Clever Use of Rules?

[iacas]

Morikawa uses Rules to his advantage in clever way at Tour Championship

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Collin Morikawa showed off a thorough understanding of the Rules of Golf on Sunday at East Lake, using the Rules to his advantage.

Really? Taking relief for an embedded ball qualifies as clever nowadays?

[Missouri Swede]

Yep.  Right along with the caption “Morikawa didn't have to use the Rules on Sunday, but it definitely worked out for him.”

”Using the rules” is a bad thing now, from the way first paragraph is written.

Edited September 9, 2020 by Missouri Swede

[ChetlovesMer]

46 minutes ago, iacas said:

Morikawa uses Rules to his advantage in clever way at Tour Championship

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Collin Morikawa showed off a thorough understanding of the Rules of Golf on Sunday at East Lake, using the Rules to his advantage.

Really? Taking relief for an embedded ball qualifies as clever nowadays?

That article seems like an article in which the author doesn't know that much about golf. I generally use the "would I have known to do that" concept for measuring how "clever" a golfer is. In this case I definitely knew that rule and would have done the same thing. So, it is therefore NOT clever. 

Later on the author wrote an article stating that Morikawa was very "clever" to put his ball on a tee before hitting it with his driver. 

[David in FL]

Good grief.

[Missouri Swede]

1 hour ago, ChetlovesMer said:

Later on the author wrote an article stating that Morikawa was very "clever" to put his ball on a tee before hitting it with his driver. 

Have younger folks changed the meaning of “clever,” perhaps? Maybe they use it to mean something more routine, usual, expected.

I’m only half kidding. I find out words are used differently by people half my age. 

[DaveP043]

Just listening to the discussion, I heard the official say "you're going to drop it as near as you can right here where your tee is....".  Later in the discussion he got it right, indicating that Colin could drop in an area up to a clublength away, in accordance with the actual rule in the Relief Area, but I was a little surprised at his initial statement about dropping as close as possible (which was the old rule).  Even for top-level officials, old habits are hard to break.

[Golfingdad]

3 hours ago, iacas said:

Morikawa uses Rules to his advantage in clever way at Tour Championship

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Collin Morikawa showed off a thorough understanding of the Rules of Golf on Sunday at East...

Really? Taking relief for an embedded ball qualifies as clever nowadays?

Hyperbole, in general, is basically their thing right?

I mean, if we all had a nickel for every time they said “he has such imagination around the greens” just because he read the break properly or used the available slope to feed his ball to the hole, we’d all have a lot of nickels!

Or how many times they overplay how hard the lie in the rough is, or seem to forget they’re the best in the world, and act all shocked when they hit good shots from seemingly bad spots?

🙂

[saevel25]

Definitely not cleaver to use an obvious rule. 

[DaveP043]

What is "clever" to me is that he very politely discussed the situation with the official.  I heard the official say it "has to break the surface"  and later "if I only saw grass I wouldn't..." .  The rule says "embedded in its own pitch mark as a result of the previous stroke"   and that "part of the ball is below the ground surface".  Nothing about "breaking the surface" or seeing something other than grass.  I think Colin politely persuaded the official to make the right call, without confrontation, when the official's first reaction wasn't quite in direct agreement with the letter of the rule.

An example of the adage about catching more flies with sugar...

 

[iacas]

12 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

An example of the adage about catching more flies with sugar...

Isn't it honey? Flies don't care about sugar, do they? 🙂

I think the full saying is "you catch more flies with honey than Bryson." 😄

[DaveP043]

23 minutes ago, iacas said:

Isn't it honey? Flies don't care about sugar, do they? 🙂

I think the full saying is "you catch more flies with honey than Bryson." 😄

My bad, and you're 100% correct.  It makes me wonder if Colin knew the rule in detail, and just kind of "led" the official into doing the right thing, or was genuinely unsure himself.  I'm glad they got to the right decision in the end.

[Rulesman]

Have I missed something? When he decided to mark the spot with the tip of his tee in case the ball rolled away, wasn't he on the green?

9.3 Exception.

Edit: The initial picture showing a flagstick threw me. Watching again I see he wasn't.

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Rulesman

[fredf]

17 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

What is "clever" to me is that he very politely discussed the situation with the official.  I heard the official say it "has to break the surface"  and later "if I only saw grass I wouldn't..." .  The rule says "embedded in its own pitch mark as a result of the previous stroke"   and that "part of the ball is below the ground surface".  Nothing about "breaking the surface" or seeing something other than grass.  I think Colin politely persuaded the official to make the right call, without confrontation, when the official's first reaction wasn't quite in direct agreement with the letter of the rule.

An example of the adage about catching more flies with sugar...

 

Sadly, the official got it wrong repeatedly from the get go and needed to be pointed in the right direction. Morikawa's handling of the situation was very classy.

[TourSpoon]

I would say that CW is classy for sure but this probably is not in the clever column. Certainly more clever than Bryson's ant claim when the ants were in the next zip code, but that goes without saying. 

[Bonvivant]

I think that the impressive/clever part was him going through his pre-shot routine before placing the ball. With that slope, it could have easily rolled away in the normal PGA time (slow) of a pre-shot routine. He clarified with the official before doing this and it worked out swimmingly. 

[fredf]

9 hours ago, Bonvivant said:

I think that the impressive/clever part was him going through his pre-shot routine before placing the ball. With that slope, it could have easily rolled away in the normal PGA time (slow) of a pre-shot routine. He clarified with the official before doing this and it worked out swimmingly. 

A broader benefit from the Rickie Fowler 'don't do it this way' lesson - which proved to be a different kind of 'swimmingly'.

[SG11118]

To me an embedded ball should be much more obvious than that to give relief.  On tightly mowed ground to need to mark and pull your ball to possibly see the smallest of indentations in the ground is a little ridiculous.  

[saevel25]

2 minutes ago, SG11118 said:

To me an embedded ball should be much more obvious than that to give relief.  On tightly mowed ground to need to mark and pull your ball to possibly see the smallest of indentations in the ground is a little ridiculous.  

He is well in his right to lift the ball to check.. 

Quote

If a player reasonably believes that his or her ball lies in a condition where free relief is allowed under Rule 15.2, 16.1 or 16.3, but cannot decide that without lifting the ball:

• The player may lift the ball to see if relief is allowed, but:

• The spot of the ball must first be marked, and the lifted ball must not be cleaned (except on the putting green) (see Rule 14.1).

If the player lifts the ball without having this reasonable belief (except on the putting green where the player may lift under Rule 13.1b), he or she gets one penalty stroke.

If relief is allowed and the player takes relief, there is no penalty even if the player did not mark the spot of the ball before lifting it or cleaned the lifted ball.