Pro Golf Tournament Rules - What a joke [SPOILERS]

[gleek]

Link

USGA rule 6-6b: After completion of the round, the competitor should check his score for each hole and settle any doubtful points with the Committee. He must ensure that the marker or markers have signed the score card, sign the score card himself and return it to the Committee as soon as possible.

LPGA rule 6-6: A player is deemed to have returned her score card to the Committee when she leaves the roped area of the scoring tent or leaves the scoring trailer.

This wasn't even a violation of the RoG, as the rules only specify "as soon as possible". This is a tour-specific rule, and one that really serves no purpose.

[Aske]

lol

[gleek]

The story gets better. They recently added that last bit.

Wie said that after she finished her round on Friday, she left the tent where players sign their scorecards and was chased down by some of the tournament volunteers working in the tent who pointed out she hadn't signed.

Wie returned to the tent and signed the card.

She left the tent, went back in, and then signed.

So if you enter the tent and need to take a piss, you better just do it right there or you'll be DQed.

[MFAWG]

Witters said she and other tour officials didn't learn about the error from volunteers until well after Wie teed off Saturday.

All the hallmarks of a quality organization there...

[Uisce Beatha]

Weesie even gets it wrong when she gets it right.  I think she's cursed.  Probably didn't keep up her end of that deal with the devil.

They have to have a drop dead time on signing the scorecard.  Should it be when the player leaves the scoring tent, the golf course, the property, goes to bed?  While on the surface it's stupid it's also stupid to not read the CotC and know wtf you're supposed to do. 

She'll learn.  [I keep saying that]

[gleek]

The rule in question is purely administrative, and it's written by the sanctioning bodies (USGA and R&A) to allow for considerable leeway in how it should be implemented. "Soon as possible" is purposefully vague and allows for tournament organizations to implement procedures as they see fit. An organization like the LPGA should tailor its local rules to give its contestants the utmost latitude when defining what "soon as possible" means if they truly want to treat its contestants as professionals. At the very least, define "soon as possible" to mean an actual component of time--not whether or not you crossed a *goshdarn* imaginary line. Otherwise, if the version of LPGA's local rule 6-6 is cited in its entirety in the article, she could very well have left the premises immediately following her round, gone to her hotel room, slept, come back on Saturday, entered the scoring tent, signed for her score for Friday's round, and she wouldn't have been DQed.

[Uisce Beatha]

The 2008 LPGA Rules of Play define the scoring area as the roped area defining the boundary of the scoring tent.  Supplementary rules of play stipulate that the scoring area boundary may instead be defined by a white line, which has the effect of decreasing the size of the scoring area.  The white line was not deemed necessary this week and was not put in place, and as a result the boundary is the scoring tent.   

This is from the LPGA site - http://www.lpga.com/conte....aspx?pid=16530&mid=4

Some stuff in there that's a bit foreign to me.  The 2008 LPGA Rules of Play?  What is that?  Is it the LPGA's local rules and/or conditions of the competition?  There are at least 31 pages of LPGA rules?  That seems like a lot whatever they are.

Supplementary rules of play?  In the RoG words mean very specific things.  What are supplementary rules?  Are they local rules?  I've never heard them called that before. 

Obviously the LPGA has it 100% right and I'm not challenging that.  Just trying to understand where these terms come from and what they mean.

[Clive]

I'm a Wie defender, and I have no problem with this incident.

[MFAWG]

It takes 24 hours to determine that she didn't sign the card?

I'm calling BS, not on Wie, but the LPGA.

The LPGA first heard of the violation mid-morning today, but it was after Wie had begun third-round play

That just doesn't make any sense. It took until after the start of the 3d round for officials to determine that she didn't properly sign her 2d round card? There are no tour officials anywhere in the vicinity of the scorers tent who would (or should) have noticed that there was a potential problem with one of the tours biggest draws, and a player who was in the top 5 on the leaderboard?

Who's running the *goshdarn* tournament for gawds sake?

Bullfeces.

[gleek]

I'm a Wie defender, and I have no problem with this incident.

I don't have a problem with her being DQed for this particular incident since the rules were in place before she started play. However, I do have a problem with these professional tours not updating their stupid rules since they were playing for $500 purses.

The irony in this is that there wasn't an obvious breach of the rules as written by the stodgy USGA. It's the "supplemental" or "local' or "whatever the *fudge*" rule that she was in breach of. (I called it "local" because the rule was applied according to the local "conditions of administration"--of there being no roped off area and only the scorer's tent.) Incidents like these are the very reason so many people call golf a "game" rather than a "sport". In how many other sports is the outcome dictated by what happens outside the field of play? Being disqualified for leaving the scorer's tent and returning to sign the card is like being forced to draw cards for failing to call "Uno" before going out. Of course, in Uno can continue to play, but in professional golf, tough *feces*.

Somebody posted in another forum that the reason so many people don't give a *feces* about the rules of golf is because the sound like they're written by a bunch a pedantic lawyers. I think there's a lot of truth to that. This was definitely a bad day for golf's image as a sport.

[stroh]

Am I missing something?

Maybe I'm being too elementary on this, but how do you not sign your score card?

What else was she doing in the tent?  She's been signing scorecards since she was whatever in Junior golf.

I agree it's a bull*feces* clause, and I'm normally a Wie apologist, but WTF?

How do you forget to sign the card?

[Clive]

Am I missing something?

Maybe I'm being too elementary on this, but how do you not sign your score card?  What else was she doing in the tent?  She's been signing scorecards since she was whatever in Junior golf.

I agree it's a bull*feces* clause, and I'm normally a Wie apologist, but WTF?  How do you forget to sign the card?

Well, she was quite out of her element: she was doing well in a golf tournament.

As for the delay in discovering the violation, I can only assume it went along the same lines as the incident last year on the men's tour (where the player realized his error the next day in the course of a casual conversation).  It's not like the event handcuffs a Certified Official to the player's wrist when she enters the scorer's tent.  In this case, it seems scorer's tent volunteers -- who aren't under constant surveillance -- had physical possession of the card and handed it up with a signature on it.  My guess is that the irregularity (that the signature wasn't put on the card until after the player had departed) didn't make itself known immediately; instead, there was probably a discussion Saturday morning, and a light bulb came on for someone that Wie hadn't done things properly.

Note, too, that the LPGA said they let her play her Saturday round uninterrupted because she had the right to defend herself and provide information before they acted on it.  I think it's nice that they didn't distract Wie with this problem while she was out there trying to shoot a number.

[MFAWG]

volunteers...who aren't under constant surveillance

This is the scorers tent we're talking about, not the snack shack at on the 14th hole. You know, the place where the official scores for the event are tallied and posted.

I'm guessing what actually happened is nobody realized a violation had taken place, and the LPGA is just shifting the blame a little.

Besides, who wants their biggest draw not to play on the weekend, especially when she's in the lead?