2019 WGC Mexico Championship

[klineka]

3 minutes ago, Chasing_Bogeys said:

Do you think that the stance DJ took that put his foot on the path was the stance he would have taken if there were no path there and he had to hit the ball from that spot? (and to be clear, my tone is question, not challenge) You know the golf swing MUCH better than I do and you would have a MUCH better idea of what would be done there, so this will be my last comment, but fairly standard width stance and ball on front foot was the only way to get his foot onto the cart. Having to punch out from there I would have thought his stance would be more of a chipping stance with the ball on the back foot.

More succinctly - It's hard for me to believe that when he saw the ball and the cart path he had any thought other than "how do I make sure my foot is on the path and I get a drop?" or slightly more charitably "oh, cool, I'll get a free drop from this spot with the cart path there!"

I agree with all the comments on Rory - that shouldn't have been a drop.

It's my understanding of the rule that it doesn't matter what stance DJ would have taken without the cart path, all that matters is that the stance he did choose to take has to be one that is reasonable (or rather it just has to not be unreasonable) in that situation to play the intended shot, which it was. 

At the end of the day that's what matters, is the stance and intended line of play reasonable. Not optimal, perfect, textbook, etc but simply reasonable. His stance was reasonable thus free relief.

[GolfLug]

1 hour ago, klineka said:

He hasn't been putting THAT bad by PGA tour standards though... for 2019 hes 82nd in strokes gained putting which is in the top half, and iirc, a podcast mentioned this morning that he ended up 38th or so strokes gained putting for this tournament which is right about average.

So he's been an average PGA tour putter this year.

Bad by his standards and what we expect out of him, sure, but not bad by PGA tour standards.

For the number of greens he is hitting, birdie conversion has seemed low. 

Even if you disregard the outlier bad holes like Saturday, too many ho hum two putts. Lot of lesser ball strikers passing him by. He wouldn't put up with that shit 'back in the day'.

Edited February 25, 2019 by GolfLug

[ChrisP]

On the two rulings, it was just a case where DJ got lucky and Rory didn't. And Rory probably felt like "If he's going to get bailed out of jail, so should I', but I totally understand why Rory didn't get bailed out. Different circumstance.

I do see a lot of circumstances where players will embellish things to get free drops. Most times it's line of sight rulings where they say they're going to play a certain shot and something's in the way even though they're not really thinking of going that route. Jean Van de Velde in the '99 Open 3rd round comes to mind. He was in jail, he talked his way into saying a tv camera was in the way and he got relief and next thing you know, he puts it on the green. Didn't work out in the end for him, though.

Amazing for DJ he has 20 wins and seven WGCs but only one major. Him and Rose by far the two best players out there carrying a solo major. Feels like both of them have 3 or 4 but they only have 1.

Edited February 26, 2019 by ChrisP

[rehmwa]

19 hours ago, klineka said:

It's my understanding of the rule that it doesn't matter what stance DJ would have taken without the cart path, all that matters is that the stance he did choose to take has to be one that is reasonable (or rather it just has to not be unreasonable) in that situation to play the intended shot, which it was. 

At the end of the day that's what matters, is the stance and intended line of play reasonable. Not optimal, perfect, textbook, etc but simply reasonable. His stance was reasonable thus free relief.

I watched both, sucks for Rory, but

DJ's - I thought that DJ's stance was in the realm of reason for the shot he was presenting (and that realm has a wide window, but so what, that's truth).

Rory's.......He stepped out of that generous window to try to work the rules - took a shot and was denied (correctly IMO).  But even with that, if he'd have asked for a second opinion, he might have gotten agreement regardless - and that would have been fine too.  Him accepting the first guy's conclusion without trying further seemed to me that he agreed that he was pushing it past reason.  In short, he took a chance and when it didn't pay off, he didn't make any additional fuss about it and took his medicine gracefully.

I thought they both handled it appropriately.  And in both cases, I think the results were correct for each scenario.  Also, credit to the rules officials for also handling both correctly.  It would have been easy for the second one to just say, "yes" - they did their jobs too.

Edited February 26, 2019 by rehmwa

[3jacker]

I kind of got a kick out of the fiesta music they played when they went to breaks... sort of heavy-handed, culturally insensitive in today's world.  All they needed was a little graphic of Speedy Gonzalez dancing to La Cucuracha.

[Foot Wedge]

11 minutes ago, 3jacker said:

I kind of got a kick out of the fiesta music they played when they went to breaks... sort of heavy-handed, culturally insensitive in today's world.  All they needed was a little graphic of Speedy Gonzalez dancing to La Cucuracha.

Was it mariachi music?  I didn't watch but I see nothing wrong with that.  I mean there aren't all that many tournaments played in Mexico and Mariachi is traditional Mexican music.  FWIW I'm Mexican and I don't see the "insensitivity" in highlighting that the tournament is being played in Mexico's capital with music.  It's not like they used a song from Cheech and Chong or something.

Spoiler

 

Somewhat off topic but aren't we to celebrate and respect different cultures?  Isn't that a bit hard to do if everyone's terrified of offending someone because they don't know everything about their culture?  An exchange my friend had with a stranger at our friend's wedding about me went like this:

Guy: "Hey your buddy's got some moves" (for the record, I don't really have moves)

Friend: "Who, him?" *points at not me

Guy: "No, dark hair."

Friend: "Him?" *points at another of our friend

G: "No, in the grey suit"

F: "Him?????" *pointing at other friend in grey suit

G: "No, shorter guy"

F: "HIM??????" *pointing to the one friend in the group shorter than me

G: "No, he's uhhhhh....."

F: "Jesus man, the Mexican guy????"

G: "Uhhh yeah"

I got quite the kick out of this when my friend described it.

 

 

[3jacker]

It was.  It wasn't offensive, just that in some circles in today's world, "other parties" might be offended for you.  Large networks and companies are so afraid these days to take a chance.

[nevets88]

Great camera work.

 

[colin007]

6 hours ago, nevets88 said:

Great camera work.

 

That was freaking awesome