Saga of the twig-bending Fil-Am player

IT’S time again to cite a rules situation in the Fil-Am Invitational Golf, whose 67th edition ended hitch-free on Saturday at the Baguio Country Club and Camp John Hay in the famed City of Pines. I just can’t bear not doing it. Jake P. Ayson and yours truly were the tournament’s rules men again. It was our 11th straight year on the job ( or is it more than that, as Fil- Am Secretariat stalwarts Andrew, Roanne, Abs, Glai, May, Melody and Harvee keep on insisting?).

I guess that’d be true if we include the years Jake and I had worked the Fil-Am Rules together with the late, lamented Taby “Insan” Tabaniag, our chief mentor and the tournament’s Rules Committee top gun for the longest time.

Anyway, here’s a ruling on a player who made a stroke while his caddy held a twig he had bent that blocked his shot.

The player didn’t know he violated a rule and so he signed for a bogey instead of a pick-up.

After his marker signed his scorecard, the twig-bending player next signed his scorecard before dropping it in the box. Process completed.

Then a flight mate of the twig-bender haled the twig-bender to us, claiming the twig-bending player had actually played beyond bogey and ought to be disqualified for signing a wrong scorecard. He also said that as a consequence, the twig-bender’s team merited a two-point deduction.

A team is penalized two points when any of its players continue playing beyond bogey. This has been in force for years to speed up play, considering that more than a thousand from all corners of the globe play yearly in the fabled Fil- Am.

However, upon deliberation, none of the three flight mates of the twigbender cited a rules violation being incurred by the twig-bender while the hole was in play.

Only when the scorecard had been dropped in the box did the complainant call our attention.

A new rule says that, after an exhaustive investigation, and a player has been established as being unaware of having committed an infraction, he can not be disqualified.

Had the twig-bender been disqualified and his team been penalized two points, the team of the complaining player would have won the division crown— by a single point. So there.

Sneaky?