Armchair refs stymied by rule change
Golf’s infamous armchair vigilante squad has finally been disbanded. In moves which will delight professionals everywhere, the game’s governing bodies have declared they will no longer consider viewer call-ins for rules infractions and will instead introduce the sport’s own version of rugby’s television match official.
A working group led by the R&A and the US Golf Association decided not to wait for the 2019 modernisation of the Rules of Golf and introduce this minor overhaul from the start of next year.
As well as that change, a new local rule has been announced that will discontinue the penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard when the player was unaware of the violation.
For all those who are concerned that this will allow the cheats to prosper, from now on at least one official — and, very probably, more at the bigger tournaments — will be assigned to monitor the broadcasts “to help identify and resolve rules issues as they arise”.
The authorities will claim they were looking into this area anyway, but it is difficult not to see a link with the Lexi Thompson saga, which created a furore during and after the ANA Inspiration, the season’s first women’s major, in April. The American was on the way to the 13th tee in the final round in California when she was informed that she was being given a four-shot pen- alty. In that excruciating moment, Thompson went from three strokes ahead to one behind, having been docked two shots for replacing her ball marker in an erroneous position on the 17th green during the previous day’s third round — and another two for signing for an incorrect score. An unnamed viewer had emailed in on the final afternoon.
Thompson was in tears, eventually losing in a play-off. Player sentiment was against viewer involvement and the verdict being delivered 24 hours after the violation. Tiger Woods signalled his dismay on social media, tweeting, “viewers at home should not be officials wearing stripes”.