Era of ‘armchair ref’ is over
AT long last, after several calls from some of the top names in the sport, the powers that be in golf have relented and scrapped the influence of the armchair referee.
Over the years there have been so many instances of television viewers getting in touch with tournament officials and organisers to report rules infringements by players, and there have been some very high-profile names affected by this including Camillo Villegas, Padraig Harrington and Dustin Johnson to name but a few.
However, the most outrageous of these incidents came last April when Lexi Thompson lost the first Ladies Major of the season because of an armchair referee.
Just to refresh your memory, Thompson had just played the twelfth hole of her final round and was leading the tournament by three shots when she was informed by officials that following a complaint received by telephone call from a TV viewer, she was being penalised four shots as a result of an infringement in the previous day’s third round.
She apparently didn’t mark her ball correctly and she was penalised two shots for this, plus two more for signing for an incorrect score, which turned her three-shot lead into a one-shot deficit and she went on to lose the tournament in a play-off.
The incident sparked worldwide outrage that the rules of golf could allow this to happen and several of the most influential people in golf, including Tiger Woods and Graeme McDowell, spoke out about it.
Around the same time Chief Referee of the European Tour, John Paramour, was quoted as saying if he could change any rule of golf, it would be the rule governing such situations that allowed trial by television.
So, after much deliberation a group led by the R&A and the USGA, and including the PGA of America, the USPGA Tour, the European Tour, the LPGA Tour and the Ladies European Tour, will implement the following measures from January 1, 2018.
They will assign one or more officials to monitor the video broadcast of a competition to help identify and resolve rules issues as they arise and they will discontinue any steps to facilitate or consider viewer call-ins as part of the rules decision process
In addition, the R&A and the USGA have approved the adoption of a Local Rule, available from 1 January, to eliminate the additional two-stroke penalty for failing to include a penalty on the score card when the player was unaware of the penalty.
All of the organisations represented on the working group will introduce the Local Rule for 2018 and this scorecard penalty will be permanently removed when the modernised Rules of Golf take effect on January 1, 2019.
It’s only common sense after all.