Pro Golf Tournament Rules - What a joke [SPOILERS]

lol

All the hallmarks of a quality organization there...

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.

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.

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.