Anna Nordqvist Grounds Club in Bunker, Loses U.S. Women's Open

[Aflighter]

USGA is a joke.Not telling one player about a penalty and you do tell the other is not level playing field.

[boogielicious]

15 minutes ago, Aflighter said:

USGA is a joke.Not telling one player about a penalty and you do tell the other is not level playing field.

And then they got Brittany Lang's name wrong. Bad job on both. 

They look bad in both opens. 

[Aflighter]

Just now, boogielicious said:

And then they got Brittany Lang's name wrong. Bad job on both. 

What did they do?

[boogielicious]

Just now, Aflighter said:

What did they do?

The USGA president called her Bethany Lang, twice when giving her the trophy. 

She was accused of being drunk at the Men's trophy presentation. This didn't help dispel that rumor. 

[Jac499]

Yes.  The rule was definitely broken, unlike the ambiguity of Dustin's situation.  However, the TIMING of letting the players know was poorly done.  How coincidental- the two U.S. Opens

[Jac499]

Thumbs up to Brittany for great play and to Anna for a class act in handling her unfortunate situation.  Thumbs down to "Bethany" Murphy for her poor presentation.

[Aflighter]

14 minutes ago, Jac499 said:

Thumbs up to Brittany for great play and to Anna for a class act in handling her unfortunate situation.  Thumbs down to "Bethany" Murphy for her poor presentation.

Yeah anna handled it better than I would.Id be screaming foul haa.The sad part is the players cant police themselves anymore because they got big brother with cameras on everything.The thing I would be asking is why are theyre camera people zooming in on things to try and get penalties incurred.Is every shot golfers take have people zooming in on balls after shots to see if stuff is happening cause why would you just decide to zoom in on a routine bunker shot?

[iacas]

41 minutes ago, Aflighter said:

Yeah anna handled it better than I would.Id be screaming foul haa.The sad part is the players cant police themselves anymore because they got big brother with cameras on everything.The thing I would be asking is why are theyre camera people zooming in on things to try and get penalties incurred.Is every shot golfers take have people zooming in on balls after shots to see if stuff is happening cause why would you just decide to zoom in on a routine bunker shot?

Why didn't Anna call the penalty on herself?

[JetFan1983]

7 minutes ago, iacas said:

Why didn't Anna call the penalty on herself?

She probably could have... when I ground my club by accident, I kinda know I just did it. On super slow mo HiDef though, as obvious as it was she grounded it, it was really slight, and probably defendable that she might not have realized it. Hard to say though if she knew or not, but she basically just scraped a crumb of sand when she did it. 

 

Here's the video:

 

Harsh way to go down, but thems the rules.

 

Congrats to Bethany. 

[iacas]

I see it now. I can buy that she didn't notice.

[Hardspoon]

7 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

She probably could have... when I ground my club by accident, I kinda know I just did it. On super slow mo HiDef though, as obvious as it was she grounded it, it was really slight, and probably defendable that she might not have realized it. Hard to say though if she knew or not, but she basically just scraped a crumb of sand when she did it.

Wow - that's rough.  Just like DJ's US Open miscue, I have to think that players should be a bit more cautious.  Why not "float" your club a little higher than that? Why even risk it?

[Golfingdad]

2 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Wow - that's rough.  Just like DJ's US Open miscue, I have to think that players should be a bit more cautious.  Why not "float" your club a little higher than that? Why even risk it?

I would not be surprised if she started being more cautious now.  Really unfortunate that it ended like this.

[iacas]

The USGA did nothing wrong here.

They told the players as soon as possible. What more could they do?

[Hardspoon]

1 minute ago, iacas said:

The USGA did nothing wrong here.

They told the players as soon as possible. What more could they do?

Yeah, it was just a crappy situation...not sure that they could have done anything different.  The awful trophy presentation is probably the worst part, and colors the perception of any potentially controversial USGA action.

The article about it on Golf.com stated it this way:

But television replays showed the infraction and USGA officials studied the video before determining if the two-stroke penalty was necessary. An official told Nordqvist about the penalty after she hit her third shot on the 18th hole but before Lang did, giving her a possible advantage.

I guess their argument is that Lang had an advantage because she hadn't hit her third yet?  That's seems silly.

[JetFan1983]

27 minutes ago, iacas said:

I see it now. I can buy that she didn't notice.

Yea, fair. Looking at it again on the video I just posted (that was an edit after my first comment), it was so slight, she may not have noticed, particularly with how bright it can get in a bunker when the sun's blaring. 

19 minutes ago, Hardspoon said:

Wow - that's rough.  Just like DJ's US Open miscue, I have to think that players should be a bit more cautious.  Why not "float" your club a little higher than that? Why even risk it?

Yea, who knows. Just one of those things I guess. Brain fart. Probably was a really long week, she's tired... and she just lost focus for a tenth of a second. But I guess the closer you can get the clubhead to the ball, the easier you make it finding the sweet spot. 

When I play a fairway bunker shot, I tend to just hover the heel over the ball because I know if I actually grounded it from that point, the sweet spot would rest right behind it, but I can see why she'd want to get as close as possible. She really needed to hit it solid in that situation. 

14 minutes ago, iacas said:

The USGA did nothing wrong here.

They told the players as soon as possible. What more could they do?

OK, so based on the text messages I had during the tournament, that video above I posted was airing at 7:48PM eastern time. At 7:55pm eastern time, the USGA told the Fox broadcast crew "they were still reviewing it." Then at 7:57 PM eastern they were informing Nordquvist what had happened, after her third shot, but before Lang's third. Lang then changed clubs and her target when she knew she was up two shots at that point. 

So, nine minutes it took them to make that ruling, and then telling the players in an order which may or may not have been fair. Ultimately though, it probably doesn't matter. Lang almost never is coughing up a two shot lead at that point, but it still wasn't a very good look for the USGA in the end, right or wrong.

It would have been nice if Nordqvist knew she was down two before her approach as it would have been fun watching her pinseek the final hole there because it was something of a sucker pin. She ended up playing a smart, conservative shot to the middle of the green thinking she was tied. Oh well. 

 

 

[iacas]

You can't tell them about a penalty before you know it's a penalty.

Otherwise it's like the men's Open. Decide and inform ASAP. That's what they seem to have done.

I padded my coverage an hour. I didn't see much after the third shots on 18.

[newtogolf]

11 minutes ago, JetFan1983 said:

Yea, fair. Looking at it again on the video I just posted (that was an edit after my first comment), it was so slight, she may not have noticed, particularly with how bright it can get in a bunker when the sun's blaring. 

Yea, who knows. Just one of those things I guess. Brain fart. Probably was a really long week, she's tired... and she just lost focus for a tenth of a second. But I guess the closer you can get the clubhead to the ball, the easier you make it finding the sweet spot. 

When I play a fairway bunker shot, I tend to just hover the heel over the ball because I know if I actually grounded it from that point, the sweet spot would rest right behind it, but I can see why she'd want to get as close as possible. She really needed to hit it solid in that situation. 

OK, so based on the text messages I had during the tournament, that video above I posted was airing at 7:48PM eastern time. At 7:55pm eastern time, the USGA told the Fox broadcast crew "they were still reviewing it." Then at 7:57 PM eastern they were informing Nordquvist what had happened, after her third shot, but before Lang's third. Lang then changed clubs and her target when she knew she was up two shots at that point. 

So, nine minutes it took them to make that ruling, and then telling the players in an order which may or may not have been fair. Ultimately though, it probably doesn't matter. Lang almost never is coughing up a two shot lead at that point, but it still wasn't a very good look for the USGA in the end, right or wrong.

It would have been nice if Nordqvist knew she was down two before her approach as it would have been fun watching her pinseek the final hole there because it was something of a sucker pin. She ended up playing a smart, conservative shot to the middle of the green thinking she was tied. Oh well. 

 

 

Given the timing and importance of the ruling, they should have held up play during the review (it was obvious, not sure why it took 9 minutes) so that both players would have an equal opportunity to react to the ruling.  

[iacas]

6 minutes ago, newtogolf said:

Given the timing and importance of the ruling, they should have held up play during the review (it was obvious, not sure why it took 9 minutes) so that both players would have an equal opportunity to react to the ruling.  

No they shouldn't have.

You can't hold up play all the time. And they likely had to play the video for all the members of the committee, discuss, and rule.

It'd be ridiculous to hold up play every time you think there may be a situation.