Lexi Thompson's 4 Stroke Penalty at the ANA

[14ledo81]

4 hours ago, boogielicious said:

When she placed the ball back down, she created another small depression.  That is how gravity works and is why putters have loft. It is curious that you are absolutely sure she intentionally cheated.

Maybe the depression she moved it out of was a little larger (deeper) than a "standard" depression created by the ball itself?

[1badbadger]

I think after 8 days of this, I'm slipping into a depression.  Not sure if it was created by a golf ball or not.

[boogielicious]

1 hour ago, 14ledo81 said:

Maybe the depression she moved it out of was a little larger (deeper) than a "standard" depression created by the ball itself?

How could she tell that without lifting the ball and looking at the depression? She doesn't do that. She doesn't examine the green. She spins the ball and places in a different spot.

All balls on green are in a small depression created by their own weight. The longer the grass and softer the turf, the greater the depression. 

I am not defending her misstep, but I think people are reaching that she knew it was in a pitch mark and moved it on purpose.

[Shorty]

7 hours ago, boogielicious said:

When she placed the ball back down, she created another small depression.  That is how gravity works and is why putters have loft. It is curious that you are absolutely sure she intentionally cheated.

Because the only reason for her to do what she did was to cheat. What is curious is what she did. Gravity doesn't leave an impression big enough ( or even measurable) to make any difference when the ball is placed on firm greens. She moved her ball to avoid something. What other conclusion could possibly come to? But, like I've said, the positive thing is that people are now more aware of this tactic and it will happen a lot less now.

[MRR]

15 minutes ago, Shorty said:

Because the only reason for her to do what she did was to cheat. What is curious is what she did. Gravity doesn't leave an impression big enough ( or even measurable) to make any difference when the ball is placed on firm greens. She moved her ball to avoid something. What other conclusion could possibly come to? But, like I've said, the positive thing is that people are now more aware of this tactic and it will happen a lot less now.

Because the only reason for her to [intentionally] do what she did was to cheat. She [conceivably] moved her ball to avoid something. What other conclusion could possibly come to? (well, it could have also been an accident because she marked her ball without being behind it) But, like I've said, the positive thing is that people are now more aware of this tactic and it will happen a lot less now [for a little while].

Fixed it for you. 

 

This is why golf rules should be black and white.  The action, not the intent, creates the penalty.  I did not see any sort of indentation that she tried to get out of, but I was watching on 480i.  What I did see was a ball that quite obviously was not placed in the original spot.  This happens to be on the course sometimes.  For whatever reason, the ball doesn't stay where I think I lifted it, but rolls to the side a couple millimeters.  I'm certainly not doing it to cheat; I'd have to be a lot better than I am for cheating to matter at all.

[14ledo81]

2 hours ago, boogielicious said:

How could she tell that without lifting the ball and looking at the depression? She doesn't do that. She doesn't examine the green. She spins the ball and places in a different spot.

All balls on green are in a small depression created by their own weight. The longer the grass and softer the turf, the greater the depression. 

I am not defending her misstep, but I think people are reaching that she knew it was in a pitch mark and moved it on purpose.

 

Maybe the depression the ball was in originally was deep enough to see without moving the ball?

[sac1]

8 hours ago, rehmwa said:

or, when she was putting the marker down, she broke her routine by approaching from the side - in order to be courteous to the other players line.  and put it in line with her body (routine) without thinking

and then when she replaced it, she put it in line with the hole because that's how she's done it a billion times

breaking any aspect of a highly repeated routine and dumb mistakes happen

understandable, and the 2 strokes were appropriate, and a bit sad.

Clutching at straws:

Look the video!  Petterson's marker is no where near on the same line, and nearly as close to the hole, she could have lined up every quarterback with playing boots in the NFL behind her ball and not affected Petterson's ball one bit............. she would have to have stepped in front of Petterson's marker to effect her line. 

But at the end of the day whether she could or couldn't get behind her ball matters diddly sqwatt.

Look at the video here: There can be no plausible justification for misplacing the ball by this much when one's frame of reference has not altered.

She's done it like that billions of times?  two wrongs don't make a right, neither do one billion!

Edited April 10, 2017 by sac1
clarification

[Shorty]

2 hours ago, MRR said:

sometimes.  For whatever reason, the ball doesn't stay where I think I lifted it, but rolls to the side a couple millimeters. 

The ball rolling a couple of millimetres is not the same as placing it 25 millimetres to the side. Really.

[JonMA1]

That's what I love about about the Rules of Golf, they don't care about intent.

[David in FL]

An interesting thought.

I wonder how those that feel so bad, and are so upset that Thompson lost the tournament as a result of this situation, would have felt had she won, and after the fact, the missed breach had come to light.  How would they then feel, knowing that So Yeon Ryu had lost due to a missed violation of the rules?

These things cut both ways...

[BallStriker]

By the letter of the rule book, I am sure we all violate this rule (and likely multiple times per round).

I'd be curious as to her actual thought process -- did she know if was a materially different spot than where it originally came to rest?  Did she just think it was inconsequential?  Was she just totally ignorant to the fact that it wasn't a perfect replacement

I suppose we will continue to see more of this going forward with call-in rules violations......

[Jeremie Boop]

3 minutes ago, BallStriker said:

By the letter of the rule book, I am sure we all violate this rule (and likely multiple times per round).

I disagree, it's really quite simple to place the ball back almost exactly where you picked it up from if you even pay a modicum of attention when you mark it. Especially when you use a marker like I do, one of the ones I got from our outings. They have a curved side that wraps around the ball making it next pretty much impossible to misplace the ball.

[BallStriker]

Just now, Jeremie Boop said:

I disagree, it's really quite simple to place the ball back almost exactly where you picked it up from if you even pay a modicum of attention when you mark it. Especially when you use a marker like I do, one of the ones I got from our outings. They have a curved side that wraps around the ball making it next pretty much impossible to misplace the ball.

I would agree that it may not be materially different, but if you had a device that could measure a difference of 1/1000 of a milimeter shift in position, everyone would be violating from time to time.  I would actually say it would be impossible to mark every ball "exactly" where it was before

But I take your point that it is not all that hard to re-place so there is no evidence of movement to the human eye........I am just making an observation here about the difficulty of following the letter of rule book

[iacas]

59 minutes ago, BallStriker said:

By the letter of the rule book, I am sure we all violate this rule (and likely multiple times per round).

No, we do not.

49 minutes ago, BallStriker said:

I would agree that it may not be materially different, but if you had a device that could measure a difference of 1/1000 of a milimeter shift in position, everyone would be violating from time to time.

That's not a violation. The Rules of Golf give you a "human" amount of margin of error.

That margin is much smaller than Lexi's placement.

[CarlSpackler]

1 hour ago, BallStriker said:

By the letter of the rule book, I am sure we all violate this rule (and likely multiple times per round).

Not I. 

[BallStriker]

24 minutes ago, iacas said:

 

That's not a violation. The Rules of Golf give you a "human" amount of margin of error.

 

 

Yea, I am certainly no rules guru, so the clarification is appreciated.....I did read the rule and did not see a reference to "human error," so I am assuming that clarification is included in a decision -- is that correct?  Just trying to connect the dots, not trying to argue.....because I will likely lose :)

[David in FL]

1 hour ago, BallStriker said:

By the letter of the rule book, I am sure we all violate this rule (and likely multiple times per round).

I disagree.

[Dave Saari]

On 4/5/2017 at 8:53 AM, iacas said:

I disagree, and the people with the USGA I've talked to disagree as well.

That rule covers estimating where the ball crossed the margin of a penalty area, won't penalize someone if they drop at 21" instead of 20", and that sort of stuff.

 

Here's what the USGA web site has to say about the new proposed Rule 1.3(a)2:

Proposed Rule: Under new Rule 1.3a(2), whenever required to estimate or measure a spot, point, line, area or distance, the player’s reasonable judgment would be accepted if:

The player did all that could be reasonably expected under the circumstances to make a prompt and accurate estimation or measurement.

This means that the player’s reasonable judgment would be upheld even if later shown to be wrong by other information (such as video technology).

Reasons for Change:

The Rules generally rely on the integrity of the player, and this is a natural and appropriate extension of this trust in the player.

There are many times when the Rules require a player to estimate or measure a spot, point, line, area or distance, such as when the player:

• Uses a ball-marker to mark a ball’s spot, and then replace the ball, or
• Needs to find a reference point or reference line for taking relief (such as the nearest point of complete relief or the line from the hole through the spot of an unplayable ball), or to determine the extent of a relief area (such as measuring a fixed distance from a reference point or reference line).

Such judgments need to be made promptly, and players often cannot be precise in doing so.

So long as the player did all that could be reasonably expected under the circumstances:

• The player gets no penalty for any small inaccuracies, irrespective of any advantage gained.

Accepting a player’s reasonable judgment would limit “second-guessing” that can arise from the use of enhanced technology (such as video review when golf is televised).

------------------------------------------

I highlighted the points that seem to apply to the Lexi improper ball placement situation. To me, this indicates that it would not have been a penalty under the new rules. But, Lexi should learn to be more careful as part of her responsibility to use reasonable judgment.

This chain is going on and on with no apparent end. Those of us who have made mistakes in our lives seem to be willing to give Lexi the benefit of the doubt and do not think it was intentional. Those who have never made a mistake are not willing to do so and are convinced she cheated.

The indications that she was obviously rotating the ball, that her hand partially obscured the marker from her eyes, that she was looking only at the ball and not at the marker or at any other point on the green, all indicate to me that she did it promptly, carelessly, and unintentionally. Others believe otherwise for various reasons. None of us will ever know for sure.