Bathroom break results in two-stroke penalty

[jsgolfer]

http://www.golfdigest.com/story/bathroom-break-results-in-two-stroke-penalties-for-a-pair-of-players-at-the-ncaa-womens-championship

Don't take a cart while playing in an NCAA tournament to go to the bathroom, 2-stroke penalty.

"That’s the lesson learned by Northwestern’s Sarah Cho and Kent State’s Kelly Nielsen, who during the weather-delayed second round of the NCAA Women’s Championship on Sunday at Rich Harvest Farms were each assessed two-stroke penalties for … using the bathroom.

OK, so technically the penalties weren’t specifically for using the bathroom—the Rules of Golf can be harsh, but they’re not that harsh. Rather, it was for the method in which they got to the bathroom. Under the conditions of competition for the championship, players are mandated that they “must not ride on any form of transportation during a stipulated round unless authorized.”

[iacas]

Yup.

Players are authorized to ride a cart during their round(s) only when there are shuttles (as mentioned in the article) or to be taken back to re-hit a ball under stroke and distance penalties.

Basically, you have to walk the golf course once, and that includes any side trips like going to the restroom, going to get a drink from a neighboring hole's concessions area, etc.

 

[No Mulligans]

They rode in the cart during a weather delay.  My take away from this is you are still in the stipulated round when there is a weather delay.

Seems odd that the cart ride is not allowed while PGA players will practice on the range during weather delays.

Edited May 24, 2017 by No Mulligans

[iacas]

14 minutes ago, No Mulligans said:

They rode in the cart during a weather delay.  My take away from this is you are still in the stipulated round when there is a weather delay.

Your first sentence is wrong. They weren't in a weather delay when they rode the cart(s).

You are not "in the round" when play is suspended. That's why you can practice during a weather delay.

The girls went to the restrooms during a time when golf was being played, not during a suspension of play. You can give players rides during a suspension of play, too.

[Groucho Valentine]

This is real. I got hit with that one years back in the Met Am. Alot of guys did. Couple of the volunteers drove their carts out to pick guys up. It felt really petty and draconian at the time, but i guess they were right. The guys that love enforcing that type of minutia got their erections that day...

[Golfingdad]

1 hour ago, jsgolfer said:

“must not ride on any form of transportation during a stipulated round unless authorized.”

 

12 minutes ago, No Mulligans said:

They rode in the cart during a weather delay.  My take away from this is you are still in the stipulated round when there is a weather delay.

 

8 minutes ago, iacas said:

You are not.

That's why you can practice during a weather delay.

The sequence of these posts confused me, and had me wondering why they deserved penalties ... until I went back and carefully re-read the article.

They did NOT ride the carts during the weather delay, but rather were informed of the penalties during the weather delay.  They rode the carts during play.

Quote

Players have been authorized to take carts to speed up play on the otherwise long walks from the third to the fourth tee, ninth to the 10th tee and 11th to the 12th tee. However, Cho (hold the flag in the photo above) was not authorized to jump into a cart to visit the ladies room after finishing up the 18th hole to avoid delaying her group from teeing off on the first hole.

Similarly, when Nielsen got a ride from a Kent State staffer to find the facilities coming off the 13th green, she too had breached the rules.

Author should have just left off "weather-delayed" as it was not pertinent to the story.

Edited May 24, 2017 by Golfingdad

[rehmwa]

Just to be clear, so I'm not tarred and feathered - these players always have the final responsibility here.  But I'm going to digress on a couple points about the organizers as a side topic:

1 - Maybe a good idea if future organizers also want to keep pace of play up, that bathroom visits could also be an authorized exception - in addition to the longer walks between some holes, etc.  The men's - well, they can walk a couple steps into the woods...

2 - Having the exception for some holes, but not other holes, as well as bathroom needs, etc seems to just be a confusing position from the get go - especially in an amateur event where you also don't have a caddy to back you up some....I guess advantage for those players that listened more carefully.  Maybe smarter to just hold to the rules and have no exceptions.  Or put up signs explicitly ONLY where a ride is authorized.

2a - that said, if the players were advised of two specific exceptions to the walking rule that really should have sensitized them to the base rule itself and where it still applied - I'll put that one on the coaches as a chance to clarify to their players.

3 - Also, Who was manning the carts in the first place and why weren't they also advised on where and who and how they could give rides??? 

4 - finally - seriously......more portable toilets

5 - lastly - walking?  c'mon - where is a player supposed to carry their Bloody Mary.  Barbaric.  What are they teaching the kids nowadays.  You know what I blame the downfall of for this????? Society, that's what.

Though the final responsibility always lies with the players, it seems the organizers could have done a much better job not making this an issue...

I know the players learned something here - I'm hoping the NCAA organizers will also apply lessons learned in the future.

56 minutes ago, Groucho Valentine said:

Couple of the volunteers drove their carts out to pick guys up.

Those poor volunteers - they were just trying to be decent people.  That's rough.  And also confusing for the players that may actually know the rule - how are they to know that the Organizers didn't send the volunteer's out as a de facto exception?

Edited May 24, 2017 by rehmwa

[Groucho Valentine]

16 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

Just to be clear, so I'm not tarred and feathered - these players always have the final responsibility here.  But I'm going to digress on a couple points about the organizers as a side topic:

1 - Maybe a good idea if future organizers also want to keep pace of play up, that bathroom visits could also be an authorized exception - in addition to the longer walks between some holes, etc.  The men's - well, they can walk a couple steps into the woods...

2 - Having the exception for some holes, but not other holes, as well as bathroom needs, etc seems to just be a confusing position from the get go - especially in an amateur event where you also don't have a caddy to back you up some....I guess advantage for those players that listened more carefully.  Maybe smarter to just hold to the rules and have no exceptions.  Or put up signs explicitly ONLY where a ride is authorized.

2a - that said, if the players were advised of two specific exceptions to the walking rule that really should have sensitized them to the base rule itself and where it still applied - I'll put that one on the coaches as a chance to clarify to their players.

3 - Also, Who was manning the carts in the first place and why weren't they also advised on where and who and how they could give rides??? 

4 - finally - seriously......more portable toilets

5 - lastly - walking?  c'mon - where is a player supposed to carry their Bloody Mary.  Barbaric.  What are they teaching the kids nowadays.  You know what I blame the downfall of for this????? Society, that's what.

Though the final responsibility always lies with the players, it seems the organizers could have done a much better job not making this an issue...

I know the players learned something here - I'm hoping the NCAA organizers will also apply lessons learned in the future.

Those poor volunteers - they were just trying to be decent people.  That's rough.  And also confusing for the players that may actually know the rule - how are they to know that the Organizers didn't send the volunteer's out as a de facto exception?

Thats the argument i remember that a couple of the other guys had. I think the strokes mattered to them. I didn't make it to the match play so the strokes didn't matter to me. But the dude that ruled basically responded that "well you should have known better" He was kind of a jerk-off and i think he enjoyed passing down those penalties. 

[Golfingdad]

29 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

1 - Maybe a good idea if future organizers also want to keep pace of play up, that bathroom visits could also be an authorized exception - in addition to the longer walks between some holes, etc.  The men's - well, they can walk a couple steps into the woods...

4 - finally - seriously......more portable toilets

These are the two that stood out to me as well.  It's a delicate topic considering they are women and cannot use the bushes in a real emergency.

Ultimately, though, it was Northwestern and Kent State, both of whom qualified for match play regardless, so neither team was harmed.  Sure, they both perhaps dropped a couple places in the final individual standings, but ultimately they learned a lesson without too much fallout.

[Jeremie Boop]

1 minute ago, Golfingdad said:

These are the two that stood out to me as well.  It's a delicate topic considering they are women and cannot use the bushes in a real emergency.

Ultimately, though, it was Northwestern and Kent State, both of whom qualified for match play regardless, so neither team was harmed.  Sure, they both perhaps dropped a couple places in the final individual standings, but ultimately they learned a lesson without too much fallout.

Honestly, do they allow players in tournaments to use the bushes to go to the restroom? I'd be rather surprised if they did.

[Golfingdad]

1 minute ago, Jeremie Boop said:

Honestly, do they allow players in tournaments to use the bushes to go to the restroom? I'd be rather surprised if they did.

Fair question.  I'm going to make a wild guess that there might be some kind of "conduct unbecoming" rule that might lead to a fine or something, but that there probably isn't a "2 strokes for watering the trees" penalties.  I really have no idea though.

I would imagine that the PGA tournaments have a lot of port-a-potties as well.

[iacas]

5 hours ago, rehmwa said:

1 - Maybe a good idea if future organizers also want to keep pace of play up, that bathroom visits could also be an authorized exception - in addition to the longer walks between some holes, etc.  The men's - well, they can walk a couple steps into the woods...

The pace of play already considers this type of thing. If you have to go to the restroom, plan to have to walk a little faster on the next hole and you should be fine.

You can use ten minutes for a medical reason (don't have to be consecutive), so if you had diarrhea or something, that would cut it. But there's no reason a woman or man can't be expected to visit the restroom quickly and get back on the course.

5 hours ago, rehmwa said:

2 - Having the exception for some holes, but not other holes, as well as bathroom needs, etc seems to just be a confusing position from the get go - especially in an amateur event where you also don't have a caddy to back you up some....I guess advantage for those players that listened more carefully.  Maybe smarter to just hold to the rules and have no exceptions.  Or put up signs explicitly ONLY where a ride is authorized.

It's not confusing. There are shuttles waiting at the holes where you're shuttled. You hop on, and they give you a ride. On the other holes, there are no shuttles. And often the shuttle on hole 11 would say "Hole 11 Shuttle" or something on the thing that hangs inside the front window.

5 hours ago, rehmwa said:

2a - that said, if the players were advised of two specific exceptions to the walking rule that really should have sensitized them to the base rule itself and where it still applied - I'll put that one on the coaches as a chance to clarify to their players.

It's not nearly that confusing.

Players walk, and know to walk, except when there is a shuttle provided by the NCAA.

We had some LONG walks (i.e. four minute cart drives) between holes at Division III Nationals a few weeks back. Nobody was penalized, and it was abundantly clear. There were two or three four-passenger carts sitting there waiting to shuttle you (and some spectators).

5 hours ago, rehmwa said:

3 - Also, Who was manning the carts in the first place and why weren't they also advised on where and who and how they could give rides??? 

Carts are driven at these events by a ton of different people. Coaches, assistant coaches, players (like from the range to the putting green), spectators allowed to have carts, rules officials, medical staff, the grounds crew, scoring officials, volunteers, etc.

5 hours ago, rehmwa said:

Though the final responsibility always lies with the players, it seems the organizers could have done a much better job not making this an issue...

It's really pretty clear. They goofed.

[roamin]

5 hours ago, rehmwa said:

1 - Maybe a good idea if future organizers also want to keep pace of play up, that bathroom visits could also be an authorized exception - in addition to the longer walks  between some holes, etc.  The men's - well, they can walk a couple steps into the woods...

2 - Having the exception for some holes, but not other holes, as well as bathroom needs, etc seems to just be a confusing position from the get go - especially in an amateur event where you also don't have a caddy to back you up some....I guess advantage for those players that listened more carefully.  Maybe smarter to just hold to the rules and have no exceptions.  Or put up signs explicitly ONLY where a ride is authorized.

Yeah, I dunno about any of that. There were almost 150 women playing in this tournament (28*5, right?), no doubt many of them using the restroom during a round, yet only two used a cart to get there. 

[jsgolfer]

On 5/24/2017 at 8:20 PM, iacas said:

It's really pretty clear. They goofed.

This.  

[Zekez]

Well....if they had to go really really bad, then I guess a 2 stroke penalty would be better than the alternative!!  :)

[Buckeyebowman]

I don't know. This seems to be a rule that penalizes women more than men. As rehmwa suggested men can wander off into the woods, depending on the type of business to be transacted. And even major transactions can take place. Ask me how I know!

I'd need more info. Just how many bathrooms are out there? How evenly are they spaced? Are they players only?

Iacas suggested walking more quickly. Depending on just how bad you have to go, that may not be a viable option! Neither is jogging or running!

Admittedly, these are young women in the primes of their lives, and I'm from the POV of a 64 year old man with an enlarged prostate and IBS! Oops! Too much info! But when you gotta go, you gotta go!

[iacas]

5 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I don't know. This seems to be a rule that penalizes women more than men.

Two things:

• Women aren't playing against men. Thus it's perfectly equitable.
• "You don't get to ride in carts" penalizes women more than men? No.

Remember, the penalty isn't for going to the bathroom. It's for riding in a cart when they're not allowed.

5 minutes ago, Buckeyebowman said:

I'd need more info. Just how many bathrooms are out there? How evenly are they spaced? Are they players only?

The NCAA puts out plenty of bathrooms, and the rest of the field didn't seem to have a problem with it. You can take ten minutes in the restroom if you need to, also, so long as you make up the time by walking a little faster and keep pace with the group in front of you and/or your time par.

[Buckeyebowman]

OK, that answers my question! Thanks.