I have never seen anything like this. I’m not even a golf fiend but Dustin Johnson has a potential one stroke penalty hanging over him at the end of this. For something he may or may not have done many holes before. Deal with it then ! Even fellow pros are tweeting about it saying how ridiculous it is.
I just turned on the match. Dustin may lose a stroke? When will that be decided?
Apparently, at the end. Fellow golfers, commentators are weighing in. To have that hanging over your head, mentally, at the end, seems crazy.
What exactly happened / didn’t happen?
If he keeps the current lead, it won’t matter.
It matters for the future, in terms of how these types of things are dealt with.
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/06/people-on-twitter-are-furious-after-u-s-open-rules-fiasco
Some of these tweets are great.
Luckily he won either way but guaranteed this wont happen again.
Yikes on his wife’s outfit! That could have been another penalty!
Golf has a lot of ridiculous rules. This is one of them. It doesn’t matter for this tournament or for Dustin, which I imagine is why you posted it and not for its significance in the future.
Yes, golf is unique with their rules. My husband’s first job was as a caddy at his parents’ club. But, there seem to be some recent rules that are open to interpretation (and review) and that may be where this is fitting in? Everyone knows you have to sign the card,etc. but having someone question you at the 5th hole, make some kind of determination to let you play and not be penalized then and there and THEN come back much later with this controversy seems strange. McIlroy, Fowler, Spieth, all were outraged , as I’m sure they don’t want to see something like this happening to them going forward.
Wayne Gretzky is probably happy! His daughter Paulina had on an interesting outfit, that’s for sure. She seemed very happy and supportive.
Now, let’s go Cavs!
m0minmd, he was setting up for a putt and waving his putter very close to the ball. It rolled a bit but he claimed he hadn’t touched it. They let him continue to play but someone later decided they should take a closer look at the tapes. They told him that he might end up with a penalty at the end of the tournament, I don’t know if they told the other players about it though.
“someone later” This happened at the 5th hole, I believe, and they told him at the twelfth that he might get a penalty? Look at the tapes if you feel the need to then ( at the play in question and make a decision then at the 5th). He was on the back stretch, heading to his first major victory. That has got to mess with your mind. I’m no athlete but I think I’d prefer to have someone tell me at the time that I have a penalty and be done with it, and move on.
Maybe more will come out about what was really said at the time, whether he was advised at the beginning that it could still be under review and subject to a penalty stroke. But, it is interesting to see the tweets from fellow golfers.
Thankfully it didn’t affect the outcome. Johnson won handily, even with the one stroke penalty. The USGA needs to do better next time though.
Good for DJ for wining but the USGA handled this horribly.
Wow! I watched the whole thing, and after he finished with a 4 stroke lead the penalty became moot and I switched over to the basketball game. I didn’t realize that he had in fact been assessed a penalty stroke after play had concluded and his score was 4 under, not 5 under.
So poorly handled. Happy he pulled out the win regardless. Reminded me a bit of the perplexing NFL standards… “more likely than not” that his grounding of the club caused the ball to move… ugh.
This is a bit of a change to the rule this year. It used to be that if player was addressing the ball in line with the hole, and s/he grounds the club causing the ball to move, the penalty was assessed. This year, the player need only be in the vicinity of the ball, not necessarily addressing it in line with the hole, to be penalized. (my summary not the exact language).
So it could be anything causing the ball to move, a slight wind, anything, but if you’d better stay far away from your ball when preparing the putt!
The worse thing is that this happened to Dustin Johnson, this same player, in the final round of the 2010 PGA Championship, costing him a spot in a playoff that might well have led to his first (and I think only, until today), win. That one was deemed to be grounding in a bunker and was a 2-shot penalty; it was a local rule that deemed all sand areas to be played as hazards (he thought it was a stretch of dirt, not a bunker). Pretty sure they didn’t tell him until the end of the round that time. So maybe they were scrambling on whether to inform him while he was in the middle of the round this time. But c’mon, he was told by the official on the course that he was good to go. That will mess with your head mid-round, so glad he stuck it out and won.
The USGA blew this big time…and on many fronts.
The call was made. To come back to Dustin 7 holes later, and leave him in limbo with a potential penalty is complete BS. I feel Dustin should have demanded the USGA make the call immediately, not after 18. People say it doesn’t matter, he won…but it really does. What the heck do they have well trained rules officials with every group, if their rulings are not followed? The rule actually says the ruling of the official is final! If the USGA wants rule applied fairly in the future, they need to go with the ruling of the official on scene and the integrity of the player. What about when this happens when the camera is not on the ball?? As Frank Nobilo said, this game is in real time, not some later time in a video control room.
Social media has been flaming the USGA…and pros across the board have been expressing their outrage (even Jack was angry) and the Golf Channel commentators were clearly fuming. Oh yeah, and the USGA blew it awhile ago when they sold out to Fox. Joe Buck is an idiot. I wanted to kick the TV when he asked Dustin about the controversy during the awards ceremony. Have never heard anybody being booed at an award ceremony, until today…although I’m not sure if people were booing Jack & his stupid question, or the USGA as well. Fox’s coverage is a bit better than last year (it couldn’t have gotten worse!), but Buck sucks. Faxon, Azinger, Strange & O’Donaghue at least have a clue what they are talking about. Buck is out of his league. Please go back to baseball.
At a time when the USGA is trying to get people back into the game, why shoot yourself in the foot on this??? Some of these rules are so befuddling, if the pros and some of USGA’s own officials apparently aren’t sure about the rules, what about the rest of us everyday players?
The USGA, and Thomas Pagel and Diana Murphy in particular, should get out tomorrow and own up and say they blew it. Can’t imagine any PR people would tell them anything but doing this will put this black cloud behind them…
Interesting. Thanks for filling me in. I am no golf person and only tune in to the last 15 minutes of these things. I follow on a somewhat distant level so I know what people are talking about. (My sister and BIL are HUGE golfers)
His wife’s dress was, um, distracting, to say the least. But I suppose that was her point.
That was tame by Paulina’s standards.
“Golf has a lot of ridiculous rules. This is one of them. It doesn’t matter for this tournament or for Dustin, which I imagine is why you posted it and not for its significance in the future.”
No. I started the thread initially because at the time of my post, the potential penalty could have been very significant and could have cost him the tournament win. There were a couple of guys still in the mix that folded at the end, after my initial post. I am glad Dustin won and that the penalty did become a moot point though. And do hope they figure out a better system for the future.
^ Right. USGA should be sending a few players big thank you’s for bailing them out of a potentially disasterous situation by folding in the final stretch. Lucky for them it became moot in this situation…but I’m betting there will be an “adjustment” to this stupidly worded ruling.