Poll on HD evidence

[turtleback]

This poll is not about the general use of video for reviewing potential rules violations but the much narrower issue of whether the use of evidence that is not visible to the naked eye but only discernible using HD or better resolution or other technological video enhancement.  So it is NOT about the use of video to catch Dyson tapping down his line, but more along the lines of the video close-up that was used to ee that grains of sand were touched that could never have been seen to the naked eye. 

[imsys0042]

I voted to apply the 18/4 decision to other areas.   I base it on that if 18/4 allows for such small movement and it does not incur a penalty, then I cannot think of something where something so slight as not to be noticed except by zooming in that it affects the shot.

I would say that any sand brushed to affect play would also be clearly visible.  Same for touching the ground in a hazard, etc.   I would hope that players, if they notice, would call something on themselves if they notice but it's very slight.   But the case where a player does not notice and you have to show HD video multiple times and zoom in is, in my opinion, becoming a witch hunt.

We put limits on many things in the game of golf.   A bad shot could result in a lost ball or a OB penalty, effectively stroke and distance.   Yet the same bad shot could be a one shot penalty going into a hazard.   Similarly, different penalties are applied based on the severity of the rule breach.   I think this is an extension of that by saying "It was so minor that we are not going to say it was material enough to cause a penalty", much like a judge dismissing your ticket because you were within the margin of error on a speed gun.

[DrvFrShow]

Is it okay if I graze the sand on my backswing? Or touch the sand with my club? I just want to know before I vote.

Suppose my competitor has a brand new GoPro and is shooting my club head and has it zoomed in and sees it touch the sand? Hey, cameras are everywhere these days. And they hold up in court. These things are HD quality. Suppose he has it set on 1/8th speed and shows the slow motion of it at 240 fps. Does he get to call me on it?

[natureboy]

26 minutes ago, DrvFrShow said:

Is it okay if I graze the sand on my backswing? Or touch the sand with my club? I just want to know before I vote.

Suppose my competitor has a brand new GoPro and is shooting my club head and has it zoomed in and sees it touch the sand? Hey, cameras are everywhere these days. And they hold up in court. These things are HD quality. Suppose he has it set on 1/8th speed and shows the slow motion of it at 240 fps. Does he get to call me on it?

I voted for no zooming in evidence, but any evidence available to the naked eye should count.

If you touched the ground on the backswing and felt it you're honor bound to report it. If you didn't feel it, but it left a mark (likely if more than a few grains only visible on zoom) it should be visible after the downswing or your opponent stops you before your downswing if the point of contact with the surface was close to the ball.

[David in FL]

37 minutes ago, DrvFrShow said:

Is it okay if I graze the sand on my backswing? Or touch the sand with my club? 

No, you cannot.

[DrvFrShow]

But in a bunker you're hitting behind the ball. All evidence of grazing the sand behind the ball would be obliterated.

My swing tempo is like Couples. Once in motion, you can't stop it.

Just now, David in FL said:

No, you cannot.

lol

[natureboy]

1 hour ago, DrvFrShow said:

Is it okay if I graze the sand on my backswing? Or touch the sand with my club? I just want to know before I vote.

Suppose my competitor has a brand new GoPro and is shooting my club head and has it zoomed in and sees it touch the sand? Hey, cameras are everywhere these days. And they hold up in court. These things are HD quality. Suppose he has it set on 1/8th speed and shows the slow motion of it at 240 fps. Does he get to call me on it?

And I think the way most have interpreted the situation is that if the mark so made on the backswing and obliterated by the downswing on the video would still have been visible to the naked eye had you stopped your swing then the video would still be evidence for the penalty.

The core idea is the size of the mark / contact made is what matters not strictly the amount of zoom being used.

[No Mulligans]

I voted for limited use.

Where the ruling is subjective don't use HD Evidence.  For example, with an oscillating ball it often is a subjective call on whether the player caused the ball to move or not.  If the oscillation can only be seen using enhanced technology then disregard that as evidence.

Another example, the player touched the ground in a hazard.  There is no subjectivity in this call, go ahead and use all the evidence you can get including enhanced technology.  Why not get this call correct?

[iacas]

I voted for expanding the idea of "naked eye" stuff to cover other such things.

In doing so I considered other rulings in the past that may have been affected:

• Tiger's bad drop at The Masters? Unaffected. He clearly dropped in the wrong place, and you could be 50 yards away and see that.
• The loose impediment brushed at Hilton Head? You could see a piece of straw move with the backswing, and video may have been needed to tell which piece of straw/grass it was, but it's all still visible to the naked eye. That's just video replay (if it was necessary).
• DJ at Oakmont? He clearly saw the ball move himself. Lee may have even seen it move from several yards away.
• Anna at the USWO? Would have been reversed, no penalty.

At the end of the day, it may boil down to whether you're comfortable with more examples like the last one, because in coming up with a list of possible infractions, that's the only type which gets reversed. Are we good with that, or do we wish to make the penalty so severe for keeping the clubhead away from the sand, water, etc. in hazards (and other similar acts) that there's no chance of even lightly touching a small amount of sand, water, etc.?

I'm not leaning heavily toward one way or the other, but right now, I'm still about 55/45 in favor of extending the "naked eye" test to these types of things, too. Because while we can say "no, if you keep it this way, people will keep an inch between their ball and the sand…" but clearly that isn't the case since the rules are the way they are now, and Anna didn't. And had she goofed more and pushed down 1/4" more, or 1/8" more… I believe it would have been visible to the naked eye, and still would have been a penalty. And I'm (barely) okay with that standard…

… for now. I reserve the right to change my mind should I create or hear a compelling counter-argument.

[turtleback]

I haven't voted in my own poll yet, because I am having a hard time deciding between all or nothing.  

 

On the one hand using all evidence for ll reasons appeals to my sense of wanting, as much as possible, black and white decisions.

On the other hand, technology is not going to stop, and under a high enough level of technological scrutiny it might become impossible for a round of golf to be played without many apparent violations, detectable only through that technological scrutiny.  The would obviously be unacceptable.  

 

[Fourputt]

4 hours ago, iacas said:

I voted for expanding the idea of "naked eye" stuff to cover other such things.

In doing so I considered other rulings in the past that may have been affected:

• Tiger's bad drop at The Masters? Unaffected. He clearly dropped in the wrong place, and you could be 50 yards away and see that.
• The loose impediment brushed at Hilton Head? You could see a piece of straw move with the backswing, and video may have been needed to tell which piece of straw/grass it was, but it's all still visible to the naked eye. That's just video replay (if it was necessary).
• DJ at Oakmont? He clearly saw the ball move himself. Lee may have even seen it move from several yards away.
• Anna at the USWO? Would have been reversed, no penalty.

At the end of the day, it may boil down to whether you're comfortable with more examples like the last one, because in coming up with a list of possible infractions, that's the only type which gets reversed. Are we good with that, or do we wish to make the penalty so severe for keeping the clubhead away from the sand, water, etc. in hazards (and other similar acts) that there's no chance of even lightly touching a small amount of sand, water, etc.?

I'm not leaning heavily toward one way or the other, but right now, I'm still about 55/45 in favor of extending the "naked eye" test to these types of things, too. Because while we can say "no, if you keep it this way, people will keep an inch between their ball and the sand…" but clearly that isn't the case since the rules are the way they are now, and Anna didn't. And had she goofed more and pushed down 1/4" more, or 1/8" more… I believe it would have been visible to the naked eye, and still would have been a penalty. And I'm (barely) okay with that standard…

… for now. I reserve the right to change my mind should I create or hear a compelling counter-argument.

I'm sort of surprised at your semi reversal.  In the DJ thread, you lobbied for the players to simply use more caution in risky situations, now you seem to leaning toward giving them an out for not doing so.  I don't really like any modification that takes any of the responsibility away from a player doing his utmost to follow the rules.  This idea gives them a safety net, albeit a very small one, and I really don't like the idea of expanding 18/4 or something similar to other areas which might take some of that need for care in certain situations and regulate it with another rule.

I still contend that even a few grains of sand shifted one way or another can/could make a difference when playing from a fairway bunker.  

[iacas]

1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

I'm sort of surprised at your semi reversal.

I don't feel this is a reversal at all.

1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

In the DJ thread, you lobbied for the players to simply use more caution in risky situations

They should. DJ's situation wasn't covered by 18/4. I support 18/4, because it basically sets a boundary level between what you call an event (i.e. something big enough that you can see it with the naked eye) and a non-event (a single grain of sand falling? Four grains of sand? Not visible with the naked eye?).

And again, it's not like I'm swinging hard in that direction. I'm 55/45 at most… partly because of not only where technology is today, but where technology can go in the future, too. The Rules of Golf don't get updated frequently enough to account for new technologies, and I think (by a slim margin) setting the line at "naked eye" is a reasonable approach.

Yes, it creates a new line as far as determining what's "visible to the naked eye," and while I have no problem at all with Anna being penalized… I can see the argument for 18/4 extending to other situations.

1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

In the DJ thread, you lobbied for the players to simply use more caution in risky situations, now you seem to leaning toward giving them an out for not doing so.

That's hardly an out. If Anna had soled her club 1/8" farther down, she'd probably have surpassed the "naked eye" test and been penalized. Just as 18/4 doesn't penalize for tiny movements while still penalizing for small movements, I can see the logic in applying that logic elsewhere.

1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

I don't really like any modification that takes any of the responsibility away from a player doing his utmost to follow the rules. This idea gives them a safety net, albeit a very small one, and I really don't like the idea of expanding 18/4 or something similar to other areas which might take some of that need for care in certain situations and regulate it with another rule.

I don't really like it either, but at the same time, Anna had no way of knowing she'd incurred a penalty, nor would anyone staring at her ball from five feet away. It feels unreasonable to me that the two extremes should be:

• No video evidence counts, ever.
• All HD zoomed in video evidence counts, too, and since we're getting better at it and using more cameras, and 4K is on the way or here already, that maybe we should have people looking for penalties all the time.

I think this - again 55/45 right now - is a reasonable compromise. If it's a fairly obvious error - if we could see it in the HD shot of Anna from behind the golf ball - she's still penalized, but if a grain of sand moves and we have to see it in an HD closeup… then… I just don't want to be THAT nit picky.

But I'm with you, too… I don't get my club within half an inch of the sand in a bunker, because I don't know that I might not sneeze or some wind might move my clubhead down or whatever…

[natureboy]

5 hours ago, iacas said:

At the end of the day, it may boil down to whether you're comfortable with more examples like the last one, because in coming up with a list of possible infractions, that's the only type which gets reversed. Are we good with that, or do we wish to make the penalty so severe for keeping the clubhead away from the sand, water, etc. in hazards (and other similar acts) that there's no chance of even lightly touching a small amount of sand, water, etc.?

I can envision future close-up capability affecting shots from water where a little extra wind will create an unexpected riffle or a random change in the current that lifts the surface of a moving stream that barely touches the bottom of the club even for a player who is exercising reasonable, but not extreme / paranoid caution.

I think the spirit of golf is about squarely facing the challenges of the terrain and the elements. For me that does not include hyper-vigilance for random quantum / butterfly effect fluctuations or negligible influences on the outcome. To me the drop procedure itself under the rules already embodies a 'good enough' sensibility.

Edited July 14, 2016 by natureboy

[SG11118]

I voted for the third one - to be able to use HD / enhanced videocamera for some but not all circumstances. 

I think ball movement is very often out of the golfers control, and the ball could almost always be moving if you zoom in enough.  Therefore, I want the golfer to have D18/4 available for ball movement protection so they can fairly address their ball without fear.  However, if the golfer does something illegal that is in their control (touch ground in hazard, double hit the ball, etc), and video evidence shows they did it (even though the player didn't realize it happened), I don't think they should be protected from a penalty if video evidence shows otherwise.  They should continue to be protected from disqualification for signing an incorrect scorecard in this circumstances though.

[Aflighter]

I voted to lets do away with all this BS and play golf letting the play determine outcome and not a camera.Lets keep the game about sportsmanship, honesty and integrity among the players and not a judicial ruling on every little thing.If your opponent is paying attention like theyre supposed to be then they can call you on a violation and then and only then should camera ruling be used.

[Golfingdad]

I voted B.

[newtogolf]

2 minutes ago, Golfingdad said:

I voted B.

As did I

[jamo]

I voted B as well, but I don't really love any of the options.