LPGA blows it with Morgan Pressel slow play penalty

[zeg]

Quote:

Originally Posted by zipazoid

And that's the type of thing someone says when their argument is being eroded away.

So now it's about being out of position? I thought it was about taking too long to hit a shot.

Tell me why it isn't common sense to say that not everyone taking more than 60 seconds has been penalized? I can't prove it, as I do not have a vault of video or pour through (nor the time), but to turn the argument around, prove to me that everyone has. You can't prove it either. Therefore we have to go to 'common sense'. Doesn't mean I'm losing the argument. In other words, I'm not losing the arugment because you think I am.

I can only conclude that you've not read the rules, or you've read them but not thought about how they work.

"Out of position" is inextricably connected to this discussion because it is a basic part of the rule that is being enforced.

3.  “Out of Position”: Each player is responsible for maintaining her group’s position on the course in relation to the field.  A group in considered “out of position” if they...

The rule goes on to define quite clearly and specifically what "out of position" means. What is the importance of being out of position? Read on in the rule to find
this in the clearly labeled "Pace of Play Rules" section.

A player in a group which is out of position may be penalized for undue delay if:
1.  The player takes more than sixty (60) seconds to play one shot, including putts; and/or
2.  The player exceeds the average amount of time for the total strokes taken on a given hole by more than ten (10) seconds.

There is no penalty if a group is not "out of position." No one who is keeping up with the group ahead needs to be timed. This is not arbitrary, this is not an oversight, this is completely sensible.

Your side is the one making an extraordinary claim---that the rules are being unfairly applied---so you need to support that. We have a rule which, while it could perhaps be written more clearly, does not approach brocks' hyperbolic criticism. It does have cases of discretion in terms of when to start the clock. From Folz' quote above, it seems that this discretion was used both reasonably and in Pressel's favor. So unless you have some evidence that Folz was wrong and the official was starting the clock as soon as he possibly could, you can't complain about abuse of that discretion in this case: it didn't contribute to the penalty.

The group was clearly out of position, the reports are that they had two warnings. That is consistent with the rule which states that, once they've been determined to be out of position, they should be warned and given a chance to catch up or improve their position. So it sounds to me like they were out of position and warned, given a chance to imrpove, and warned that they did not. At that point they should be (and it seems, were) put on the clock.

So the evidence we have sure seems to indicate that the rule was applied as it was written, and that if anything, discretion was used to lessen the likelihood of a penalty.

If you have any facts to support your claim (gut feelings don't count), please present them. As it is, you are arguing for suspension of a rule because the situation was "important." That is the only thing I've seen in this thread that matches the definition of "arbitrary."

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by zipazoid

And that's the type of thing someone says when their argument is being eroded away.

So now it's about being out of position? I thought it was about taking too long to hit a shot.

Tell me why it isn't common sense to say that not everyone taking more than 60 seconds has been penalized? I can't prove it, as I do not have a vault of video or pour through (nor the time), but to turn the argument around, prove to me that everyone has. You can't prove it either. Therefore we have to go to 'common sense'. Doesn't mean I'm losing the argument. In other words, I'm not losing the arugment because you think I am.

Yes.  One thing those of us who didn't know or care to know the tours' slow play rules have learned from this thread is that it is ALL about being out of position.

Who gives a damn how long you take to hit your putt when there are 2 groups ahead of you waiting on the next tee?  Penalizing somebody for that would be the complete opposite of common sense.

EDIT:  For the record, I am not trying to gang up on you, I was writing mine at the same time as Zeg.  If I had a chance to read his first, I wouldn't have bothered.

[rustyredcab]

Zeg's quote of the rules says "A player in a group which is out of position may be penalized for undue delay if:" Not sure there are many rules where players "may" be penalized. But I do not wish to stoke the random and whimsical application fires.

My question remains: When did Pressel loose the hole? When she finished the hole with too much time per shot? Or when Munoz picked up a non-conceded putt after not taking too much time or in any other way created her own lose of hole penalty?

And where is the video? Rumor has it that all unedited video of the hole, owned by Golf Channel and the LPGA, has been moved to Area 51 in Nevada. The public can not know what really happened.

[Chas]

To say the PGA gives too much time is facile, but the PGA is the standard for American golf, so IMO the burden of proof is on the LPGA to show why their time limits are more reasonable. I honestly don't see how anyone who has ever played golf in gusting winds can say 30 seconds is plenty of time, with no exceptions allowed, and so IMO the 30-second rule is arbitrary.

1) You obviously didn't understand his point when he referred to PGA. Are you carefully reading his posts? He didn't say or imply that "the PGA gives too much time"; he was making a much more subtle point than that. 2) I've played golf in gusting winds and could handle a 30 sec rule. Of course it would be nice to have more time (5 min ... ? :-) ) to wait for a lull but dealing with adverse weather is an important part of the game. Still you are certainly giving the argument your full efforts - bravo for that. As to the whole "arbitrary" issue, it's obvious that any time cut-off could be accused of being "arbitrary" in a sense, but an acceptable rationale should be offered. Obviously, LPGA takes pace of play seriously. If people are truly concerned about slow play, a certain "arbitrariness" has to be accepted. rustyredcab: I think you should put "Where is the video?" in your signature. ;-)

[zeg]

Originally Posted by rustyredcab

Zeg's quote of the rules says "A player in a group which is out of position may be penalized for undue delay if:" Not sure there are many rules where players "may" be penalized. But I do not wish to stoke the random and whimsical application fires.

My question remains: When did Pressel loose the hole? When she finished the hole with too much time per shot? Or when Munoz picked up a non-conceded putt after not taking too much time or in any other way created her own lose of hole penalty?

It's pretty clear that "may be penalized" in that context means "should be penalized" or "incurs a penalty."

As to your (philosophical) question, yes, the hole was lost when she holed out in violation of the rule. That it took additional time to determine this is immaterial.

Did Munoz actually take too much time on the hole or are you just making up conspiracy theories?

[x129]

In match play, there is no need to hole out.  By picking up Munoz concedes the hole to Pressel. Then Pressel loses the hole as a result of the penalty. Now if Munoz was over the time limit, I have no clue how it would have been resolved.

I am going to stand by the fact the rule  is unfair. The person hitting first has less time (the player hitting second has an addition 20+ secs to think about their shot) and the fact the 1/3 of the holes are contested under different rules isn't great either.

[zipazoid]

Quote:

Your side is the one making an extraordinary claim---that the rules are being unfairly applied---so you need to support that.

Or "your side" needs to support they are being fairly applied.

So when you read a rule that has 'at the official's discretion' in it, it introduces subjectivity. And further, it pretty much assures that it cannot be fairly applied since one official's 'discretion' will differ from another's.

Hey look - I applaud the effort for cracking down on slow play. They just have a poorly written rule to address it.

[Golfingdad]

Happy 24th birthday to Morgan Pressel!

[rustyredcab]

Originally Posted by zeg

...

As to your (philosophical) question, yes, the hole was lost when she holed out in violation of the rule. That it took additional time to determine this is immaterial.

Did Munoz actually take too much time on the hole or are you just making up conspiracy theories?

I'm not trying to be difficult but if the hole was over, then nothing Munoz did after Pressel holed out mattered. If Munoz needed to finish the hole on time and without her own penalties (mis-marking a ball, taking too much time, touching the line of her putt, asking for advise...) then it does matter what she did and what her time was. No one who didn't see it live seems to know what she did or did not do. Which is it? Does she need to finish or not. If so, what about the putt she picked up?

If Pressel had hit the wrong ball on her second shot and discovered it when she looked at it on the green, would Munoz need to play out the hole? I don't think so. She would have won the hole then. Why did the official give her the chance to make her own error if she had already won the hole? Why did he allow her to build or shatter her confidence in her putting stroke by putting when the hole was over? There was no practice putting allowed and that had been an issue earlier in the week. So why let her putt?  Because the official could not step in and end the hole? Why not? He certainly knew the time before Munoz hit her putt. Munoz' putt could not have won the hole so, it is unlikely he was counting on her to bail him out, win the hole, and thus make Pressel's penalty not matter.

How much time did Munoz take on the shots she played? Was she close to too long? Plenty fast? Who knows. No video is available and she did not finish the hole. (Yes, I was joking about a video blackout conspiracy -- at least sort of.)

EDIT: The official had to be timing her from the start of the hole. By the end of her tee shot, he knew it was going to be close. He had three number to add up and divide by three. And, as people have said, it was not close. He should have known before Pressel's putt went in that the hole was over if the putt went in. Give him ten seconds to add it up again, and he is still able to make the call before Munoz hits her putt. If it is over when it is over, and no practice putting is allowed, then what was going on here.

[zeg]

Originally Posted by zipazoid

Or "your side" needs to support they are being fairly applied.

So when you read a rule that has 'at the official's discretion' in it, it introduces subjectivity. And further, it pretty much assures that it cannot be fairly applied since one official's 'discretion' will differ from another's.

Hey look - I applaud the effort for cracking down on slow play. They just have a poorly written rule to address it.

Did you see the part of my post where I explained the various bits of evidence that the rule was enforced as written in this situation? And Iacas' (I think) information above that penalties have been levied twice before this season?

Beyond that, if you really don't understand why you need to back up a claim that the officials are applying the rules unfairly with more than, "Oh yeah, prove they're not!" then I give up.

Believe it or not, "discretion" can be applied fairly. Its use in this rule is quite limited, and I really don't see any conceivable way you can codify "it's the players turn" without leaving some room in there for judgement. And, as I mentioned before, the "discretion" in this case was applied so as to lessen the impact of a penalty, but it really wasn't even a narrowly-earned penalty.

[Golfingdad]

Originally Posted by rustyredcab

I'm not trying to be difficult but if the hole was over, then nothing Munoz did after Pressel holed out mattered. If Munoz needed to finish the hole on time and without her own penalties (mis-marking a ball, taking too much time, touching the line of her putt, asking for advise...) then it does matter what she did and what her time was. No one who didn't see it live seems to know what she did or did not do. Which is it? Does she need to finish or not. If so, what about the putt she picked up?

If Pressel had hit the wrong ball on her second shot and discovered it when she looked at it on the green, would Munoz need to play out the hole? I don't think so. She would have won the hole then. Why did the official give her the chance to make her own error if she had already won the hole? Why did he allow her to build or shatter her confidence in her putting stroke by putting when the hole was over? There was no practice putting allowed and that had been an issue earlier in the week. So why let her putt?  Because the official could not step in and end the hole? Why not? He certainly knew the time before Munoz hit her putt. Munoz' putt could not have won the hole so, it is unlikely he was counting on her to bail him out, win the hole, and thus make Pressel's penalty not matter.

How much time did Munoz take on the shots she played? Was she close to too long? Plenty fast? Who knows. No video is available and she did not finish the hole. (Yes, I was joking about a video blackout conspiracy -- at least sort of.)

First of all, she (Munoz) lost the hole by a shot so if she would have made her putt it still would have only been a halve and wouldn't have "bailed out" the referee.  He still had to step in and call the penalty.

And I don't know why any of this matters.  So it took him a few extra seconds to make the call, so what?  Maybe he was double checking his math and didn't want to interrupt Munoz from her routine (which certainly started as soon as Pressel putted out, no?) while he was being absolutely sure of himself that he had the numbers right?

Imagine if he called a halt to the finish of the hole right there while Munoz was in her routine, went over it with them, then realized he added wrong, then Munoz would have to go back and start her routine over.  Now if she misses the putt there is a whole different controversy.

[rustyredcab]

I edited my post as Golfindad was posting...

EDIT: The official had to be timing her from the start of the hole. By the end of her tee shot, he knew it was going to be close. He had three number to add up and divide by three. And, as people have said, it was not close. He should have known before Pressel's putt went in that the hole was over if the putt went in. Give him ten seconds to add it up again, and he is still able to make the call before Munoz hits her putt. If it is over when it is over, and no practice putting is allowed, then what was going on here.

Extra putts were not allowed that week. I understand that stopping play in error would have been a big mistake. But isn't letting the play continue also an error? What SHOULD he have done. What is the PROPER way to handle this? Again, he should have known long before the putt went in that she was over the max and that he was going to need to make the call.

The way he did handle it, Pressel felt like it cost her two holes. If he'd have handled it in the course of play, it would have FELT like losing a hole she may have halved.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by zipazoid

So now it's about being out of position? I thought it was about taking too long to hit a shot.

You don't seem to understand the rule, zip.

They wouldn't have been on the clock, nor would they have gotten two warnings, if they had not been out of position. Players aren't put on the clock if they're in position.

Edit: Oops. This is what I get for not hitting submit and then finally doing so hours later. People have already made my point.

[sacm3bill]

Originally Posted by Golfingdad

Quote:

Originally Posted by mdl

...The thing that makes it feel a little ugly I think is the fact that it was match play.  If you get assessed a penalty stroke or two in stroked play, that's one or two "points" out of something like the 270 or 280 that go into a win.  In match play you can think of the penalty as 1 of the 18 "points" needed to win, a MUCH more severe penalty than a slow play penalty in a 4 round stroke play tourney.

Even worse, in this case since it happened on a hole that she won, and the penalty was loss of hole, it was worth two "points" out of the eighteen...

Even worse, you really only need 10 "points" (holes) to win a match.

(Not that it matters much to this discussion, just felt like being pedantic.)

[zipazoid]

Originally Posted by zeg

Did you see the part of my post where I explained the various bits of evidence that the rule was enforced as written in this situation? And Iacas' (I think) information above that penalties have been levied twice before this season?

Beyond that, if you really don't understand why you need to back up a claim that the officials are applying the rules unfairly with more than, "Oh yeah, prove they're not!" then I give up.

Believe it or not, "discretion" can be applied fairly. Its use in this rule is quite limited, and I really don't see any conceivable way you can codify "it's the players turn" without leaving some room in there for judgement. And, as I mentioned before, the "discretion" in this case was applied so as to lessen the impact of a penalty, but it really wasn't even a narrowly-earned penalty.

I'll take the 'not' side of that statement.

As far as proving it's not being applied fairly, just look to how the rule is written. By its wording it cannot be applied fairly. That's my proof - my 'discretion' will differ from your 'discretion'. Do you really believe that every rules official will come up with the exact same 'discretion'? That, by definition, is impossible. Define what a 'few extra seconds' means? To you it may mean 5. To me 10. To someone else 20 or 30 or 50. The rule is too vague to consistently apply it.

If you reject that assertion, then you reject that assertion. So there we are.

[RemyM]

You people can complain all day about the policy being poor, but the LPGA players board approved it so they must be OK with it.

The rule says "may" be penalized because in order for it to be applied a rules official must be there to do the timing and there are only so many of them to go around at LPGA events.  This being a match play event with only two groups on the course a rules official was with the group.  The Women's US Open is the only time a rules official is with every group in a stroke play event and the USGA has their own pace of play policy, the don't use the LPGA's.

[zeg]

Originally Posted by rustyredcab

I edited my post as Golfindad was posting...

EDIT: The official had to be timing her from the start of the hole. By the end of her tee shot, he knew it was going to be close. He had three number to add up and divide by three. And, as people have said, it was not close. He should have known before Pressel's putt went in that the hole was over if the putt went in. Give him ten seconds to add it up again, and he is still able to make the call before Munoz hits her putt. If it is over when it is over, and no practice putting is allowed, then what was going on here.

Extra putts were not allowed that week. I understand that stopping play in error would have been a big mistake. But isn't letting the play continue also an error? What SHOULD he have done. What is the PROPER way to handle this? Again, he should have known long before the putt went in that she was over the max and that he was going to need to make the call.

The way he did handle it, Pressel felt like it cost her two holes. If he'd have handled it in the course of play, it would have FELT like losing a hole she may have halved.

That rule really can't be enforced until play on the hole is complete. Think about it this way, if Munoz had also gone over on time, she'd have also had a penalty, which presumably under Equity would mean the actual results stand for the hole (I'm not certain of this, but note that even in this case, the penalties would both be significant: a second infraction would then be a DQ).

Now, there's an annoying feature that she can just pick up and concede the hole to save time if she's slightly over on time, but that's just the way it is (and it doesn't seem like this was in any danger of happening or I imagine we'd have heard about it).

Originally Posted by zipazoid

I'll take the 'not' side of that statement.

As far as proving it's not being applied fairly, just look to how the rule is written. By its wording it cannot be applied fairly. That's my proof - my 'discretion' will differ from your 'discretion'. Do you really believe that every rules official will come up with the exact same 'discretion'? That, by definition, is impossible. Define what a 'few extra seconds' means? To you it may mean 5. To me 10. To someone else 20 or 30 or 50. The rule is too vague to consistently apply it.

If you reject that assertion, then you reject that assertion. So there we are.

Good luck finding a pro-level rules official to whom "a few" means 20 or 30 or 50 seconds when the times being contemplated are 30 seconds and there's already 10 seconds of slop built in to the rule. The scale of reference for a "few" is quite clear.

The evidence we have suggests that if any discretion was applied, it was in the player's favor and it wasn't enough. Pressel took an extra 30 seconds out of 90 allotted. That's really not close.

There are plenty of examples of discretion being applied by officials in sports, even golf, without automatically rendering those decisions unfair.

[rustyredcab]

Originally Posted by zeg

That rule really can't be enforced until play on the hole is complete. Think about it this way, if Munoz had also gone over on time, she'd have also had a penalty, which presumably under Equity would mean the actual results stand for the hole (I'm not certain of this, but note that even in this case, the penalties would both be significant: a second infraction would then be a DQ).

Now, there's an annoying feature that she can just pick up and concede the hole to save time if she's slightly over on time, but that's just the way it is (and it doesn't seem like this was in any danger of happening or I imagine we'd have heard about it).

...

Sounds logical but also sounds like your best guess. And your guess is that Munoz, is not supposed to be told that she has won the hole and is given/allowed every chance to create her own penalty and void Pressel's loss of hole penalty. Double super secret win -- until the next tee -- unless it is not a win because you messed up not knowing you had already won if you'd just conceded.

If Munoz needed to either concede or finish or somehow complete the hole for Pressel's penalty to take effect, then Munoz had chances to mess up a rule and create an even bigger mess. If the hole was over, as some others have guessed, then allowing Munoz to keep playing was potentially a benefit or detriment to her mental state. A big deal was made about no practice putts after the hole was complete.

Anybody know what the rules official should have done? Should do in the future?