Kenny Perry: Caught Cheating or Not?

[iacas]

Then why wasn't he disqualified. They reviewed it and he wasn't.

Two reasons:

1) It was a playoff. You can't be DQed for that - all that could be done is to lose the playoff (by adding two strokes to your score). 2) They reviewed it months later. Once the tournament's over, it's over.

actually it seems the rules do give a right to ground your club lightly even if it does improve your lie:

As you and I both said, he wasn't addressing the ball so he's not entitled to ground his club and he's certainly not entitled to improve his lie.

You're right about the quote: the rules say nothing about intent except, as I noted above, in the making of a stroke (i.e. when a player attempts to stop).

[Grndslmhttr3]

I don't like the camera angle.

[mdvaldosta]

Honestly, having watched the video several times, I really don't think he was trying to improve his lie. It looks as if he was simply trying to get a feel for how the ball was sitting, and exactly as to what lie he had. Maybe his lie was improved to some degree, but it's not like he was pulling up grass behind the ball or anything. Looks completely innocent, though I understand the controversy.

[bobsuruncle]

well, that's clearly improving your lie, no matter what angle you want to look at it from. he had "grass before ball" contact prior to patting the grass down and now he will have "direct club on ball" contact for his shot. plain and simple, really... having said that, so many players do this it has become common place and officials no longer deem it a rule breach ...

[pjsnyc]

Inconclusive. I understand why people think he cheated and I understand why people think he didn't.

Honestly, the only way for this to become a non-issue is for radical rules change:
1) graduated rough in all pga tour events.
2) in the thickest rough, treat it almost like a bunker except practice strokes to test the grass are allowed 2 club lengths away from the ball.
3) a rules change in this manner will never happen and every time this situation happens, we will scrutinize it to the sum of 10 forum pages of posts.

[iacas]

Honestly, having watched the video several times, I really don't think he was

Emphasis added to the irrelevant part. Intent or "trying" is irrelevant.

[Lloyd Braun]

actually it seems the rules do give a right to ground your club lightly even if it does improve your lie:

This rule is too ambiguous to interpret. Who is to say what an improved lie is after pressing down on the ground? What is the precedent behind this? You can't accuse someone a cheater by splitting hairs. The rules ought to define what an improved lie is before it wants to penalize you for it.

[iacas]

This rule is too ambiguous to interpret. Who is to say what an improved lie is after pressing down on the ground? What is the precedent behind this? You can't accuse someone a cheater by splitting hairs. The rules ought to define what an improved lie is before it wants to penalize you for it.

So you want a definition for the word "improved"? I think they have those already. Go look 'em up.

[PEZGolf]

I've always liked Kenny. But if that's not improving your lie, what is?

I agree with you. On the video, it appears pretty blatant to me.

[Three Putt]

Looked like a nervous twitch. Nerves of the playoff probably got to him and he didn't realize it. If he was called on the spot for it he would have probably agreed with the penalty.

[misty_mountainhop]

Looks pretty clear to me although the single camera angle doesn't make it clear cut. Looks to me like he "cheated" although I suspect he was unaware what he had just done.

Worrying that this might be "standard practice" on the Tour(s)....

[trumps4]

I don't think anyone can say that he 100% didn't cheat after watching the video. Obviously, some grass was tapped down. I mean the ball was not visible and then it was. However, I think there are only one or two people in the world that really know if his lie was improved (him and possibly the caddy or whoever was standing closest). You can't definitively say that he did cheat either. Inconclusive.

[glllambo]

Many of us do the same thing. That is the way we improve our game right?

[Lloyd Braun]

So you want a definition for the word "improved"? I think they have those already. Go look 'em up.

Just look at the poll results and you'll see what I mean. 33 say he didn't cheat while 27 said he did as I am writing this. That's a pretty polarizing stat and it certainly shows how up in the air this rule could be interpreted.

[iacas]

Just look at the poll results and you'll see what I mean. 33 say he didn't cheat while 27 said he did as I am writing this. That's a pretty polarizing stat and it certainly shows how up in the air this rule could be interpreted.

Rules aren't determined by a vote, and 90% of golfers don't even seem to know most of the rules let alone follow them themselves. In other words, perhaps the poll indicates that 33 people don't know how to read the rules properly.

To get back to my point, you want a definition of "improved"? Look it up at dictionary.com. It's not golf-specific. If you're lie's improved, you've broken the rule.

[zeg]

While I don't think the definition of "improved" is the cause of the disagreement here, I do think it's a bit of a vague term. For example, if you (unwisely) ground your club on an unstable lie, you might change the lie without making it clear whether it was an improvement or not. This is gonna be rare but it is still a case of ambiguity. However, the rules of golf do have a fall-back: equity.

In this specific case, I think there are two snags that cause the strong disagreement in the vote. First, the single camera angle makes it very difficult to discern exactly where he tamped, so that's one point two reasonable viewers could disagree about. The other is the term "cheat." It's a rather loaded term-- and this is why I think "intent" might come in to it. If you break the rules, you should incur the penalty, but IMO, you're only cheating if it's willful.

[worst_shot_ever]

I agree re "cheat" -- it's a different question than did he break the rules. It denotes intentional misconduct. But the official's statement about intent remains irrelevant, since he was answering the other question: was there a violation.

[Parker0065]

I watched it again tonight on TGC and I have to say from the camera angle it looks like he pushed down the grass but it's hard to tell how close his club was to the ball when he grounded it so without another camera angle to verify it, I would have to say "No Penalty"!

It's like those Instant Replay calls in football where there's just not enough evidence to over rule the call!

But I agree that it does look bad from that camera angle!