It's time for USGA to make a move
Rules were made to be broken; one must be changed
Over the next few years, the USGA will endeavor to simplify the Rules of Golf in the hope of making them more accessible and understandable to the average person.
First, good luck with that.
Second, we're fairly certain they'll look at Rule 18-2/0.5.
That's the rule that caused such a furor on social media among PGA Tour players Sunday when Dustin Johnson was penalized for unintentionally causing his ball to move ever so slightly on the fifth green in the final round at Oakmont.
The rule basically states that if a player causes his ball to move, intentionally or not, it's a penalty. It got tricky and contentious when Johnson immediately had a discussion with a rules official and said he didn't think he caused the ball to move.
It took six holes for the USGA to review video and inform Johnson he
One reason the average person sees golf as so fussy is rules such as this. Major championships should not hinge on something that is not a competitive action by a player. Johnson had no intent to move the ball. He set his putter down a couple of times next to the ball, took a practice stroke, lifted his putter and the ball moved.
It is highly probable — as Jack Nicklaus and others pointed out — that the ball moved because Oakmont's greens were cut to the speed of your granite kitchen counter and Johnson pressing his putter on the green caused the ball to move. That's what the USGA determined happened, though officials said Sunday night they have to be only 51 percent certain that's the case.
“We understand not everyone is going to agree with that,” said Thomas Pagel, the USGA's senior director of rules. “But the standard is not 100 percent. It's ‘more likely than not.'?”
How was the ball movement Johnson's fault, and more to the point, how does that possibly affect the competition? What possible advantage did he gain on the field? None.
Intent or not, if the ball moved, have him replace it and play on. No penalty.
A similar situation happened Saturday to third-round leader Shane Lowry. His ball also moved as he addressed it, and he immediately called a penalty on himself. The difference was he had placed his putter behind the ball, and it was more obvious why it moved.
Still, we make the same point: In all of golf's rules, shouldn't intent be the determining factor? Certainly for a championship that determines lifetime legacies.
To be fair to the USGA, it was handcuffed by its own rules Sunday. As soon as officials believed Johnson caused the ball to move, they felt compelled to act.
“If you don't act on the evidence you have, it could be detrimental to the game,” Pagel said.
That's where the day took a turn to the bizarre. USGA Managing Director Jeff Hall was on the course when he got a call from a staffer who had seen the video replay. He hustled back to the clubhouse to watch the video with Pagel.
They saw enough in the video to think it was likely that Johnson caused the ball to move, and they caught up to him on the 12th tee. Hall said they asked if there was any other reason the ball could have moved, and Johnson didn't budge.
“It became very apparent that we weren't going to get a resolution there,” Hall said.
USGA officials could have resolved it. They could have said, “Thanks for your explanation, but we're giving you a penalty.” It was likely they were going to do so after the round, so why not tell him then? Let Johnson and all of the other players know where he stood on the leaderboard and move on.
The USGA on Monday appeared to admit as much, issuing a statement that read in part: “Upon reflection, we regret the distraction caused by our decision to wait until the end of the round to decide on the ruling. ... While our focus on getting the ruling correct was appropriate, we created uncertainty about where players stood on the leaderboard. ... This created unnecessary ambiguity for Dustin and the other players.”
The rancor came with the uncertainty, and it became the focus of the tournament for the last couple of hours. Obviously not what the USGA wanted.
“With the Rules of Golf,” Hall said, “it's about getting it right. And there are times when a decision has to be made, and some will agree with it and some will not.”
Put us down in this camp: Fix the rules.
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