PGA Tour Players Not Marking Balls when In Position to Assist Another Player, #Backstopping

[colin007]

Holy crap...that's ugly

[Missouri Swede]

1 hour ago, DeadMan said:

Also happening on the LPGA:

The full videos doesn't show it, but I'm wondering if Olson gave a sign or something to Jutanugarn not to mark here. Jutanugarn goes to start marking her ball, it looks like, and she looks over at Olson, motioning something, and immediately stops. This seems awfully close to the line, if not over it.

LPGA apparently deleted a tweet about this, too:

Yikes.

If this doesn’t get penalized, then I expect that this rule will never be enforced. Why even bother having it in the RoG?

[DaveP043]

1 hour ago, DeadMan said:

I don't think that's a significant difference from the old rule, which was:

I think the "agreement" piece is bigger issue here.

In fact, the new rules are softer, in that it's not an automatic DQ for doing this. If anything, that should make rules officials less hesitant to enforce the rule.

You and I seem to be reading the current rule differently.  I am taking the current wording to indicate that it is a violation only if their reason for agreement is to give assistance to a player.  If they agree for a different reason, its not a violation.  Before, it didn't matter WHY they agree, simply that they did agree, and the ball was in position to help.  In any case, if Ruling Bodies intention was the same as in previous versions of the rules, I hope they'll release a clarification to make that clear.

[boogielicious]

The only reason I could ever see to do this would be if they were behind or on the clock.

[DeadMan]

11 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

You and I seem to be reading the current rule differently.  I am taking the current wording to indicate that it is a violation only if their reason for agreement is to give assistance to a player.  If they agree for a different reason, its not a violation.  Before, it didn't matter WHY they agree, simply that they did agree, and the ball was in position to help.  In any case, if Ruling Bodies intention was the same as in previous versions of the rules, I hope they'll release a clarification to make that clear.

Yeah, I see what you mean. I'm hoping that wasn't the intention, but who knows.

[DaveP043]

49 minutes ago, boogielicious said:

The only reason I could ever see to do this would be if they were behind or on the clock.

Behind is one thing.  On the clock shouldn't matter, the clock doesn't start until the "path forward" is clear.

[Vinsk]

1 hour ago, DaveP043 said:

You and I seem to be reading the current rule differently.  I am taking the current wording to indicate that it is a violation only if their reason for agreement is to give assistance to a player.  If they agree for a different reason, its not a violation.  Before, it didn't matter WHY they agree, simply that they did agree, and the ball was in position to help.  In any case, if Ruling Bodies intention was the same as in previous versions of the rules, I hope they'll release a clarification to make that clear.

Dave I’m not saying you’re wrong, but your reasoning here is kinda what the problem here is. We can’t read golfer’s minds. We can’t prove collusion or any ‘agreement’ the players may have had. They’re backstopping. Period. We all like to imagine these players are the most honest and of the highest integrity at all times. They’re not. Hideki completely lied on his ‘improving his lie.’ Phil has lied. It happens. They’re working the system. One is not supposed to leave a ball in a position that can benefit another player and that’s what they’re doing. 

[colin007]

Who's going to be the first player to call out their other 2 partners for doing this? Is it gong to take a fan saying/yelling something from the gallery?

[DaveP043]

26 minutes ago, Vinsk said:

Dave I’m not saying you’re wrong, but your reasoning here is kinda what the problem here is. We can’t read golfer’s minds. We can’t prove collusion or any ‘agreement’ the players may have had. They’re backstopping. Period. We all like to imagine these players are the most honest and of the highest integrity at all times. They’re not. Hideki completely lied on his ‘improving his lie.’ Phil has lied. It happens. They’re working the system. One is not supposed to leave a ball in a position that can benefit another player and that’s what they’re doing. 

I agree, they SHOULD have integrity.  For that reason, I prefer the wording in the old rule, and I hope we see a clarification from the Ruling Bodies on this one.  The question about whether a ball is position to assist another player is gray enough, there shouldn't be an additional gray area surrounding the reason two players agree on a course of action.

1 minute ago, colin007 said:

Who's going to be the first player to call out their other 2 partners for doing this? Is it gong to take a fan saying/yelling something from the gallery?

Remember, any player can require that a ball be marked if it could assist another player.  A can require B to mark if B's ball is in position to help C.  A shouldn't wait until after the fact, he should make it clear from the start.  Whether that will ever happen, I don't know.  I'd love to hear a fan shouting "Mark that one!" loud enough to be overheard by the network's microphones.

[Big C]

6 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Remember, any player can require that a ball be marked if it could assist another player.  A can require B to mark if B's ball is in position to help C.  A shouldn't wait until after the fact, he should make it clear from the start.  Whether that will ever happen, I don't know.  I'd love to hear a fan shouting "Mark that one!" loud enough to be overheard by the network's microphones.

I suspect the answer to your bolded query is that it will never happen. Even if C theoretically has something to lose by B backstopping A (let's say they are tied atop the leaderboard), it really won't matter because these guys don't want to ruffle feathers among their peers. 

Maybe someone like Patrick Reed, who doesn't care if he makes waves, would do it. But most never would.

So this will continue unless the tour steps in, removes any mention of intent from the rules and starts unilaterally enforcing penalties for cases like these. 

[iacas]

4 hours ago, DeadMan said:

Also happening on the LPGA:

The full videos doesn't show it, but I'm wondering if Olson gave a sign or something to Jutanugarn not to mark here. Jutanugarn goes to start marking her ball, it looks like, and she looks over at Olson, motioning something, and immediately stops. This seems awfully close to the line, if not over it.

LPGA apparently deleted a tweet about this, too:

Yikes.

Wow, that's horrible. And it's bad of the LPGA (though its was probably some intern or something) to initially have sent out that Tweet.

2 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

You and I seem to be reading the current rule differently.  I am taking the current wording to indicate that it is a violation only if their reason for agreement is to give assistance to a player.  If they agree for a different reason, its not a violation.  Before, it didn't matter WHY they agree, simply that they did agree, and the ball was in position to help.  In any case, if Ruling Bodies intention was the same as in previous versions of the rules, I hope they'll release a clarification to make that clear.

I just talked to a few people and there's no real change in this rule itself.

The only change is to whether the players know this is a Rule of Golf. If they don't know, they're given two strokes. If they do know, and they agree anyway, they've waived a Rule of Golf and are DQed.

So the penalty was dropped from outright DQ to two strokes if the players say "Oh, I didn't know we couldn't do that."

But the actual rule is effectively exactly the same.

34 minutes ago, colin007 said:

Who's going to be the first player to call out their other 2 partners for doing this? Is it gong to take a fan saying/yelling something from the gallery?

Well, that would be pretty easy to do actually: if a player says "hey, Ariya, please go mark that before she plays" then she pretty much has to. If Ariya doesn't, and the player knowingly plays, the case would be pretty simple. So long as the request was reasonable (i.e. they weren't 180 yards away, or the ball wasn't 15 feet left of the hole or something).

Ultimately the ball still has to have a reasonable chance to assist or help a player.

But yeah, the Rules here are too unclear, and IMO, Ariya agreed to leave the ball there. She was going to mark it, nodded, and didn't.

And just because the other player was ready to play doesn't mean she's entitled to play. If Ariya (or anyone else in the field) thought that Ariya's ball was in a position to help, they had to take action to remedy that first, so long as the other player wasn't mid-backswing or something.

28 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

For that reason, I prefer the wording in the old rule, and I hope we see a clarification from the Ruling Bodies on this one.

I don't think a clarification is needed here.

28 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

The question about whether a ball is position to assist another player is gray enough, there shouldn't be an additional gray area surrounding the reason two players agree on a course of action.

There is no grey area. If they agree to leave a ball in place, and that ball is in a position to help someone playing, then that's enough to meet the criteria.

That language simply covers a ball that's, well, here's an example: a ball is 10 feet in front of a player hitting a chip shot and just on the green. The player is playing eight feet left of the ball, but the first player says "is that ball okay or do you want it marked?" They agree to leave the ball in place because it's not in the player's way… nor is it assisting the player.

Players don't get to say about a ball 2' from the hole "oh, we agreed to leave it there because we both like the color pink" or some other reason. If the ball is reasonably in a position to help, the only reason to leave it there is to provide that help."

Basically.

There are occasional pace of play concerns, but generally those are irrelevant for the types of shots we're talking about: both competitors are close to each other and to the green, and you'd be delaying play maybe 15 seconds if one player had to mark or something. It's unreasonable to have someone mark from 180 yards out… because it's unreasonable that the ball will assist the other player.

28 minutes ago, DaveP043 said:

Remember, any player can require that a ball be marked if it could assist another player.  A can require B to mark if B's ball is in position to help C.  A shouldn't wait until after the fact, he should make it clear from the start.  Whether that will ever happen, I don't know.  I'd love to hear a fan shouting "Mark that one!" loud enough to be overheard by the network's microphones.

I think fans should start yelling that out.

PGA Tour pros have admitted to colluding, and now LPGA Tour players are apparently starting to do it too.

[DaveP043]

39 minutes ago, iacas said:

I don't think a clarification is needed here.

There is no grey area. If they agree to leave a ball in place, and that ball is in a position to help someone playing, then that's enough to meet the criteria.

Quote

If two or more players agree to leave a ball in place to help any player, and that player then makes a stroke with the helping ball left in place, . . . . 

I just read this differently.  To me, it says that if the players agree to a specific action in order to  help any player, and then the player makes a stroke, it a problem.  I read this as depending on the reason for the agreement, and we can't read their minds.  I believe the old wording was more clear in expressing what I quoted from you above.

[iacas]

Since you merely re-posted the same thing, Dave, pretend I did the same and re-posted what I wrote. 😛

The players don't get to just invent a reason. If the ball is in a position to help, then that's the default reason they've left it there, and they can't lie and say there's some other reason unless there actually is some other (plausible) reason.

For example, one player has an 18' putt from the front fringe, and another player hits a ball 3' left of the flag and 4' behind it. The player from the fringe hits a horrible putt and hits the other ball. It would be reasonable to say that the players left the ball there because it's a one-in-a-few-thousand chance that the player hits such a bad putt at that time - it wasn't reasonably in a position to help the player putting.

The ball was left in that case, and the players may have agreed to leave it in that case, for pace of play reasons, not because it was going to help someone.

But no, a Rules Official is not going to accept some other unreasonable explanation for why a ball was left. If the ball is in a position where it can assist… the players had better be marking. Laziness, saving five or ten seconds (which were then wasted trying to replace the original, assisting ball), etc. don't cut it.

[colin007]

I really would love to see/hear a fan call out some players on this. They were so eager to call in the minutest ball oscillation that they could see on the super hi def zoom

[Vinsk]

3 hours ago, colin007 said:

I really would love to see/hear a fan call out some players on this. They were so eager to call in the minutest ball oscillation that they could see on the super hi def zoom

Well being that Jimmy Walker pretty much admitted on Twitter it’s done and almost an expected move I don’t think it would make any difference. 

[Zeph]

A problem with this is that the players don't agree or talk about this stuff out on the course (maybe except the LPGA incident). Judging by the comments from some players, it's just something they do to help eachother and not be percieved as an asshat. If "everyone" on the tour has "agreed" to leave the balls there to help others, that's not something they have to do on the course. Everyone just does it and nobody is penalized because they obviously can't go around asking for other players to leave their ball. And they don't have to if the standard is to leave the ball if it can assist a competitor.

That LPGA video is just terrible. I don't know from where or who, but something has to change.

[Stonedude]

The high five afterwards left a slight sting...looked like sorority girls out for a night.

One reason given for the rush to play was they were waiting on Wie to get her ruling anyway?  Say that a few times out loud before shaking your head! 

[DaveP043]

17 hours ago, iacas said:

Since you merely re-posted the same thing, Dave, pretend I did the same and re-posted what I wrote. 😛

The players don't get to just invent a reason. If the ball is in a position to help, then that's the default reason they've left it there, and they can't lie and say there's some other reason unless there actually is some other (plausible) reason.

For example, one player has an 18' putt from the front fringe, and another player hits a ball 3' left of the flag and 4' behind it. The player from the fringe hits a horrible putt and hits the other ball. It would be reasonable to say that the players left the ball there because it's a one-in-a-few-thousand chance that the player hits such a bad putt at that time - it wasn't reasonably in a position to help the player putting.

The ball was left in that case, and the players may have agreed to leave it in that case, for pace of play reasons, not because it was going to help someone.

But no, a Rules Official is not going to accept some other unreasonable explanation for why a ball was left. If the ball is in a position where it can assist… the players had better be marking. Laziness, saving five or ten seconds (which were then wasted trying to replace the original, assisting ball), etc. don't cut it.

After seeing the release from the LPGA, it seems that officials ARE going to accept the reasoning I mentioned:

2019 LPGA Statement Regarding Olson Stroke on 18th Green | LPGA | Ladies Professional Golf Association

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LPGA Statement from LPGA Rules Committee Regarding Amy Olson's stroke onto the 18th green during the second round of the Honda LPGA Thailand: After sp...

"Rule 15.3a clearly states that for a breach to occur, that two or more players, must agree to leave a ball in place to help any player on her next stroke. This was not the case between Olson and Jutanugarn."