July 19, 2008

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Professional golf has got to get rid of the damn scorecard. It's like an appendix: It can blow up and kill you, but it doesn't serve any useful purpose to justify its existence. Every pro tournament these days has multiple sources tracking the scores, so why make the players do it themselves as well? It only seems to serve as a "gotcha" to get someone DQ'ed. And this one seems even more lame than the usual "signing an incorrect scorecard" DQ. At least in that case, you could make the case that someone was trying to cheat (though it is generally an innocent mistake). But that wasn't even the case here. If she forgot to sign her card, then let her sign it once the oversight is noticed. Nobody gets cheated by allowing that sort of thing. I'm not much of a Michelle Wie fan, or even golf in general for that matter, aside from Tiger. But I hate seeing people lose on technicalities, especially trivial ones like this. Yes, the rules are the rules, but when the rules are stupid, they need to be fixed.

posted by TheQatarian at 06:11 PM on July 19, 2008

I hate the scorecard signing rule. Why subject players and fans to stress over whether somebody signs a card correctly? Would NASCAR be a better sport if drivers had to count their own laps? By taking a hard-line on this rule, the LPGA just screwed itself out of what could have been Michelle Wie's first victory.

posted by rcade at 07:40 PM on July 19, 2008

Why isn't there a LPGA official inside the tent making sure players do what they need to do before they walk out? Or did they just let her go while keeping silent? Bad move by the LPGA. And... ditto TheQ.

posted by BoKnows at 09:28 PM on July 19, 2008

Golf is the sport of the individual - no teamates or pit crews - one person against the field, the course, and one's own demons. From the first tee to the signing of the score card one must be on their game and sharp; mentally and physically. Get over Wie's mistake. It happened and will probably happen to others again, although most likely not to Wie! Nobody has been allowed to futz with the rules nor to make "imporovements" such as the shot clock, three point line, coaches challenge, etc. Please, just let it Wie.

posted by puttandchip at 10:17 PM on July 19, 2008

Sorry about that up there.

posted by BoKnows at 02:54 AM on July 20, 2008

Hater's assessment of my point is correct. As for not letting golf be "improved", I really don't see how getting rid of the scorecard would fundamentally alter the real game of golf (the part up the the ball going into the 18th hole) in any way. People don't need to wear suits when they play anymore, so why do they need a useless scorecard? Two other points: With the rule as it is, being DQ'ed for an offense like that sure seems like getting the death penalty for a parking ticket. You'd think they could come up with something less severe, like perhaps a stroke penalty or something. Also, I should note that while Wie has earned a reputation for being immature (and deservedly so), she should be commended for her handling of this situation. She's sure taking this a lot better than I would have. I'd be telling them to shove their nitpicky little rules and show up to play on Sunday.

posted by TheQatarian at 08:23 AM on July 20, 2008

Yet another poor person victimized by stupid rules...

posted by lsutigers96 at 01:51 PM on July 20, 2008

rcade: What is the source for the LPGA official Sue Witters quote in the original post? I couldn't find it in either of the links. (I suspect the article may have been updated since you linked it) EDIT: Found it here. You know, that really makes Ms. Witters, and by extension the LPGA, seem pretty classless. What a demeaning thing for an official to say about a competitor they'd just eliminated.

posted by Joey Michaels at 02:45 PM on July 20, 2008

Everyone should skip singning their scorecards, and let the Game continue. they won't DQ everyine.

posted by asonjack at 03:11 PM on July 20, 2008

Ah! A little more digging. Golf.com has a different version of the Witters quote: "I felt like I was telling somebody that there was no Santa Claus," Witters said. That is not nearly as demeaning as "She was like a little kid..." I would be curious to know which quote is accurate. The Golf.com quote sounds a lot more like Witters was saying she felt bad. The more commonly reported version of the quote sounds like "HA HA!"

posted by Joey Michaels at 03:58 PM on July 20, 2008

I've read a few different articles yesterday and today, all of which include different quotes from Witters. And my favorite has been Witters describing how she didn't learn about the mistake from volunteers until Sat. So, I guess that means that the scorecard rules (signing of) is overseen by volunteers! WTF. Volunteers are helpful, sure. They can give out soda and hot dogs, they can wave those "silent" signs when players are hitting, they can even rope off areas while players are walking from hole to hole. But having volunteers report scoring errors just seems wrong. Then there is some 24 hour communication breakdown between the scoring tent and the Director of Tournament Competion - Witters. If the LPGA is going to enforce rules while using words like immediate, then they should be counted on to penalize immediately. To me, it seems Witters is covering her own tracks.

posted by BoKnows at 05:43 PM on July 20, 2008

My thinking exactly, she's angered many within the ranks of the LPGA for withdrawing from tournaments, so I don't think it's far-fetched at all to believe that she was ratted out. In fact, the way they let her play her entire next round before telling her smacks of retribution..."we'll show her" Not that I watch the LPGA now, (who has time to watch a bunch of 18 year old girls in short skirts and tight golf shirts all day), but I'm sure not going to watch now, and I'll never check out photo's of Natile Gulbis, or Anna Rawson, or Cristie Kerr, nope, not going to do it. Well, not anymore.

posted by dviking at 12:04 AM on July 21, 2008

It seems as if every pro golfer has one scorecard DQ in his/her career, and that it exists to ensure that you never overlook it again. Tiger has apparently avoided it -- the great Gazoogle would know if he had -- but Sergio Garcia got dumped from last year's US PGA after signing for the wrong score. On the one hand, it's clear that the rules have been adapted to reflect the presence of cameras, because golfers receive relief when they land in camera cables, etc. On the other hand, if golf loses the 'leading player futzes up scorecard' method of defeat, I can't help thinking that something of the game -- like it or not, there's always the faintest whiff of institutional assholery in golf -- has been consigned to history.

posted by etagloh at 07:35 AM on July 21, 2008

So what's easier? Leave the scoring to the players, who have done it themselves throughout the history of the game, seldom with any error and almost never with any complaint (from anyone actually inside the game) even when things do go wrong, or find 500 people each week and pay them to observe? Two problems with this argument: 1) You wouldn't need 500 people each week; you'd need one or two people at each hole, which would be far less. 2) More importantly, these people already exist. Someone is obviously keeping track of the scores, otherwise, how do we have leaderboard updates (and not just on TV, but online for non-televised tournaments)? And how does anyone know if an incorrect scorecard was signed if they don't know what the correct score is? There is a PGA official with every group as it is for rule interpretations and that sort of thing...let that person keep the score. To clarify, the scorecard doesn't bother me for smaller tournaments where no one else is keeping track of the score and someone has to. It's just when you have an event where everyone already knows what's going on that the scorecard serves no purpose other than to mess people up. No one within the game is bothered - including the supposed "victim" in this case - so why is everyone else so upset by it? In this particular case, it bothers me because the punishment far outweighs the crime. Wie didn't do anything that could even remotely be construed as "cheating", but got DQ'ed on the most trivial of technicalities. I prefer the winner be determined by what happens on the course/field/rink/etc., because that's how a sport is supposed to work. In general, the scorecard annoys me for all of the reasons I've already mentioned, so I won't bother repeating them. But again, it boils down to the outcome of the event not being determined by what actually happened. I will agree with you on one thing, though: Nobody inside the game is complaining about it. That thoroughly surprises me. But I'd bet that if they got rid of the scorecard, no one would complain, either.

posted by TheQatarian at 11:59 AM on July 21, 2008

So what's easier? Leave the scoring to the players, who have done it themselves throughout the history of the game, seldom with any error and almost never with any complaint (from anyone actually inside the game) even when things do go wrong, or find 500 people each week and pay them to observe? For me JJ, I'm not suggesting that every Tour have official scorers to oversee the tent. I'm suggesting that the PGA, LPGA, and Champions Tour deserve it. They are the highest profiled Tours for golf (at least in the US), and the scoring should be overseen by qualified individuals. What would happen if Tiger forgot to sign his card? And then allowed to play the Sat round, only to be notified later that some nobody in the scoring tent just had you DQ'd. If this is top notch golf, there should be top notch amenities/scoring/officials available.

posted by BoKnows at 12:36 PM on July 21, 2008

BoKnows: If this is top notch golf, there should be top notch amenities/scoring/officials available. Thank you - I've been having a difficult time nailing down why this bothers me so much. Despite the fact that it is an archaic rule, it is in the books and I have no problem with the LPGA (or any other GA) enforcing it. Wie doesn't apparently have an issue with it - nor have any players come out against it. It bothers me that, after being called back in the tent to sign her card, Wie left thinking that there was no problem. It bothers me more that the LPGA officials only found this out when they overheard a conversation about what had happened. And it bothers me most of all that, after the LPGA failed to properly train their volunteers in regards to the rules regarding scorecards and notification of the LPGA regarding infractions, that they still axed her mid-round and didn't inform her until after. Wie should have signed the cards. The LPGA's volunteers should have known that she should be ejected as soon as she passed the magic fairie dust line outside the tent. Wie has taken responsibility for not signing the card in a timely manner, but I don't feel like the LPGA has sufficiently acknowledged their part of the screw up here.

posted by Joey Michaels at 05:55 PM on July 21, 2008

The issue, to me, isn't the DQ - its how the LPGA handled the DQ. She should follow the rules, but they should enforce the rules in a timely manner. To put it another way, she should have been DQ'd as soon as she crossed the magic fairie line outside the tent. She shouldn't have been allowed to play a whole other round before the infraction was enforced. That is, in my opinion, bush league.

posted by Joey Michaels at 07:41 PM on July 21, 2008

Hal: I said nothing about the tradition, spirit or nobility of it. The marking of a scorecard is a practical measure that allows the playing of the game to continue to be self-refereed. That's important not out of some sense of honour or whatever, but simply because it's not practical for anyone else to referee it. Last week at the Open, about 25% of the shots played were played from knee-high grass. You could have a referee standing three feet from the player and still the only person who is going to know if the ball moved at address is the player. There's no other way to govern the game. Furthermore, my worry would be that if you put in a referee (and the more I think about it, I reckon you'd need more not fewer people than I originally estimated), then golf starts to lean toward being like most other sports where deceiving the referee isn't frowned upon, but actually lauded and rewarded. In soccer, rugby, NFL, basketball, baseball - you name it - there's an extent to which you could argue that the winning team can be the one that cheats best. If golf became like that, it's suddenly incumbent on referee to spot you improving your lie, and if you can do it without him noticing, it's fair game. I don't want to play that version of golf. I said it before, but I'll say it again - no one within the sport has their knickers in a knot, so why should it bother the rest of us? I can see that you find it caustic, Hal, but I don't think you should. It's the nature of the game, but it intereferes a handful of times a season at any level and a handful of times a decade where it dictates the outcome of the tournament. There are two issues here - the rule and the application of it. The rule is not only fine but necessary in my opinion. The application of it in this instance was clearly hopeless. As to when Wie was informed - I think the LPGA did the right thing. They became aware of the problem during her round and waited until the end of the round to tell her she was out. The reason they didn't tell her midway through was, I presume, out of consideration for her playing partner, for whom the inevitable confusion and comotion that would have been caused by ejecting Wie from the tournament mid-round would have been unsettling to say the least.

posted by JJ at 06:11 AM on July 22, 2008

JJ, you make some very good points regarding why the rule should remain as written, and I'm not going to argue that. I would ask, however, as mentioned before, why there is such a serious penalty for a seemingly innocuous transgression? She went back and signed the card. No score change--no harm, no foul. I could understand perhaps a 1 or 2 stroke penalty for not signing the card before leaving the tent (I think someone may have mentioned that earlier as well.), but wouldn't you agree that a disqualification for forgetting to sign the scorecard (again, no intent to cheat, just a mistake) is quite harsh?

posted by bender at 07:21 AM on July 22, 2008

I said it before, but I'll say it again - no one within the sport has their knickers in a knot, so why should it bother the rest of us? Personally, even if the rule didn't bother a single pro golfer it would still bother me. I don't watch golf to see an event overturned by a scorekeeping error. That's not good TV. A few years ago Wie was disqualified for a drop that put her closer to a hole after a sports journalist questioned it. I can live with that, but her infraction here consisted of stepping outside a tent. That's ridiculous.

posted by rcade at 07:50 AM on July 22, 2008

It's perhaps illustrative of how the rule is viewed from within the game that Roberto DeVicenzo's response to his disaster in the 1968 Masters (he made 3 at 17, but his playing partner put him down for a 4 and Roberto signed his card without checking it, costing himself a playoff spot) wasn't "What a stupid rule!" but "What a stupid I am!"

posted by JJ at 08:43 AM on July 22, 2008

Rules changes happen all the time in sports to make them more watchable, such as the three-point line and shot clock in basketball, rules to disadvantage defenses in football, and shootout tiebreakers in soccer and hockey. And every one of those changes -- with the possible exception of the shot clock in basketball -- has lessened the sport it was supposed to make more watchable. Sign your damned scorecard, or if you can't remember, write "SIGN YOUR SCORECARD" on the underside of the bill of your visor or cap or tattoo it on the back of your hand. It's not that difficult.

posted by wfrazerjr at 09:43 AM on July 22, 2008

bender, I would guess if the penalty weren't a death penalty, there's not enough incentive to keep people from trying to bend the rules. If the only penalty is 1 or 2 strokes, why not try to beat the system? So you are implying that players are willing to try to cheat but that the penalty for not signing the card is somehow stopping them? I'm talking about someone who forgot to sign the card, not someone who was trying to cheat (at least that is my assumption considering that she went right back and signed it when she found out she had forgotten to do that). bender, the penalties are: Sign for a higher score than you actually made? The higher score stands, but there is no further sanction. Sign for a lower score than you actually made? Disqualification, whether it was an innocent mistake or a Vijay magic pencil moment. Fail to sign the card? Disqualification. For my money, that's all the rule can be. There is no attested record of your score if you didn't sign it. The whole leaving the tent before you signed it thing is an issue of where you draw the line as the tournament organiser. They drew a line at the door of the tent and she crossed it *shrug*. I'm with you on the first two points; those seem reasonable. Disqualification for forgetting to sign the card is just too harsh to me. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree. They drew a line at the door of the tent and she crossed it. Then she went back and signed the same card she would have if she hadn't forgotten. *shrug*

posted by bender at 11:35 AM on July 22, 2008

But you can't talk about that group as though the other doesn't exist. Ease up on the rules because of good people who make a mistake and you're also easing up on bad people who cheat. But I'm not advocating changing the rules so that they don't punish cheaters. Only change the rule that says that you are disqualified if you forget to sign your card to allow you to sign it later. If people are going to try to cheat, they are going to do it whether this rule is in place or not. Those two things are not related.

posted by bender at 02:46 PM on July 22, 2008

And I'm going to jump in with my point again as well, which is quite simply that capabilities exist in the game as it stands today (at least in the major tours) to ensure that the results of tournaments are determined by what actually happens on the course as opposed to clerical errors, and that's what golf should be striving for. Even if the players aren't complaining about it, it runs contrary to the whole point of sport, i.e. the best player wins. I'm all for punishing cheaters, but it is so simple to take the entire opportunity to "cheat" out of the players' hands in this case that it makes no sense that it hasn't been done long ago, aside from adherence to silly "traditions" which serve no purpose at that level. It just seems like a complete vacation of common sense to me. But apparently others disagree.

posted by TheQatarian at 05:01 PM on July 22, 2008

What TheQatarian said. It's not the notion of the individual keeping score or the signing of the card and some penalty that's problematic. It's that A) The PGA and LPGA don't have trained people on hand at the final tent to ensure that there are no clerical errors. This is the highest level of a professional league, not a few people duffing it on a weekend. This doesn't require dozens of people, just one or two who will take a few minutes with the players to ensure they've completely filled their card, that they've signed the right places, and that it's been turned in correctly. And since there seems to be an official score, they could guide the player in verifying that they are attesting their score is correct, and noting/helping resolve any discrepancies. Why, exactly, does it 'prevent cheating' to have someone simply point out to Wie that she didn't sign her form before letting her leave? It's like an assistant to make sure no one gets DQed for this kind of stuff. Not signing isn't cheating at all- there's zero advantage, and death-penalty disadvantage. So again, not signing is merely a clerical error, a hair-splitting waste of time that has no real effect on the actual game being played. It really is the same kind of bullshit that Ken Starr was famous for. B) The fact that Wie did sign the card, with the correct score, it's just a question of how quickly the volunteer managed to catch up with her. If the volunteer was quicker, they would have caught Wie before she crossed the magic pixie line. So now Wie's participation in the event hinges on whether the volunteer was a sprightly 18-year-old or a lumbering 70-year-old? This is, again, where the spirit of the rule wasn't broken, only the letter of the rule. Wie wrote the right score, she signed the card.

posted by hincandenza at 06:13 PM on July 22, 2008

I wasn't blaming the volunteer, I was pointing out that the rule must be patently stupid if the speed of the volunteer (in reaching Wie a few steps sooner) would have changed this entire outcome. That's like saying Tiger Woods loses a Major because the refreshment cart vendor ran out of Snapple. You golf-fans keep using an example of honesty when it comes to things like strokes and scoring, but that's not what we've been talking about. Yes, along with the proud tradition of institutionalized racism, golf can add a legacy of unerring personal ethics (rolls eyes). But that's a slippery straw man argument; we aren't talking about the scoring of strokes. We're talking about a half-million dollar first place check that's suddenly out of reach because you walked a step too far in signing the card. Wie, again, signed the card. She didn't go have dinner, she turned right around, signed it, and played a full round the next day... which got tossed afterwards. There is literally no way for you to not see that as incredibly asinine unless you are so beholden to the mythos of golf that you can't think straight. The spirit is that she finished the round, signed the card (she was mere feet outside the tent), and played the next round. Again, since you obviously haven't done so, please read up on the Pine Tar Incident. The rules violation was there, but the league wisely recognized that it was not a rules violation of meaning, and overruled the umpire's call; they understood the outcome of the game shouldn't hinge on a decades old rule that was questionable at best. Similarly, the PGA and LPGA should let these things stand, or better ensure they don't happen by having the tour official (or apparently "volunteer") double check their work before letting them leave the tent. I'm not asking for radical changes, just for one golf supporter to explain why the [L]PGA wouldn't have the one or two people in the final tent to guide the players to prevent such a thing. Imagine if the Superbowl results got changed the following Monday evening when it was revealed that one of the players had an unpaid parking ticket from 1993. Or the World Series getting tossed a week later because video revealed someone's stirrups weren't pulled up far enough. In baseball, you do have to touch homeplate- and you'll probably have a couple of teammates standing at home who will frantically point to home and shouting at you to make sure you touch it if you somehow miss it (which is, I believe, pretty much what happened with Wie). And if you do miss home plate and make it all the way back to the dugout, you're still credited with a triple followed by an out- you aren't thrown out of the game, nor does the inning much less game even end.

posted by hincandenza at 03:01 AM on July 23, 2008

Also, as JJ explained, you cannot put scoring in the hands of anyone but the player and his/her partner. It isn't feasible and it will change the game. Except that there's a gaping hole in this argument which I've been saying since the beginning of this thread: These people clearly already exist.

posted by TheQatarian at 08:57 AM on July 23, 2008

Hal - I'm not sure if a straw man argument is better or worse for being slippery, but either way, it seems ironic for you to use the expression before building one of your own, and then tossing in a racial red herring for good measure. The only person who keeps talking about honesty is you. You've pre-empted an argument that no one has made. I agree with you that the punishment does not seem to fit the crime here, but I don't think the margin by which a rule is broken is relevant. The lines have to be drawn in any sport (and are necessarily artificial), and the crossing of them has to be penalised or they have no meaning. Wie crossed the line, so she's out. The rule was the same for everyone else, and they managed to avoid falling foul of it. You can argue, and I'd agree, that the line in this case was drawn in an unnecessarily tight way, but once it's drawn you can't go making exceptions arbitrarily because it's Wie, or because it's anyone else in contention, or because the person went back and did what they should have done in the first place. You don't get a second go at any of the putts you missed, so why should you get a second go at signing your card? I also agree that the LPGA should have officials (not volunteers) overseeing the card signing process, and that players shouldn't be released from the tent until they have signed their cards (in every tournament I ever played - from mid-ranking amateur events to European Tour - this was the case). (It's hip to be) Qat - Those people don't exist. The scorers that walk with each group are merely observers sending their observations of scores back to the scoreboard people and the TV people. Their records can be used (by players or officials) to cross check scores, but at the end of the round, it's the players' own records that stand. The rules official is there more as a lawyer than a judge. If, as a player, you're unsure of how to proceed, he can advise you, and if he witnesses you break a rule, he can inform you that you have, but he doesn't penalise you - he tells you that you must penalise yourself. As wfrazerjr said, it's just not possible for a third person to referee with anything like the same degree of accuracy, and to impose that would be to risk introducing the "catch me if you can" mentality (perfect description). Two best rules official moments: 1) Faldo's ball comes to rest on a spectator's bag. The official informs him (wrongly) that he must drop it (instead of placing it). Faldo tells the rules official he's wrong. The rules official won't budge. Faldo: "OK, fine, but what's the position if you are wrong, but I do what you tell me instead of what the rules say?" Official: "Mr Faldo, today, I am the rules." I'm told he never refereed again. 2) Feherty is denied a drop he should have been entitled to by a(nother) misguided rules official. He accepts the ruling, but in the heated exchange that follows asks: "What would happen if I called you an asshole?" The rules official says he'd be fined. "What about if I just thought it?" The rules official concedes there's not much he could do about that. "Fine. In that case, I think you're an asshole." [warning: Feherty might have stolen this story about himself, just like most of the rest of his decent lines]

posted by JJ at 09:59 AM on July 24, 2008

The scoring system is a pain in the ass, not so much for the players, but for the organisers (who would never want to catch anyone out - least of all the most talked about female player of the millennium when she's shaping up to win their tournament), so I'm honestly sure that if they could find a better way to do it, they would. And I hope what happened might inspire some revision of the procedure to avoid a repeat. Golf has plenty of arcane traditions, many of which the governing bodies cling to for no other reason than "tradition" but that I feel could be axed or amended to the benefit of the game and its audience. However, writing down your scores on a card that you then have to sign isn't one of them. It's a neat resolution. Feherty's best was when he was asked just how good Tiger is: "People have accused me of being so far up Tiger's arse that he can barely make a full swing, but I maintain that he is a special person. There's no one else on the planet who can do what he does or even thinks of doing what he does. I've often thought, instead of showing Tiger's reaction to a shot he's hit, we really should show the reaction of those around him. But here is the next best thing. I'm walking down the 18th fairway at Firestone Country Club with Ernie Els and Tiger, who has popped up a three-wood about 40 yards behind Ernie into some wet, nasty, horrible, six-inch rough. "Tiger's cursing and taking clumps out of Ohio with his three-wood. And, of course, we're not showing this on TV because we want to be able to interview him later. Ernie and I walk past Tiger's ball, and it is truly buried. Ernie is tied with Tiger and he's in the middle of the fairway. I'm standing with Ernie and my microphone is open. Ken Venturi [in the CBS booth] sends it to me and I say, 'Tiger's got 184 yards with two big red oaks overhanging the green. He's got absolutely nothing. With a stick of dynamite and a sand wedge I might be able to move this ball 50 yards.' "Steve Williams [Woods' caddie] tells me [with a hand signal] that he's using a pitching wedge. Tiger takes his swing. Every muscle in his body is flung at the ball. It looks like he's torn his nutsack. The divot went as far as I could have hit the ball. I've got my microphone at my mouth thinking, what the hell was that! "The ball sails over the trees, lands behind the hole and backs up to about six feet from the flag. I open my microphone and Ernie turns and says, 'Fuck me!' "My producer comes on in my earpiece and says, 'Was that Ernie?' I say yes. He says, 'Fair enough.' "I could have described that shot for 15 minutes and not done as good a job as Ernie did with two words. This is the second best player in the world talking. You wanna know how good Tiger is? Ask Ernie Els."

posted by JJ at 06:14 PM on July 24, 2008

Cripes, we should start a thread just so JJ can regale us with great golf stories. :)

posted by hincandenza at 08:37 PM on July 24, 2008