Rules of the Game

Martin Kaymer was crowned the champion of the 2010 PGA Championship this afternoon at Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, beating Bubba Watson in a three hole playoff. Of course it wasn’t as easy as that, Dustin Johnson held a one stroke lead going into the 18th and final hole, but was assessed a two stroke penalty for grounding his club in a bunker, subsequently took a triple bogey seven, and missed the playoff by two strokes.


After watching the footage a couple of times, I’ve come to a couple of conclusions. First off, I can’t argue with the penalty, as Johnson clearly grounded his club before hitting his approach shot and the players had all been told there were no waste areas; all sand would be paying as regular bunkers. However, that isn’t to say I don’t have a few problems with how this all went down.

To begin with, this isn’t the first time there has been some controversy in a major championship at Whistling Straits. In 2004, Stuart Appleby was assessed a four stroke penalty for removing loose impediments from a bunker and grounding his club in the sand. Appleby was under the impression his ball was in a waste area, allowing him do both those things. That year, many of the course’s over 1200 bunkers were playing as waste bunkers, and it wasn’t clear which were and which weren’t. Appleby was incorrect in his assessment, was given the penalty and found himself five strokes out of a playoff in the end. Speaking about the incident, Appleby said, “I could not believe the PGA were dumb enough to have spectators walk in bunkers, and you have to play (the ball) as it lies. It's just not the best- designed course for spectators, so the way they had to set the course up was to force people through bunkers. Where I was was littered with footprints, grass, rubbish, everything."

Trying to avoid a similar problem this year, the PGA made it clear that all sand areas would play as bunkers, not waste areas. However, that’s about all that was done. The problem I see is the PGA didn’t solve the other problems all the problems from 2004. They continued to allow galleries to walk through bunkers outside of the normal playing area, creating the problem Appleby alluded to with the traps being littered with footprints, grass, rubbish…” The bunker Johnson played out of was littered with these same things, and it wasn’t entirely clear that he was in fact in a bunker. With the amount of trampled down grass, and because the bunker was surrounded by and filled with fans, it’s easy to see how he didn’t think he was in a bunker. Not only did Dustin Johnson make this mistake, so did Nick Faldo, David Feherty and the entire CBS crew. At no time was anybody under the impression Johnson was in fact in a bunker.

Personally, after having watched the replay a couple of times, it seems clear Johnson was in a bunker, and knowing the problems of the past, he should have consulted a rules official before hitting his shot, and in now way is he free of all blame. But at the same time, I can’t help feel the PGA could have done more to avoid the type of scenario. There were known problems in the past, and simply announcing the rule doesn’t necessarily help. Perhaps the galleries shouldn’t be walking through the bunkers throughout the course of the week, or at least the very least, not standing in the bunkers while a player is hitting.

The other problem I have with this incident is the length of time it took for a ruling to be reached. It wasn’t announced that Johnson would be given a two stroke penalty, for 21 minutes after he first hit his shot. This meant that everybody in attendance, watching on TV, people covering the event, and even the players themselves were under the impression that Johnson would be involved in the three hole playoff. In this age of technology, I can’t understand why it took the PGA officials so long to reach a decision. In my opinion, the decision should have even been reached before Johnson hit his next shot. I can’t imagine the ramifications of this ruling, had Johnson sunk his putt on 18. Everybody would have been under the impression he had won, and the rules officials would have to then declare he didn’t and that two other players would be competing in a payoff. I can’t help think about if the Super Bowl was won by a team scoring a touchdown on the last play of the game, only to have it later announced that there was a rule infraction, and the other team would be crowned the champions instead.

In short, it was just an all around poor ending to one of the sport’s most important events, and all the result of things that could have been avoided. The PGA doesn’t want its Championship to be decided this way, and neither do the fans or the media. Unfortunately for Martin Kaymer, everybody will remember 2010 as the year Dustin Johnson had trouble in the bunker, and not as the year a talented young German golfer won his first major.

-TheRev



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