LPGA State Farm Classic [Spoilers]

[albatross]

What about Ian Woosnam carrying 15 clubs for two holes even though he didn't use the extra one? No penalty there, either? After all, that extra club didn't affect anything there.

I think that's a lot different. You have to be strict about something like how many clubs you can have in your bag.

The whole point here is that this is a rule that made sense when there didn't used to be a SCORER walking with every group, 100 television cameras on the course, and and the television broadcast "Keeping score". Do I think Wie should have been held accountable for this? Absolutely. Does it mean it's a rule that makes any sense? No way. Dumb rule.

[Lemay427]

it was a mistake. She is dealing with the consequence and i feel that she is growing up even more. Thats life ladies and gentlemen. you learn through your mistakes. We all were at that point where we are not aware of the rules or did not understand them. Give Michelle a break.

think what you want but she is way too young mentally to compete on the pro level. she has been a puppet of her parents/sponsors since she came onto the mainstream. i wish her the best but I think she needs to take a year off of golf and try to mature as a person and come back with a fresh mind.

[localgolfer808]

I agree Lemay... but if you had your chance to go pro wouldn't you take it?

[Roody]

I'd like to think we live in an age of enough technology to make having to sign your scorecard unnecessary, don't you? I mean, you can go to 100 websites on the internet and get up-to-the-minute progress on any golfer in any tournament. Why do the golfers even need to keep their own score when they have 1000 people doing it for them already?

[iacas]

I think that's a lot different. You have to be strict about something like how many clubs you can have in your bag.

That's where we'll disagree, then.

ALL rules should be "strict."

The whole point here is that this is a rule that made sense when there didn't used to be a SCORER walking with every group, 100 television cameras on the course, and and the television broadcast "Keeping score".

You mean, like, last week? Or when? It's not like the stuff you're mentioning is new to golf. We've had scorers for 40 years or so.

The rule exists for many reasons, and at least one of those is to avoid bifurcation of the rules: everyone has to play under the same set of rules, and I doubt every club has scorers walking along during club championships.

I'd like to think we live in an age of enough technology to make having to sign your scorecard unnecessary, don't you?

That's not the issue here, and again, the rule is written as simply and uniformly as possible.

[Roody]

That's not the issue here, and again, the rule is written as simply and uniformly as possible.

I understand that it's the current rule. I'm not arguing that at all. That rule was obviously put into place in a day and age when wireless electronic scoring was not available. What I'm saying is if the technology is available now, why not eliminate the need to sign a paper scorecard? Then the 99.9% of the time where this is not an issue becomes 100%.

[albatross]

That's where we'll disagree, then.

I said they need to enforce the rule if it's a rule. I think Wie should have been DQ'd.

Why are we talking about club championships?? I think everyone understands this is a totally different scenario. Of course you're responsible for keeping your own score in non-professional golf. That's not what anyone is talking about here. The bottom line is that it's obviously a pointless rule because if you sign for the wrong score or mark something incorrectly, you get disqualified. The only way the officials could possibly know you made a mistake on your card is if they were keeping score for you . So what's the point? No other professional sport holds you responsible for keeping your own score. It's stupid. So if someone else (an official scorer, the tour, tv broadcast,etc.) knows you marked the incorrect score, than they are obviously already keeping score FOR YOU. If you call a penalty on yourself, you have to inform an official anyways, so it doesn't even make sense to keep you own score from that point of view. I'm still looking for an intelligent reason that in 2008 a professional athlete has to even worry about keeping their own score. Reasons?

[iacas]

I understand that it's the current rule. I'm not arguing that at all. That rule was obviously put into place in a day and age when wireless electronic scoring was not available.

Did you see the point I was making about not bifurcating the rules?

Since when did your local district golf association tournaments, or your local club championships or whatever, have electronic scoring, coverage on the Internet, and TV cameras everywhere? The LPGA, PGA Tour, etc. are in the vast minority here. You don't change that rule because of 0.1% of the golf that's played in the world (or country), particularly when the reasons for changing it for that 0.1% are as lame as "someone suffered the consequences of breaking this rule, and that sucks." The Rules of Golf don't just govern professionals. They govern us all. The signature thing is an inherent and important part of the process of attesting to the scores that you shot and that your playing partners shot. There'd be a helluva lot more confusion if you could just turn in scorecards with no attesting, no signatures.

[foreleft]

So you just completely missed the point I was making about not bifurcating the rules, huh?

I think that sums up the confusion here. There are a lot of people that think the tournament golf they see on tv is the entire game. The Rules of Golf are written for the good of the game, not to coddle tour professionals. EVERY tournament player knows that your card must be signed IMMEDIATELY following your round, IN THE SCORING AREA. Ms. Wie has so many "handlers, mangagers, parents, etc." that she cannot think for herself.

[martin00015]

The whole point here is that this is a rule that made sense when there didn't used to be a SCORER walking with every group, 100 television cameras on the course, and and the television broadcast "Keeping score".

There's always been a scorer with every group in any tournament - obviously, most often a fellow competitor for us amateurs. But the cameras don't necessarily record every shot of every player and the broadcasters only report what they have been told - they don't know for certain that a score is totally accurate. Only the player knows.

There's another issue, though. One of the great things about golf is that everyone can play by the same rules, whether you are in a Major or your own club's Wednesday competition. I wouldn't like to see that tradition change. Overwhelmingly, player's scores are not recorded other than by the word of the player himself, and agreed by his marker. A player signs the card to attest that this is a true score (or at least it's not less than the true score). So, in my opinion, the rules still makes total sense despite any technologial changes in the previous fifty years

[foreleft]

There's always been a scorer with every group in any tournament - obviously, most often a fellow competitor for us amateurs. But the cameras don't necessarily record every shot of every player and the broadcasters only report what they have been told - they don't know for certain that a score is totally accurate. Only the player knows.

Agreed 100%.

[albatross]

Overwhelmingly, player's scores are not recorded other than by the word of the player himself, and agreed by his marker. A player signs the card to attest that this is a true score (or at least it's not less than the true score).

This is not true for the PGA and LPGA Tour which is what I assume we're still talking about. If the scores are not recorded by anyone other than the player like you say, then how do they even know if an incorrect score is signed for? An official would have no idea the player made a mistake if they weren't keeping score also.

[martin00015]

This is not true for the PGA and LPGA Tour which is what I assume we're still talking about.

Even on the tours, players exchange cards and mark each others scores. Officials don't keep track of individual scores. The 'scorer' that follows a group only asks what score was made and relays it back; they don't have any authority over what score is recorded. And that's why a player's signature on a scorecard is so vital. Only he knows, and only he can be responsible for any mistake.

[worst_shot_ever]

I think there are really a few different issues being discussed concerning these rules -- that is, the Rules of Golf and the local rules involved in Wie's case. It may help clarity of discussion to parse them out. [Erik, if this needs to be moved or deleted for straying too far from the topic of the State Farm Classic, I apologize in advance.]

1. Core Purpose: Scorecard Validity

The requirement of the player's signature is the player's statement about the accuracy of the scorecard, or at least that the scorecard reflects no lower a round than was actually played. The game of golf is premised on the concept of accountability when no one is watching. Given that, the aspect of the Rules that require a player to verify the validity of the scorecard, it seems to me, is not a mere historical technicality but a core part of the game.

2. Rulemaking Goal of Uniformity

There is one set of the Rules of Golf, and they are crafted to be applied to you and I, for whom nothing more than our personal sense of accomplishment may be on the line, just as they are to Michele Wie, for whom it must seem her entire world relies on the level of her accomplishment, and whose rounds are observed, and tracked, by numerous people. It seems to me that the goal of uniformity is a reasonable one. Nonetheless, the Rules could still provide that a professional tournament may be permitted essentially to opt-out, by local rule, from the requirement of a player signature if the event is one in which the tournament officials will assume responsibility for the validity of the scorecard. I'm not wild about that idea, given the importance of #1, but it wouldn't be contrary to the goal of uniformity, and it would take into account the undeniable changes in the degree to which we now are able to observe the pros at work.

3. Administrative Convenience

This is where I think many take issue. The Rules of Golf provide that the scorecard must be signed and returned within a reasonable time. It is the LPGA Tour, in this instance, that for administrative convenience has promulgated supplementary local rules that deem the card to be irretrievably returned once the player walks beyond the designated scoring area, be it a tent or stakes or whatever. One can imagine the administrative chaos that might ensue if a tour full of pro golf personalities were permitted to dictate their own idea of what constitutes a reasonable time without limitation; however, the restrictions on when the card is deemed to be returned, it seems to me, are unnecessarily inflexible here given the penalty a violation imposes (see #4). Since the Rules of Golf specifically refer to a reasonable period of time, why define what is reasonable by geography rather than by a specific length of time? If the concern is that such a rule would be equally arbitrary -- assume a back-up in the scoring tent -- the local rule could deem a card "returned" after either (i) the player leaves the designated scoring area or (ii) 45 minutes have passed since the conclusion of the round, whichever is later.

4. Penalty

The Rules impose the equivalent of the death penalty for a violation, even if the violation is merely the procedural manner of how one "returns" a card (see #3). Wie's case (to keep this on topic) highlights, I think, that it is rather distasteful to impose disqualification for her techinical brand of violation of a local rule on what is deemed a returned card. In that regard, the penatly provision of the Rule could conceivable be amended to provide different penalties for different sorts of violations: for example, attesting to a wrong score, if that score is lower than actually played, results in DQ (as that would be a substantive violation of the purpose of the requirement to sign); however, in tournament play, a player who inadvertently fails to attest to a score before being deemed by local rule to have returned it, may nonetheless attest to the score immediately upon learning of the mistake without penalty so long as the scoring official has yet to call the outcome of the tournament, or in multi-round events, the designated day of the event, during which the stipulated round was played. Needs work, but it seems that bright people could readily find language that would better match the penalty to the substantive or technical nature of the violation.

[Klean]

What about Ian Woosnam carrying 15 clubs for two holes even though he didn't use the extra one? No penalty there, either? After all, that extra club didn't affect anything there.

Completely different. Him carrying an extra club CAN have an affect on the outcome of his score or the tournament itself.

However, Michelle signing her card a few yards outside of the scorers tent has absolutely no impact on the game whatsoever. I understand rules are rules, and she's a professional and should know better. But rules should also make sense. And the punishment should fit the crime. In this case it does not.

[iacas]

Completely different. Him carrying an extra club CAN have an affect on the outcome of his score or the tournament itself.

You apparently missed the part where I said he didn't use the club.

But rules should also make sense.

It makes sense to 99.99+% of professional golfers worldwide week in and week out, does it not?

worst_shot_ever posted the definitive answer, so I'll defer to that post.

[Klean]

No I didn't miss that part Iacas :P , it was part of my point. He CAN use the club. He just chose not too. The potential of affecting the tournament was there. Not so with the missing signature. At least not in a professional golf tournament.

I'm actually a stickler for rules, even when no one's looking. I see the valid argument of why the rule is in place, thanks for the great post worst_shot_ever.

But I still stand by "the punishment should fit the crime" thinking. So we'll just agree to disagree on this topic.

[SubPar]

I know she is "just a kid" but when you fancy yourself a professional and accept millions of dollars in endorsement deals, you think something like signing a scorecard would not be overlooked.

That said, it is a dumb rule. She signed the card and attested to an accurate score, but she walked out of the tent , so somehow that changes everything! Imagine if in other sports you could play in competition, obviously win or score a certain number of points but be disqualified because someone didn't sign a card attesting to the result. No one would stand for it.

SubPar