Tour school two stroke penalty...ouch.

[clubchamp98]

He can just play his shot then repair the bunker after .
But if he duffs it in the bunker in a footprint ?

Has he altered his line of play then.?

 

[anotherdouble]

He can just play his shot then repair the bunker after .
But if he duffs it in the bunker in a footprint ?

Has he altered his line of play then.?

He certainly has but has he IMPROVED it

 

[jim8flog]

What amazes me is that these guys are going to be doing this for a living.

If I was doing it to earn a living I certainly would learn the rules.

It is a bit like someone who drives for a living not reading the highway code.

 

[Imurg]

What amazes me is that these guys are going to be doing this for a living.

If I was doing it to earn a living I certainly would learn the rules.

It is a bit like someone who drives for a living not reading the highway code.

In my experience there's plenty that may have read it but have forgotten everything in it.
Same could be said for rules....

 

[Lord Tyrion]

Has anyone seen the bunker or where it was in relation to the course? I'm trying to work out in my head whether there was any justification for walking through the bunker. Was it 20yds long or could he see by sight that he just needed a little flip over it? I don't think I've ever seen anyone walk through a bunker to judge distance before.

I know this doesn't change the ruling, I'm just trying to visualise it.

 

[Grant85]

Has anyone seen the bunker or where it was in relation to the course? I'm trying to work out in my head whether there was any justification for walking through the bunker. Was it 20yds long or could he see by sight that he just needed a little flip over it? I don't think I've ever seen anyone walk through a bunker to judge distance before.

I know this doesn't change the ruling, I'm just trying to visualise it.

I don't know and I don't imagine there is much, if any, footage of this stage of Q school.

It seems very strange that you wouldn't just 'feel' the distance if it was short enough to pace out. If it was a longer shot and he was maybe pacing just 15 or 20 yards to a yardage marker - again, surely just make an assessment from the visual. Pacing a yardage is hardly an exact science and if you are a pro golfer, playing regularly without an experienced caddy - you would surely get reasonably good at estimating distances of 15 to 20 yards.

 

[SteveJay]

Irrelevant - doesn’t matter if he was trying or not , the simple fact is the Hazard was in the line of his shot.

The rules are there for a reason - all sports have them and it’s the players responsibility to adhere to them

Absolutely......even football has ridiculous rules....that an injured player has to go off the pitch and wait to be recalled by the ref leaving his team one short for a while.....and topically, after the Demari Gray booking at the weekend, for celebrating a goal by removing an outer shirt.
Players need to learn the rules, stick to them or accept the consequences (as Gray and Leicester have done so humbly, despite ill informed public outrage against the poor ref).

 

[Grant85]

Also - while this may seem a ridiculous rule and clearly the player made a genuine error not seeking to gain an advantage, had he duffed it in the bunker and got a nice clean lie, then he would be gaining an advantage on the other 100 or so guys who were teeing it up.

 

[rulefan]

If the bunker was raked before he walked through I fail to see how raking his footprints to put it back to it's previous condition is then "Improving" rather than re-instating.

If

 

[clubchamp98]

He certainly has but has he IMPROVED it

That is subjective he may have stood on a obvious mound of sand.

 

[duncan mackie]

Should never be the case. The rules should govern eveyone equally surely.

They do, but the definition of line of play includes a reasonable distance either side of a line one ball wide....

What's reasonable for a professional golfer will be different from what is reasonable for a 28 handicap player - the rule is the same but it's application will sometimes be competence related.

An easy example is dropping. Where the rules require a player to drop as near as possible to a spot, a relatively normal measure for professionals would be that the ball lands within a hands span ( they practice and would expect to be closer to a finger tip is they were trying!). Outside that might be cause for a referee to request a redrop. For Joe average the same ref would probably accept about a 3ft circle as reasonable intent to comply with the rule.

 

[duncan mackie]

More examples of how golf just shoots itself in the foot... stupid rules like this..!

So we have a rule in place which protects against a potential better lie in case we duff a shot into a bunker which is in line of play... please.

Golf is such a wonderful sport full of fantastic people, yet the rest of the world think we are stuck up idiots. With rules like this, I agree with them

Not really...there is a rule in place which prohibits changing the course before playing your shot.

It's derived from a really really simple concept - play the course as you find it.

Please explain what's stupid about that principle?

 

[Beedee]

It's a pro event. I'd bet a huge sum of money that the bunker was in very nice condition before he set foot in it. Regardless of what the rules say he was restoring the course to the state it was in when his ball came to rest. To me it's analogous to being allowed to repair a pitch mark when you're ball's off the green, if the pitch mark happens after your ball's come to rest - you're entitled to have the state of the course re-instated.

The bigger issue for me is pacing out a pitch. He should have received a 2 shot penalty for undue delay. Pacing out a pitch, then having a bunker raked before playing is taking the Mickey! I'll bet that aspect took a lot longer than the new suggestion of 40 seconds for a shot.

 

[howbow88]

Stop playing the stupid game then, simple.

It’s pretty sad to suggest to a guy that’s he should stop playing golf because he doesn’t like some of the rules.

 

[Crow]

It’s pretty sad to suggest to a guy that’s he should stop playing golf because he doesn’t like some of the rules.

No it isn't.

 

[HamiltonGuy]

Glad to see GCW aren’t solely on the course they can also be found on the web

 

[Crow]

Good one.

 

[Sweep]

I don’t really think it’s a good defence of golf’s more complicated or controversial rules to say other sports have ridiculous rules as well.
Just by the fact that on this forum alone we have a rules section where posters ask questions on a daily basis and others debate forumers interpretations, often for weeks over multiple pages, should tell us it’s all too complicated. How many pages of decisions on the rules of golf are there?
What I see nowadays are the authorities defending rulings like this, almost to the point of incredulity that someone would suggest the rule is daft, and then changing it at their earliest opportunity because they know it’s plain daft and can’t really defend it. Majors have been decided on rules that have now been ditched or changed.
Now I am fully aware that much of this is caused by the amazing things that can happen to a golf ball and the strange stuff that occurs during a round of golf. This case is a good example. But deep down we know this guy wasn’t trying to gain an advantage nor did he get one. And now it seems as he is a pro, falling foul of this nonsense has damaged his living.
I guess that’s all part of golf and those who make a living from the game know that beforehand. But this kind of thing does not serve our game well and we shouldn’t pretend it does.

 

[howbow88]

I guess that’s all part of golf and those who make a living from the game know that beforehand. But this kind of thing does not serve our game well and we shouldn’t pretend it does.

Yep.

 

[garyinderry]

Its an odd rule but only insofar as its a really odd thing to walk immediately infront of your ball in a bunker.

The rule itself makes perfect sense.

For example. On a hard packed lie. If i thought for any reason i wouldn't get out of a bunker on my first attempt. I could rake a load of sand infront of my first lie to try and ensure i had plenty of sand under my potential second lie thus making it easier to get out of the bunker.