Slammed !! USGA Dumps Silly Rules Phone Callers

This should have happened years ago.

Finally, at last, it’s done.

The USGA and its European brother — the R&A — have finally had enough of the B.S.

This is a great week, finally, for the rules geeks.

They’ve put the total kabosh on something that has plagued golf on television for way, way too long.

Those butt-heads who have nothing better to do but call in and claim they’ve seen a rules violation are done, over, finished, get a freaking life!

Bust out the champagne, too bad Tony Lema’s not still around, he’d pick up the tab.

And that’s not all.

The ruling bodies have made sure that no player ever gets bashed on the head the way Lexi Thompson suffered at the ANA Inspiration.

No more ridiculous four-shot penalties.  If a player is penalized after the fact, or in Lexi’s case, a day late, there’s no longer a two-shot penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard.  In Lexi’s case, she signed what she thought was a correct scorecard.  No more of that crap.  They should make it retro-active and award her the ANA Inspiration title.

Used to wonder how these people phoning in would get the proper phone number.  That takes waaaay too much effort and is indicative of someone with deep-seeded mental problems, no doubt.

What the tours will do is have an official whose only job is to monitor the broadcast and if it looks like a violation, there will be a review kinda like you get with NFL games, maybe it won’t take THAT long.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is The Masters.  The Masters runs its own event, has its own competition committee to handle any rules problems.

The Masters set the precedent for not penalizing or disqualifying a player who unknowingly signed a wrong scorecard.

At the 2013 Masters, Tiger Woods’ shot on the par-5 15th hole of the second round hit the flag stick and bounced back into the water. He took his penalty drop two yards behind where he hit the original shot, which was a rules violation.

Augusta National reviewed the incident Saturday morning before the third round began and added the two-stroke penalty for an improper drop. Woods had a 73 instead of a 71 and went into the weekend five shots out of the lead.

But they did not disqualify him for signing an incorrect scorecard under a new rule – announced at the Masters two years prior – that allows a player to stay in the tournament if a rules dispute was based on television evidence.

In the case of Lexi Thompson at the ANA, they should have followed the lead of The Masters.  But they didn’t.

The man who reviewed the situation with Woods in 2013 and informed him of the penalty was Fred Ridley, back then, chairman of the competition committee. Today Ridley is Chairman of Augusta National Golf Club.

The Masters runs a tight ship and typically gets it right.

Now maybe the rest of the tours can get it right as well.

Good news is the phone-in people are out of business.

And that is really, really good news, finally, at last.