To Drop Or Not To Drop: A Tale Of Two Fields

I’ve had an interesting time as a TO lately, working two very different events in a six day span. Yogi’s words; “You can observe a lot just by watching” ring absolutely true…

And one thing I’ve learned “just by watching” is how often golfers are their own worst enemies when dealing with the rules.  Last Thursday I worked an NCGA Net Amateur Qualifier at Paradise Valley in Fairfield.  The players’ handicaps ranged from five to twenty-seven, with certainly widely varying degrees of tournament experience and familiarity with the rules.

The oddest question of the day came on the second hole.  A player had hit his ball into the lateral hazard on the right side of the fairway, a common occurrence as players tried to stay away from the big oak in the center of the fairway.  After guiding him through the proper drop procedure, he hit his next shot over a bunker right of the green and into another lateral hazard.  I told him to wave me over if he needed any help.

Sure enough, a minute later he called for me.  He showed me the position of the ball, under a shrub and in a nest of twigs.  He asked if he could move the bush with his leg and remove the twigs.  My answer:  “Neither of those.”  What I wanted to say:  “Depends on how many more penalty strokes you want.”  (Those would be two separate violations, total four penalty strokes.)

Back to my point:  I spent the latter half of the day on the eighteenth hole, a dogleg right with a big pond on the inside corner.  That pond got a lot of business.  One group had two players hit into the hazard, about fifteen yards apart.  I showed the first player where he had crossed in, and explained his options under Rule 26-1.  One would be to drop within two club-lengths of that point.  That would put him on a downhill-sidehill slope, a tough shot considering he would still have the pond to negotiate.  Or, he could drop straight back as far as he wanted in line with the flagstick.  Under this option, he could have played from a flat lie, though twenty yards farther back.  He decided he didn’t want to give up the yardage.

What happened next was pretty predictable.  He chunked two more balls into the pond before finally clearing it with his seventh stroke.  The next player took the second option, dropped on a flat lie, and put his ball on the green from there, giving him a chance at par, probably no worse than a bogey.

Fast-forward to Monday, the St Mary’s Invitational college tournament at Bayonet/ Black Horse in Seaside.  Sixteen Division 1 college teams—you could hardly have a more different field than my previous event.  Two things occur at Bayonet that you don’t often see.  First, over the two rounds there, I had five players lose balls in the canopy of cypress trees.  Since the balls were stuck up in the tree and couldn’t be identified, the ruling is lost ball, followed by that awkward cart ride back to the tee to re-hit.  Most of the players took it in stride, saying something like “That’s golf, stuff happens.”  One player had it happen twice, which is unbelievably unlucky.

Second, the driving range is considered through the green, in play.  The first and second holes border the range on the left side.  Many shots were played from ten, twenty, even thirty yards into the range.  I don’t remember ever playing a course where the range is in bounds.

But, again, let’s get back to my thesis.  I was stationed on the tenth hole at Black Horse for the second round.  There is a fairway bunker on the right, and beyond that, farther right, is a hard sandy area with patches of weeds.  One of the coaches came by and when I asked him how things were going, he said it would be a lot better if his players had a better sense of when to take their medicine, instead of trying heroic shots from trouble.  Almost as if on cue, a few groups later one of his players went over the bunker and into the weeds.  Here’s a picture of his lie from directly behind, aimed toward the green.

I stood off to the side while coach and player discussed it.  He was about 120 yards from the green.  The player was convinced he could chop it out.  Coach told him that because of the weeds, there was a very good chance he might not hit the ball at all, or chop it into a worse position. There was nothing but more weeds, then bunkers between him and the green.  Then, unbelievably, the player asked if he could pull out some of the weeds!  (I know these weeds.  Our yard was covered with them when we moved in.  They’re very shallow rooted, but are tough, wiry things.  I wouldn't want to try to swing a club through them.)  Coach looked at him in shock, then looked at me and shrugged.  It took about five minutes, but he finally talked the player into taking an unplayable lie and dropping back about fifteen yards to a perfectly clean lie.  From there, he put it on the green and narrowly missed his par putt.  Had he played it as it lay, double or even triple were distinct possibilities.

Coach came back a bit later and said he wished he’d taken a picture of the lie.  It just so happened I had, and I sent it to him.  He said it would be exhibit A in that night’s team meeting.

The point of all this?  The Rules of Golf can help you.  Know your options, and use them.  Sometimes giving up a few yards is the smart play.  I’ve become more acutely aware of how to manage my game when I get into these kinds of situations by what I’ve seen over my almost two seasons as a Tournament Official.

In the mean time, I’ll keep on both observing AND watching!

Rules Of Golf In The News...

I worked a four ball qualifier last week at Foxtail in Rohnert Park, but it was a very quiet day.  About the only excitement was the medalist team shot a better ball 60, twelve under, that included a double bogey on the tenth when both players went in the water.  That's some fine playing!

Otherwise, there have been a couple of notable rules issues in the past few weeks.  First, at the US Amateur, eventual champion Gunn Yang was saved a potential penalty by a rules official.  On the 11th hole in the afternoon round, the match referee, USGA President Tom O'Toole, stopped Yang from putting because he noticed his caddie standing directly behind him, a violation of rule 14-2b.  Those of you who've been following the game for some time might remember that Andy Martinez, Johnny Miller's caddie, used to crouch behind him as he putted to block out any distractions.  A number of LPGA players used the same tactic until it was ruled illegal.  Yang's penalty would have been loss of the hole.

That's a pretty clear example of the role that rules officials play.  We're there to not just help the players out with rulings, but to keep them from committing violations whenever possible.  This was a big one-- the match would have been even, buy Yang was able to save par and maintain a one hole lead.  The story can be found here.

And on a slightly bigger stage, the next week at the PGA Championship, a player disqualified himself five days later.  Cameron Tringale disqualified himself five days after the fact for an action that he had already been cleared for.  On, coincidentally, also the 11th hole, he moved his putter over the ball before tapping it in.  There was originally some question as to whether the ball moved, and if he had taken a swing at it.  Both he and his fellow competitor, Matt Jones, agreed that there was no intent, no movement, no violation.  But after the tournament, Tringale started to think not that he was wrong, but that other people might think he was wrong.  He took the high road and called the PGA to disqualify himself for signing for an incorrect score, rule 6-6d.  His decision cost him a 33rd place finish, $53,000, and eight places on the FedEx Cup standings.  Full story here.

But he gained a lot more than that. 

US Am Sectional Qualifying, Santa Rosa GC

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Thirteen hours.  Thirty-eight holes.  Another loooong day…

I worked the US Amateur Championship sectional qualifier Moday at Santa Rosa Golf Club yesterday.  Last year, however, I could only stay for the first round.  This time, like the US Open qualifier at Lake Merced, I was there for the duration.

Rules wise, it wasn’t a terribly busy day.  There were a number of typical relief situations from cart paths, ground under repair, and embedded balls, including one double drop, but nothing unusual.  Hazards and out of bounds don't come in to play much at SRGC, except for on the outer borders of the course  There was one interesting situation where a player was a foot from OB and a yard from a lateral hazard, and chose to take an unplayable lie because he couldn’t take a stance without running afoul of the barbed wire fence demarking the OB.  The TO's later had an good discussion about what would have happened if the player had hit a provisional, and the ball was not found, but it wasn't certain whether it went into the hazard or out of bounds.

From a competitive standpoint, the finish was compelling.  Three players and two alternates were to be chosen.  One player was in at 137 and four at 140, meaning those four would play off for the remaining two spots and the alternate positions.  With darkness looming, the players gathered at the first tee.

Four nervous tee shots were hit—Player A snap hooks left, B, C, and D wide right.  B is in the fairway, barely.  A punched out to the right greenside bunker.  D hit  a beautiful shot over the trees to about fifteen feet right behind the flagstick.  C didn’t have a direct shot because of a bush, and punched to the green short and left.  B hit from the fairway to the green about thirty feet left.

Both A and C hit their third shots to about 20 feet short of the hole.  B left his first putt five feet short.  Advantage D, awaiting his putt for birdie.  But wait…  A missed, and tapped in for bogey.  But Player C, who another official said had made everything, drilled his twenty footer for par.  Pressure had changed jerseys.

 

Player D, who had been starting to look a little jumpy, knocked his birdie putt six feet by, and his par effort lipped all the way around and came out right back at him.  He looked at it in shock.  Bogey.  Player B calmly sank his par putt, so he and C were in the US Am.  A and D headed to the ninth hole to continue the playoff and decide who would be first alternate. 

They both drilled long tee shots, helped by some serious red-ass factor.  A’s approach, off a tricky side-hill lie, was right at the hole, but about 25 feet above the hole.  D hit  another wonderful approach shot, about eight feet below the hole.  It was pretty obvious by now what was going to happen.  A calmly dropped his slippery downhill birdie putt.  D’s putt didn’t have a chance, and he turned ashen.

Like I said, classic match play.  On both holes, Player D looked to have the clear advantage, and came out on the short end.  There is a golf maxim in match play—Always expect your opponent to hit a great shot, sink a great putt.  If Player D didn’t know that one before, he certainly does now!

US Junior Am Qualifying: A Long, Hot Day at Stanford GC

I had the pleasure of working at Stanford University Golf Course for the US Junior Amateur Championship Sectional Qualifier.  Once again, the NCGA was able to muster up enough officials to send one out with each group.

I had put in a request to work with one of the starters, to get that checked off my training list, before heading off with my assigned group.  I was lucky enough to work with Ted Antonopolous, the head pro at Mayacama, for an hour and a half.  Ted is a true professional, and has a very nice touch with the players.  Our goal is to set them off on time and informed.  As I said in my previous post, from Rancho Solano, starting is one of the most enjoyable parts of this job.

My group of three players included a rising high school junior, sophomore, and eighth grader.   The fun started almost immediately.

One of my players hit a big snap hook off the second tee.  We headed off, searched for the allotted five minutes in the weeds, and then the rover drove him back to the tee.  He was about half way there when his ball was found, about fifty yards from where we were searching.  I explained to his parents that it was too late, five minutes is the limit for a ball search, after which the ball is deemed lost.

Three holes later, behind the fifth green, a different rover told me the player’s mom came over to ask, and they had a detailed discussion about why the ball was lost even though it was found.

A very interesting and instructional, event happened on the thirteenth hole.  I was not at the tee when the players teed off, but about 75 yards up the fairway.  The same player who suffered the lost ball, started walking down the right side, so I headed that way.  (I could see the other two players’ balls in the fairway.)  When we got down around where the ball should have been, a spectator told us she had heard a ball land behind her but didn’t see it.  Since she was standing on a cart path, and the other side of the path was out of bounds, the player headed back to the tee.  Here’s where the fun began.

I called the back-nine rover to come transport him.  He started walking back, and before the rover got there, he called me over, saying he’d found his ball, about 75 yards from where we he thought it had crossed OB.  I asked him if he was sure, and he showed me the ball, a Titleist 2 with a red line.  Since it was quite a way from where we expected it to be, I told him he could mark and lift and positively identify it.  He declined and said he was sure it was his.

In the mean time, the rover arrived, and jokingly chided me for not having him hit a provisional in the first place.   The player punched out short of the green, and the rover went up to the 14^th tee to investigate the delay there.  (Stanford GC’s par three holes ALWAYS cause backups.)  The player got to his ball and called for me again, explaining that it was not in fact his—now he could see a “S” logo on it, and it definitely was not his. 

I called the rover back, and we discussed the situation with the player.  He drove the player back to the tee to re-tee.  He drove into the rough, hit the green from there, and sank a twenty-foot putt.   But… For what score?

The rover and I spent a few minutes discussing the sequence of events.  We thought we had the right answer, and he said he’d get confirmation, and he came back a few minutes later with the verdict from another official, one who has scored 100 on the USGA rules test.  Here’s the tally:

One:  Stroke from the tee

Two:  Stroke from the rough, which turned out to be the wrong ball, so the stroke does not count, but...

Two and Three:  Penalty strokes for playing a wrong ball.  Player must now play the original ball, which was out of bounds, so…

Four:  Distance penalty for OB

Five:  Stroke from tee

Six:  Stroke to green

Seven:  Holed Putt

The other two players were really curious.  I explained the sequence to them, and told them that a good rule to go by is if an official suggests that you identify your ball, it’s probably a good idea to do so.  The player, the rover and I discussed it further after he had teed off on the 15^th, and he was satisfied with the ruling and thankful for the lesson learned.

A New Experience: Associate Club Championship Qualifying

It was a long, but truly enjoyable day at Rancho Solano on Thursday.  The event was the 2014 Associate Club Championship local qualifier with a large field—nineteen teams, three hours of tee times.  This is an interesting and complex event to officiate, as each club sends a four man team.  The teams are broken up into two parts so that everyone plays with markers from another team.  Then, at scoring, two scorecards must be analyzed for two best net scores for each hole.

My very first ride-along training session last May was with the esteemed Betsy Pelkan.  Since then, I have always enjoyed working tournaments that she chairs, as she not only has a wealth of rules and tournament administration knowledge and experience to share, but she is also aware of the needs of newer officials.  This was no exception.  To my delight, my assignment was starting the entire field off the first tee, after she sent the first group off, then learning how to score the event.

It hasn’t taken me long to realize how much I enjoy the first tee at NCGA events.  The starter has the opportunity to meet and greet every player before they’ve missed a single fairway or putt, exchange pleasantries, answer questions, and basically make sure everyone gets started off on time and in compliance.  The players are uniformly friendly and grateful for the help.

On the rules front, there wasn’t much action.  The radio was silent most of the day.  The only real rules incidents were two players guilty of hitting someone the wrong ball, and one who picked his up to identify it without marking it or telling anyone what he was doing.  Interestingly enough, all of those incidents happened in the very same foursome!

After Betsy showed me the best way to line up the cards and write down the best scores for each hole, it was fairly simple.  The only problem was addition block after looking at too many cards!

There were two women in the field.  Betsy had predicted beforehand that one would likely qualify.  Sure enough—a woman who hit her initial tee shot about thirty yards sideways got over the jitters and shot 41 on the front side with a 21 handicap, and her team finished in the top spot. 

It also marked a new milestone:  the first time I’ve ever gotten a hug from a player!

The Longest Day In Golf

I worked the aptly named “Longest Day in Golf”, aka US Open Sectional Qualifying, yesterday at Lake Merced Golf Club.  Players played one round there and one at the Olympic Club Ocean Course.  Honestly, I don’t think the USGA could have found two hillier courses close enough together to pull this off anywhere else.

My role was as a walking scorer.  We were each supplied with a tablet through which we could enter the scores after each hole, so each player’s score was more or less up to date on the USGA website.  We would also be the players’ access to a rules official if needed.  (I was not there in a rules official capacity.)

The morning round was relatively uneventful.  There were no rulings, no penalties, and one drop I can remember for relief from a sprinkler head.  Lake Merced has very little trouble except for out of bounds.  There are a few spots where there is potential for a lost ball, but they are well out of the normal line of play for players of this level.

The second round was another story.  If you read my last post, from a few weeks ago about CGA State Am qualifying, you’ll remember a player who WD’d on the 14^th hole.  Well, it happened again.  This player hit a 330 yard bomb on the 503 yard sixth hole.  He hit an iron to the back of the green, really a pretty good shot, though the eagle putt was downhill and quite quick. 

That’s where the fun began.  He hit his first putt about eight feet by.  Without marking, he stepped in and hit the birdie putt about three feet by, went up and raked that one towards the hole, hit it again before it stopped, and picked it up before it went in the hole.  (I may have missed one or two in there)  The rest of us just looked at each other, confused.  He had not finished the hole.

Putting on my rules official hat, I calculated in my mind that he had committed several breaches:  Two strokes for hitting a ball that was still moving (Rule 14-5, “Playing Moving Ball”), and one more for picking it up (18-2, “Ball at Rest Moved… by Player”).  He needed to replace it and putt out, which he hadn’t done.  (Note:  My rules guru tells me the first violation was probably Rule 1-2, “Exerting Influence on Movement of Ball")

There was a roving official nearby, so I waved him over.  I told him what the player had done and that he hadn’t finished the hole.  The player came over and informed us that he was withdrawing, and asked if he could keep playing, or at least finish the nine.  I knew from my experience at Fountaingrove that the answer was no.  But there is another consideration here.

Because the player had made it to the sectional by qualifying elsewhere, he could not simply withdraw without a good reason, like an injury, without repercussions.  He had taken a spot someone else could have earned.  Therefore, he would face some sort of sanction from the USGA.  The rules committee informed the official that the best thing for him to do would be to tee off on the seventh hole.  Therefore, he would be DQ’d because he had committed a breach—not holing out (Rule 3-2)—on the sixth hole and had not corrected it before starting the next hole.  He teed off, hit another bomb twenty yards past either of the two remaining players (this guy could really smoke the ball), turned and headed back to the clubhouse, taking his girlfriend/caddie and ten of the twelve gallery members with him.

The highlight of the day was one of my players qualifying for the Open.  As I walked up to the 18^th green, another scorer waved me over and told me the player was in if he parred 18.  He was on in regulation with a slippery 12-foot birdie putt, which he lagged close and tapped in for par.  I entered the score, and the standings popped up on my tablet.  The player walked over, we shook hands, and I said, “Want to see the good news?”  His eyes lit up when I showed him the standings.  One hundred and ten players teed it up that morning for five spots, and he was tied for fourth.  We were one of the last groups out, and there was nobody close enough to catch him.

CGA AM Qualifying at Fountaingrove GC

It was a very busy day at Fountaingrove GC Monday for the CGA Amateur Championship Qualifier.  It was also a treat for me, as I haven’t been on the course since my wedding day in 1985, when it was just a year or two old.

My assignment was to spot on the 14^th hole.  Fourteen is a long par five with trouble all around:  Out of bounds right, and bushes, trees, long grass, and rattlesnake country all the way down the left side.  As it would be a couple of hours before the first groups got there, I was able to take a close look at the course, and follow a few groups through the front side.  After looking at the course set up, and considering the stiffening breeze, it looked like it would be a buy day for the Tournament Officials.

I arrived at 14 while the third group was in the 13^th fairway—the first two groups were twosomes and had long since flown through.  Before long I was searching for balls in the rough on a regular basis.  In fact, three TO’s were occupied at one time on the hole.  The TO timing at the 13^th green also monitored the  14^th tee, so I could radio him when players should hit a provisional.   The TO who was roving the back nine spent much of the time with me, and there were at least three times when we were both occupied on different parts of the hole with ball searches, drop rulings, etc.

The most interesting moment, and a good one in the education of a rules official, came after a player hit a ball way left into the jungle, hit his provisional OB right, then a second provisional way left.  I radioed back that he should hit another, but he was already on his way down the fairway, so it would be find one or say goodbye.  After a five-minute search, we had found a lot of balls (I found fifteen myself), but not either of his.  I told him time was up, and he said he’d just walk the hole in, and asked if he could continue the round even after WD’ing.

I told him I wasn’t sure (I didn’t think so), and went to consult with the rover.  We radioed the rules committee, and the answer was no—because it would raise the possibility that a non-competitor could do something that gave aid to a competitor.  I drove up to the green to inform him that he had to leave the course.  After signing for the holes he had marked for one of his fellow competitors and re-distributing the score cards, we drove in.  It was actually kind of odd.  We got some funny looks from the five or six groups we passed.  I felt like I’d arrested someone—and the ride was the golf version of a “perp walk!”

I delivered the player to scoring where he explained the circumstances to the rules committee, then went back to follow the final groups in.

I appreciated that a certified rules official gave me, barely past my rookie season, the chance to handle a difficult situation on my own, and then thank me over the radio for doing so.  The TO’s are truly a team, and the support is tremendous.