Using HD video evidence

[natureboy]

43 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

And regarding the cheating - I was unaware of that. Probably because it's never caught on TV, and that is probably because those who cheat are aware enough to know what would happen if they were caught on TV.  So they're only cheating when they are pretty darn sure they aren't getting caught.

This was one that was caught, but it wasn't HD related:

http://www.golfchannel.com/media/rules-violation-dyson-dqd-shanghai/

[Fourputt]

8 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

I don't know what the answer is, but these are both ridiculous comparisons.

Number 1, just because we can't control weather and other variables, that shouldn't limit us from the discussion of controlling, or attempting to make more fair, things that are "man-made."

And, number 2 ... come on.  Criminals are not in a sports competition where fairness and an "even playing field" are inherent to their endeavors.  That comparison is just absurd.

So is any suggestion that it is possible to record and analyze every shot made on an entire golf course from every angle just to satisfy some misplaced idea of "fairness".  Just like the other uncontrollable natural conditions already mentioned, such equality across the board is not possible, so why get so upset about a technological issue which is equally impossible to regulate?

[turtleback]

2 minutes ago, natureboy said:

This was one that was caught, but it wasn't HD related:

http://www.golfchannel.com/media/rules-violation-dyson-dqd-shanghai/

Yup.

Which is why I tried to limit this particular discussion to specifically the HD and technology enhanced situations.  On the wider issue of generalized video review, I think that ship sailed long ago and I see no reason, personally, why they need to revisit it.

I will add that I have watched the original footage several times as originally broadcast in real time and I do not think that little movement of grains of sand could have been seen, even in HD, without the further enhancement of magnifying or zooming and slo mo. 

[Golfingdad]

3 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

So is any suggestion that it is possible to record and analyze every shot made on an entire golf course from every angle just to satisfy some misplaced idea of "fairness".  Just like the other uncontrollable natural conditions already mentioned, such equality across the board is not possible, so why get so upset about a technological issue which is equally impossible to regulate?

A.  I didn't make that suggestion.

B.  I don't believe that the idea of fairness in sports is "misplaced."

C.  I'm not upset about anything.  I have no strong feelings either about any of this.  I just like discussing different ideas to improve things.

D.  Nothing is impossible. ;)

[Groucho Valentine]

I think penalizing players after the fact by way of call-ins and video review needs to end. Golf is the only professional sport on earth that allows this. Either the player initiates any video review, or calls a penalty on himself.  It would require some bifurcation, but the PGA tour already has it with their HD TV provision to begin with. 

[Martyn W]

1 hour ago, Club Rat said:

"the players who were caught on camera being penalized and not from the abilities of either players who Won"

Wouldn't 'ability' include the ability not to breach a Rule? DJ's and Nordqvist's penalties were the result of carelessness.

[turtleback]

2 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

I think penalizing players after the fact by way of call-ins and video review needs to end. Golf is the only professional sport on earth that allows this. Either the player initiates any video review, or calls a penalty on himself.  It would require some bifurcation, but the PGA tour already has it with their HD TV provision to begin with. 

A) that is not the topic, and 

B) there is no PGA Tour HD TV provision that bifurcates the rules.

[natureboy]

39 minutes ago, Martyn W said:

Wouldn't 'ability' include the ability not to breach a Rule? DJ's and Nordqvist's penalties were the result of carelessness.

I disagree in DJs case. I think he took normally expected care for a putting surface. His potential contributions included standing near the ball and lightly grounding his putter. Only in extreme green conditions (a 'condition of the ground' IMO) would his actions be considered careless.

Nordqvist was extremely close to the sand surface, which in all circumstances is flirting with danger from a slight error with the hands.

Edited July 12, 2016 by natureboy

[Club Rat]

45 minutes ago, Martyn W said:

DJ's and Nordqvist's penalties were the result of carelessness.

Yes they were on each occasion, but without the aid of TV replay would Nordqvist's penalty been observed? Or DJ's?

Granted, DJ did observe and called an official to discuss that his ball had moved, but here again, because he was in contention, he was in the spotlight.

Had it happened during the first round without TV evidence, would there had been a different outcome or decision?

Same question on Nordqvist's penalty?

Could any other occurrences, by all players, given a camera was focused on them at any given time been observed? Possible.

My point is it fair to the entire field?

[Martyn W]

1 minute ago, Club Rat said:

My point is it fair to the entire field?

As others have pointed out, it is impossible for the field to play under exactly the same conditions. Is it fair that some players get rained on, play in the wind, get distracted by cameras, hit into a divot hole that wasn't there 10 minutes ago, hit a spikemark that the previous group made, get stunk by a bee. You get the idea.....

[Fourputt]

2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

A.  I didn't make that suggestion.

B.  I don't believe that the idea of fairness in sports is "misplaced."

C.  I'm not upset about anything.  I have no strong feelings either about any of this.  I just like discussing different ideas to improve things.

D.  Nothing is impossible. ;)

Golf is not concerned with fairness and never has been.  Again, the simple fact that weather is not controllable would be my answer to that, and you can't blow that off by trying to say that man made technology is somehow more capable of being controlled or leveled out.  I said it before and I say it again here - Yes, in all practicality it is impossible to guarantee equal coverage for every one of more than 100 players across the 18 holes of a golf course.  And that doesn't even consider the tournaments that play the first couple of days on multiple courses.  

All of this crying about everything has to be equal or it's not fair is horsecrap.  Golf only needs to be played according to equitable treatment under the Rules of Golf.  It's easy to talk fair in a game when all players are playing at the same time, in the same general area, and under the same environmental conditions.  All of that goes right out the window in a stroke play golf tournament.  

To attempt to apply the sort of technological equality you seem to think of as "fair" would either be prohibitively expensive, or you would have to ban most of the high tech developments in golf coverage that we have come to expect and enjoy.  Nobody seems to bitch when TV camera coverage is directly responsible for one player finding an otherwise lost ball, while another player doesn't because he isn't part of the TV coverage.  It's only when the camera catches a rules gaff that the hand wringers come out and scream about how unfair golf is compared to other sports.  Well, surprise!!! This isn't other sports, it's golf and it has its own standard of fairness, which is necessarily different from those other games.

If those other games, played on a tiny field compared to golf, can't even guarantee that the camera definitively captures every close call (look at the rate of "inconclusive" replays), how in Hell can you possibly expect golf to be perfect?

[Golfingdad]

3 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Golf is not concerned with fairness and never has.  Again, the simple fact that weather is not controllable would be my answer to that, and you can't blow that off by trying to say that man made technology is somehow more capable of being controlled or leveled out.  I said it before and I say it again here - Yes, in all practicality it is impossible to guarantee equal coverage for every one of more than 100 players across the 18 holes of a golf course.  And that doesn't even consider the tournaments that play the first couple of days on multiple courses.  

All of this crying about everything has to be equal or it's not fair is horsecrap.  Golf only needs to be played according to equitable treatment under the Rules of Golf.  It's easy to talk fair in a game when all players are playing at the same time, in the same general area, and under the same environmental conditions.  All of that goes right out the window in a stroke play golf tournament.  

To attempt to apply the sort of technological equality you seem to think of as "fair" would either be prohibitively expensive, or you would have to ban most of the high tech developments in golf coverage that we have come to expect and enjoy.  Nobody seems to bitch when TV camera coverage is directly responsible for one player finding an otherwise lost ball, while another player doesn't because he isn't part of the TV coverage.  It's only when the camera catches a rules gaff that the hand wringers come out and scream about how unfair golf is compared to other sports.  Well, surprise!!! This isn't other sports, it's golf and it has its own standard of fairness, which is necessarily different from those other games.

If those other games, played on a tiny field compared to golf, can't even guarantee that the camera definitively captures every close call (look at the rate of "inconclusive" replays), how in Hell can you possibly expect golf to be perfect?

I don't understand your post and how it relates to mine.  It almost seems like you quoted the wrong one?

[sjduffers]

My view on this is: the rules are not made to prevent cheating. Cheaters can easily cheat despite all the rules and the fact that penalties are stronger than any possible advantage gained by cheating. In other words, golf was/is and always will be gentlemen's (and ladies') sport.

So, we should only rely on what the players, the opponents (or FC), the caddies and any walking officials with the group are seeing, feeling and reporting on. It does not take much grazing of the sand to actually feel the club touching the ground, and if so call a penalty on oneself. Similar to a player feeling his club touch a twig on the takeaway in a hazard and calling a penalty on himself after realizing that the twig was loose (at Hilton Head on #18 a few years back).  Anna could not have seen this violation (under the club) and could not have felt it either and so in her mind, she had not touched the ground and didn't deserve the penalty (which she accepted gracefully without even reviewing the video herself by the way). End of discussion.

The worst thing that can happen to a golfer (professional or not) is to be labeled a cheater, so to be caught once, by an opponent, caddie or walking official, clearly violating a rule should be enough deterrent to avoid that behavior altogether.

Now, that won't prevent the average cheater amateur golfer from finding his ball headed for the woods miraculously at the edge of the fairway, but his buddies will guess and eventually prove that the guy is a cheater. It would ruin a professional's reputation if he was ever caught and that should be all that's needed to avoid all cheating. Get away with it once, or twice or maybe more but risk being found out and end your career!

I would just do away with any video review, definitely with any slow-motion and zoomed-in review, and with anything after the fact, say when the hole is completed. Video review obviously does not apply to any weekend amateur player, so why bifurcate the rules for the pros with any review?

[Fourputt]

2 hours ago, Golfingdad said:

A.  I didn't make that suggestion.

B.  I don't believe that the idea of fairness in sports is "misplaced."

C.  I'm not upset about anything.  I have no strong feelings either about any of this.  I just like discussing different ideas to improve things.

D.  Nothing is impossible. ;)

 

8 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

I don't understand your post and how it relates to mine.  It almost seems like you quoted the wrong one?

You said 2 things in the first post that I disagreed with, item B and D.  I was responding to those points.

[Golfingdad]

4 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

 

You said 2 things in the first post that I disagreed with, item B and D.  I was responding to those points.

OK.  But you seemed to project a lot of specifics onto one vague sentence.

20 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

Golf is not concerned with fairness and never has been.  Again, the simple fact that weather is not controllable would be my answer to that, and you can't blow that off by trying to say that man made technology is somehow more capable of being controlled or leveled out.  I said it before and I say it again here - Yes, in all practicality it is impossible to guarantee equal coverage for every one of more than 100 players across the 18 holes of a golf course.  And that doesn't even consider the tournaments that play the first couple of days on multiple courses.  

All of this crying about everything has to be equal or it's not fair is horsecrap.  Golf only needs to be played according to equitable treatment under the Rules of Golf.  It's easy to talk fair in a game when all players are playing at the same time, in the same general area, and under the same environmental conditions.  All of that goes right out the window in a stroke play golf tournament.  

To attempt to apply the sort of technological equality you seem to think of as "fair" would either be prohibitively expensive, or you would have to ban most of the high tech developments in golf coverage that we have come to expect and enjoy.  Nobody seems to bitch when TV camera coverage is directly responsible for one player finding an otherwise lost ball, while another player doesn't because he isn't part of the TV coverage.  It's only when the camera catches a rules gaff that the hand wringers come out and scream about how unfair golf is compared to other sports.  Well, surprise!!! This isn't other sports, it's golf and it has its own standard of fairness, which is necessarily different from those other games.

If those other games, played on a tiny field compared to golf, can't even guarantee that the camera definitively captures every close call (look at the rate of "inconclusive" replays), how in Hell can you possibly expect golf to be perfect?

I never said anything about having to "guarantee equal coverage," i haven't been "crying" about anything, and definitely not that "everything has to be equal."  And, again, I never said anything about golf needing to be perfect.  Doesn't mean we can't toss around ideas to make golf better.

Also of note ... point D was tongue-in-cheek, hence the winkie face. (I don't always use the animated ones when on my phone). 

[Ernest Jones]

3 hours ago, Rulesman said:

This was nothing to do with grounding the club.

The rule that was breached was touching the ground.

Pardon my ignorance, but how the heck do you touch the ground with your club without grounding your club?

[newtogolf]

1 hour ago, Martyn W said:

As others have pointed out, it is impossible for the field to play under exactly the same conditions. Is it fair that some players get rained on, play in the wind, get distracted by cameras, hit into a divot hole that wasn't there 10 minutes ago, hit a spikemark that the previous group made, get stunk by a bee. You get the idea.....

I get the idea but see it more as an excuse rather than a reasonable explanation.  

Obviously the field cannot all play under the same weather conditions or course conditions but that's expected by those who play the sport.    

This mentality that since there are some variables completely outside of our control during a golf tournament we therefore shouldn't have to worry about fairness in other areas where there can be control is flawed.  

There's no reason the USGA couldn't dictate the number of cameras to be used for rules violation review.  

[imsys0042]

One of the things that strikes me about whether things are fair or not, is that people who say "life isn't fair" or "rules aren't fair" or some distillation of that, don't consider that if there is something that can be done to reasonably make something more fair without violating the principals, then why not consider it?

golf is full of unfair things that can happen.  Many of the proposed changes violate the principals.   But not considering something because other things are unfair is not being open enough IMO