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

[iacas]

5 hours ago, DaveP043 said:

Makes me wonder if Jimmy is crazy like a fox.  Maybe he hates backstopping, hates the peer pressure to help his fellow competitors.  He's shone a light on intentional backstopping, maybe that open admission will put enough pressure on players and officials to make them change what they're doing.

I doubt he’d have thrown in the gratuitous and incorrect swipes at Clayton if that was the case.

[BallStriker]

Jimmy knows what is going on -- in my opinion, I think he is intentionally making light of the situation due to the fact that so many people are getting so worked up over this issue and he thinks it is not only ridiculous, but funny. 

In other words, Jimmy is trying to tell everyone to just relax and worry about things that are really important in the world.

[Zeph]

Most everything about professional golf is pretty unimportant to the world. That doesn't mean one should ignore the minor things. The PGA players are repeatedly and knowingly breaking the rules of golf and hurting the field. That's not okay.

[Shorty]

4 hours ago, BallStriker said:

 

In other words, Jimmy is trying to tell everyone to just relax and worry about things that are really important in the world.

But in a conversation about golf, cheating IS important. And there are a lot of golf fans who don't like players like Walker or Lexi Thompson or Michelle Wie cheating and pretending they aren't.

[iacas]

@BallStriker, what those two said.

[Groucho Valentine]

If youre good enough to purposely use a inch and a half diameter ball as a backstop maybe you should just go ahead and hole the shot... 

[iacas]

26 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

If youre good enough to purposely use a inch and a half diameter ball as a backstop maybe you should just go ahead and hole the shot... 

That’s not at all the way to view it. Comments like yours - if not just intentionally provocative/glib - display an incredible lack of understanding of the issue.

Nobody is saying they’re purposefully hitting the ball.

But it can help. And it's against the rules.

[DeadMan]

29 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

If youre good enough to purposely use a inch and a half diameter ball as a backstop maybe you should just go ahead and hole the shot... 

I agree. Finau should have just holed this shot instead:

That cost Chesson Hadley and Phil $100k, by the way.

[Groucho Valentine]

3 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

I agree. Finau should have just holed this shot instead:

That cost Chesson Hadley and Phil $100k, by the way.

Maybe he just wanted to show off? 

10 minutes ago, iacas said:

That’s not at all the way to view it. Comments like yours - if not just intentionally provocative/glib - display an incredible lack of understanding of the issue.

Nobody is saying they’re purposefully hitting the ball.

But it can help. And it's against the rules.

It can. But the chances of somebody leaving a ball unmarked on purpose and having it help another player are really remote. Ive not marked a ball close to the hole while somebody else wanted to play just for pace of play reasons. 

[iacas]

3 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Maybe he just wanted to show off?

Let's try to avoid making stupid comments like that one, please.

3 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

It can. But the chances of somebody leaving a ball unmarked on purpose and having it help another player are really remote.

Uhhhhhhh… no. See also the recent Jimmy Walker tweets. See also the numerous examples in this topic. See also Justin Thomas saying it's his "right" to play with a ball there. See the rationalizations and justifications PGA Tour pros are giving re: #backstopping.

See also the comments from:

• Lee Westwood
• Brandel Chamblee
• Arron Oberholser
• Luke Donald
• Johnny Miller
• Tom Watson
• etc.

Look, it's clear that you're incredibly ignorant to this topic, so if you'd prefer to stay that way, at least don't junk up the topic with your comments.

3 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Ive not marked a ball close to the hole while somebody else wanted to play just for pace of play reasons. 

Pace of play is often a bullshit reason.

When you're 50 yards out, yeah, both the pace of play and the reduced odds make it less likely and thus less important.

When you're greenside, and your fellow competitor takes 40 seconds plus to get ready to hit their shot… you have the time to mark it, and in fact are obligated to mark it to protect the field.

Long story short: if you'd be marking the ball in the Ryder Cup as your opponents were about to hit, you should be marking the ball on the PGA Tour when your fellow competitor is about to hit.

[DeadMan]

Pace of play is a terrible excuse for PGA Tour players, too. If Jason Day shaved 15 seconds off his pre shot routine, that would do more for the place of play for the entire tour than players marking their balls in this situation.

Also, if this happens infrequently, then the 15-20 extra seconds it would take to mark the ball is meaningless.

[iacas]

13 minutes ago, DeadMan said:

Pace of play is a terrible excuse for PGA Tour players, too. If Jason Day shaved 15 seconds off his pre shot routine, that would do more for the place of play for the entire tour than players marking their balls in this situation.

Also, if this happens infrequently, then the 15-20 extra seconds it would take to mark the ball is meaningless.

This.

"Pace of play" is a bullshit justification so players can continue to cheat.

Because, let's be clear, that's what they're doing: cheating.

Most people separate accidental or unknown violations of the rules as simply breaching the rules. You accidentally move your ball, or even accidentally sign for a 4 instead of a 5, that's not cheating, but you're still violating the rules.

Cheating is on purpose. #BackStopping is on purpose. It's cheating.

[BallStriker]

12 hours ago, Zeph said:

Most everything about professional golf is pretty unimportant to the world. That doesn't mean one should ignore the minor things. The PGA players are repeatedly and knowingly breaking the rules of golf and hurting the field. That's not okay.

 

I do not necessarily disagree -- my point was really in response to those that implied (or expressly stated) that Jimmy was a dolt for not knowing the rules -- he knows what is up and had reasons for saying what he did -- but anyway

[iacas]

33 minutes ago, BallStriker said:

I do not necessarily disagree -- my point was really in response to those that implied (or expressly stated) that Jimmy was a dolt for not knowing the rules -- he knows what is up and had reasons for saying what he did -- but anyway

I still don't think I agree - I don't think he knew what he was doing, because he wouldn't have reacted quite that way, particularly in being dismissive of Michael Clayton.

[Shorty]

7 hours ago, Groucho Valentine said:

If youre good enough to purposely use a inch and a half diameter ball as a backstop maybe you should just go ahead and hole the shot... 

Oh come on - if you have a shot from off the green and another ball is a foot to the right, along with the flagstick you feel like you've got a pretty good chance of the other ball or the flag helping you. It's almost like having a solid wall a foot and a bit wide. Geometry shows that the likelihood of hitting the other ball is higher than you think. In any case - it more than doubles your chances of getting lucky because a ball is wider than the flagstick.

[Wally Fairway]

16 hours ago, Shorty said:

Oh come on - if you have a shot from off the green and another ball is a foot to the right, along with the flagstick you feel like you've got a pretty good chance of the other ball or the flag helping you. It's almost like having a solid wall a foot and a bit wide. Geometry shows that the likelihood of hitting the other ball is higher than you think. In any case - it more than doubles your chances of getting lucky because a ball is wider than the flagstick.

If that ball were 1 foot in front of the hole and potentially blocking their shot from hitting the pin, then you know damned well that it would be marked and moved out of the way; yet when it has the chance to backstop a ball the goes past the hole then it is wink, wink, nod, nod and lets just leave it there to give you a helping hand.
100% breaking the rules - both by the player not marking and the player hitting an approach and getting the help.

[Blackjack Don]

Interesting controversy. Both sides are talking past one another, either not understanding or not caring. Because both sides are right? It is possibly against the spirit of the game and lighten up, Francis. I'm only here because I read this on Golf.com and thought it might add to the conversation and nobody has quoted it yet.

Backstopping: Much ado about nothing or against the spirit of the game? -@IronForty

To mark or not to mark, that is the question. And clearly Jimmy Walker is fortune's fool, but to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man on Twitter. Okay, I'll stop now. Honestly, I'm having a hard time caring about who does and doesn't backstop, but the surrounding debate is fascinating. I think a lot of players are just lazy and don't want to have to hustle to mark their ball. Some are utterly oblivious. Others, as Walker suggested, are happy to help out a pal. This is not keeping with the Rule 22 but it is within the spirit of the game: we help playing partners look for lost balls, show them the bottom of the club so they know which iron we hit on a par-3, watch each other's lines on the greens. It's a game of small courtesies.

#askalan

[Missouri Swede]

15 minutes ago, Blackjack Don said:

but it is within the spirit of the game

Absolutely disagree