12 HS players DQ’d from Tournament

[Rulesman]

31 minutes ago, Fourputt said:

The fact that they were disqualified tells us that the person who was asked was NOT a referee, not a member of the committee, not a "rules official".  If he had been such, they would have been given a free pass, or even possibly some other course like having their play to that point canceled and starting over.  I don't know exactly how it might be resolved, but they would not have been DQed.

Just let the players carry on as if the ruling was correct.

[DeadMan]

7 hours ago, Rulesman said:

Did you read the decision?

If the Referee got it wrong the players are protected and can carry on without any penalty.

Yeah. I was going off of Decision 33-2b/1, but I think Decision 34-3/3.3 clarifies it. My only thought was the 40 yard difference could maybe be a serious breach, but probably not.

[Asheville]

From someone who knows the course and posted this first-hand account on another forum:

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I talked to staff today, so here's the story...

Each involved player was interviewed individually, away from the coaches, that afternoon. The players independantly identified a COACH as the person who initially instructed the players to play from the 172 box "because that's what the card says". It steamrolled from there until the officials became aware and stopped the 5th group. The end result and decision came down to this observation:  The kids' versions of the events were consistent. The adults' versions of events were not. I think we probably need to put the pitchforks and torches away when it comes to the marshall.

Every coach had the phone numbers for the rules officials. Nobody called.

The blue markers were, in fact, supposed to be at the 172 box. They weren't moved when the course was set up. The rules sheet clearly said competitors would play from the blue markers. In this case, they were left at the 212 box. They should have played from there.

I paid attention as I walked from 12 to 13 today. The markers today were at the 212 plate. They were clearly visible on the approach. Any claim that they couldn't be seen because they were "elevated" is completely untrue. 

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cm

[DeadMan]

A coach definitely makes a lot more sense than a rules official. There are some high school coaches that have no idea what they're doing.

[Vinsk]

2 hours ago, Asheville said:

The rules sheet clearly said competitors would play from the blue markers. In this case, they were left at the 212 box. They should have played from there.

And it’s that simple. Thank you. 

[JonMA1]

7 hours ago, DeadMan said:

A coach definitely makes a lot more sense than a rules official. There are some high school coaches that have no idea what they're doing.

Yep. Lesson learned for the kids... it's not only ok to question authority, it's sometimes necessary.

7 hours ago, Asheville said:

The kids' versions of the events were consistent. The adults' versions of events were not. I think we probably need to put the pitchforks and torches away when it comes to the marshall.

This was my favorite part. Typical. 

Thanks for the clarification @Asheville.

[Martyn W]

Sad to say, this is not uncommon in junior tournaments. I have officiated the Dustin Johnson World Junior the past two years and we have a meeting with all volunteers telling them not to instruct or advise the players. On the NtC, we make it clear that ROs have ID and are the only people who can make rulings. The lesson is if the person does not look like my profile pic, ignore him!

[Asheville]

I've refereed quite a few high school and college golf tournaments. In my opinion, coaches are the bane of high school and college golf. During competitions they should be confined to the clubhouse veranda. 😉

 

[Fourputt]

1 hour ago, Asheville said:

I've refereed quite a few high school and college golf tournaments. In my opinion, coaches are the bane of high school and college golf. During competitions they should be confined to the clubhouse veranda. 😉

 

I was talking with one high school coach at the course where I was working as starter.  He didn't even play golf.  He took the job because: a) He got paid a little more for doing it, and b) Nobody else wanted the job.  He knew almost nothing about golf.  Seemed awfully strange to me at the time.

[iacas]

5 hours ago, Asheville said:

I've refereed quite a few high school and college golf tournaments. In my opinion, coaches are the bane of high school and college golf. During competitions they should be confined to the clubhouse veranda. 😉

 

For 92% I agree. More in D3 than D1.

[DeadMan]

11 hours ago, Fourputt said:

I was talking with one high school coach at the course where I was working as starter.  He didn't even play golf.  He took the job because: a) He got paid a little more for doing it, and b) Nobody else wanted the job.  He knew almost nothing about golf.  Seemed awfully strange to me at the time.

My wife coached a girls HS golf team for a couple of years, and it was a shit show of coaches out there. Especially for schools that don't have good golfers - those coaches will just be anybody. It's not a great situation, but it's hard to find a teacher who plays golf in some schools (not to mentioning finding golfers...)

[JonMA1]

While it may be the exception, I’m sure there are HS coaches who either know the rules very well or are smart enough to ask an official if they aren’t sure. The only golf coach I know would be one of those.

[rehmwa]

On 5/19/2018 at 9:54 PM, Asheville said:

From someone who knows the course and posted this first-hand account on another forum:

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I talked to staff today, so here's the story...

.  .  .

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cm

THANKS>>>>Love the info:  the breakdown is defined.

• The Coach screwed up and gave bad guidance and didn't use the resources he was supposed to
• The tourney screwed up by not putting the blue tees where they said they should be
• The kids screwed up by not playing at the blue color markers (regardless that they were in the wrong place) and by not getting 'official' input.  Or playing a 2nd ball just in case

Each of these are independent items and should not be used to excuse/ignore any of the others.  They are all independently responsible for their mistakes.  One doesn't have to fixate on only one of them and just think ignoring the others is inconsequential.

They made the correct call to DQ -

----- and yet I'm still sympathetic for the kids as to the shitshow that led to the result.  Yes, that's possible to feel and still agree with the DQ.  I don't have to be a hardass about it.

------I understand the kids owned it and were classier about it that a lot of what I'm seeing here.  It's a hell of a lessons learned for them.  This might make them all better competitors in the future and I hope it was a growth opportunity for them rather than sour grapes

 

[iacas]

16 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

Each of these are independent items and should not be used to excuse/ignore any of the others.  They are all independently responsible for their mistakes.  One doesn't have to fixate on only one of them and just think ignoring the others is inconsequential.

I don't feel like anyone's doing that.

The only types of people claiming that others are placing ALL of the blame on anyone are the @Nwehrman types who are making those allegations of others.

Saying that the kids are ultimately responsible does not mean they are "completely, 100%" responsible for ALL of the errors/mistakes that occurred.

16 minutes ago, rehmwa said:

They made the correct call to DQ -

----- and yet I'm still sympathetic for the kids as to the shitshow that led to the result.  Yes, that's possible to feel and still agree with the DQ.  I don't have to be a hardass about it.

------I understand the kids owned it and were classier about it that a lot of what I'm seeing here.  It's a hell of a lessons learned for them.  This might make them all better competitors in the future and I hope it was a growth opportunity for them rather than sour grapes

Really? What are you "seeing here"?

The kids are the ones who ultimately goofed.

I can understand how it would have happened. Particularly if a coach told them to hit from up there. I can also say that I probably wouldn't have succumbed to that mistake and I'd have likely hit two balls, or insisted on calling a Rules Official. But like I said, I had ordered the Decisions book via snail mail at age 16… so I'm not typical in that regard.

Ultimately, as others have noted, this is the Rules of Golf forum. Rulings are shared and discussed here without ill will toward people - there's no bias, no hatred, no contempt - they're just the Rules of Golf. Taking anything as personal or whatever you seem to have done is not the spirit in which I feel things like this area actually discussed.

[rehmwa]

2 hours ago, iacas said:

@NwehrmanI

Taking anything as personal or whatever you seem to have done is not the spirit in which I feel things like this area actually discussed.

I'm not, I know these guys, it's never personal - (new members might not and I'd like to see more them survive the acclimation period).  Just laying it all out mainly for those that seem to be butting heads needlessly.  I thinkg Golfingdad made my point more diplomatically much earlier.

I'll disagree and consider that quite a few are coming down on the "Nwehrman types" unnecessarily and it's escalated as a direct result.  I know you don't observe that read on it.  No biggie - we tend to not try to score 'style points' in postings - though it's tweaked a lot of new members a lot lately. 

As for the situation itself, our summaries are pretty much identical into what happened and who made which mistakes.   Kids likely learned more from this than if it played out differently.  At least those kids I'd like to see keep going.

The short of it, is this is a Rules subforum.  So the explicit position about the DQ remains cut and dry.  If the OP wanted to talk about the other issues and put out sympathy, then the general forum might have gotten a less explicit thread...or not....

 

Digression - I guess another comment from the sympathetic group that I also took exception to was the one about the tournament making a mistake and just avoiding it and passing the problem onto the students.....that's not how people work...especially volunteers....I suspect they felt terrible that their mistakes might have impacted teen age kids....it's not right to assign terrible motives to volunteers that likely were doing their best to put on a tourney for kids.

Edited May 21, 2018 by rehmwa

[dennyjones]

In Michigan, teachers have the first dibs on coaching a sport over other more qualified coaches that are not teachers.   It doesn't surprise me that many coaches don't know the sport.   Hopefully they'd take the time to learn all of the rules and the game to help the players.  

[Fourputt]

On 5/21/2018 at 11:58 AM, rehmwa said:

I'm not, I know these guys, it's never personal - (new members might not and I'd like to see more them survive the acclimation period).  Just laying it all out mainly for those that seem to be butting heads needlessly.  I thinkg Golfingdad made my point more diplomatically much earlier.

I'll disagree and consider that quite a few are coming down on the "Nwehrman types" unnecessarily and it's escalated as a direct result.  I know you don't observe that read on it.  No biggie - we tend to not try to score 'style points' in postings - though it's tweaked a lot of new members a lot lately. 

As for the situation itself, our summaries are pretty much identical into what happened and who made which mistakes.   Kids likely learned more from this than if it played out differently.  At least those kids I'd like to see keep going.

The short of it, is this is a Rules subforum.  So the explicit position about the DQ remains cut and dry.  If the OP wanted to talk about the other issues and put out sympathy, then the general forum might have gotten a less explicit thread...or not....

 

From the tenor of your comments, it seems as if you'd gone along with it if they just ignored the whole situation and let those 3 groups just go on having played that one hole from 30 yards shorter than the rest of the field.  That may have been the "nice guy" way to address it, but the Rules of Golf simply can't work that way.  To maintain the integrity of the tournament, those groups had to be penalized, regardless of the circumstances which led up to the incident.  Nwehrman argued against that point repeatedly, despite have been informed in several posts as to the proper disposition under the rules.  That sort of unwillingness to acknowledge that the final disposition was correct is bound to get a negative reaction from members who are serving, or have served as on course referees.

Quote

Digression - I guess another comment from the sympathetic group that I also took exception to was the one about the tournament making a mistake and just avoiding it and passing the problem onto the students.....that's not how people work...especially volunteers....I suspect they felt terrible that their mistakes might have impacted teen age kids....it's not right to assign terrible motives to volunteers that likely were doing their best to put on a tourney for kids.

I honestly don't feel that those volunteers did their best.  If they had the incident would never have occurred.  When I was working rules with the Colorado Golf Association, the last thing we did during the last hour before the first group teed off was to check the entire course, making certain that the holes were cut as intended, that the tees were set up as per plan, and that there were no obvious unmarked GUR areas.  If a hole was cut in the wrong place, we would note the change on the pin sheet handed to each group.  If the tee markers were wrong, we would move them to the correct location.  This was all finished at least 15 minutes before the first group was called to the tee.  This is how volunteers are supposed to "do their best" for the players, by making certain that the entire course is ready for a competition.  From that point on, we tried to be as unobtrusive as possible and just let the players do their thing.

I don't think that anyone is unsympathetic to the young players in this case, as it was a cascade of mistakes by adults which led up to the end result, but as per the rules, the player is ultimately responsible for playing by the rules and by the conditions of the competition.  

Edited May 26, 2018 by Fourputt

[Nwehrman]

1 hour ago, Fourputt said:

Nwehrman argued against that point repeatedly, despite have been informed in several posts as to the proper disposition under the rules.  That sort of unwillingness to acknowledge that the final disposition was correct is bound to get a negative reaction from members who are serving, or have served as on course referees. 

Actually, I argued that if they were told by a rules official to hit from somewhere else then they shouldn’t have been DQ’ed. I’m not going to argue whether it was a rules official or not because we don’t know. It’s the words of 20 or so people that were at the event against a few people in this post that weren’t. 

 

If it was a rules official I stand by everything I’ve said. If it wasn’t, they made the correct decision although it is still an unfortunate situation for the kids.