NCAA championship. The next day someone weighs in and alters the result of the game because the error was overlooked.

I hate to describe really nice smart people as totally up-tight and clueless, but if the shoe fits, stick it up wherever...

Phil Mickelsons' suggestion is that the players enforce rules like that, and if people are sloppy in marking balls, it is made an item of interest and there is encouragement -- and maybe threats that affect future play. No one should take away a golf championship on the basis of almost invisible stuff.

Phil also says, which most of the known universe agrees with, that professional golf should not accept phoned-in or e-mailed reports of violations from TV viewers. I mean, how did golf get in this position of self-inflicted wounds?