Final Whistle:
Penalty that cost Lexi Thompson a major shows a tiresome aspect that persists in the sport, writes Jonathan Liew
I am trying to picture the man who emailed the Ladies Professional Golf Association to inform it of Lexi Thompson’s ball-marking error. He watches her picking her ball up, replacing it a centimetre out of position. At first, he thinks nothing of it. He switches off the television and goes to bed – every night, 7pm on the dot. But sleep does not come. Something is nagging away at him.
And so the next day, as Thompson is two strokes clear in pursuit of her second major title, he switches on his computer. How does he feel as he presses “send”? Elated? How does he feel as he watches officials approach Thompson on the 12th green, awarding her a four-stroke penalty? Vindicated? How does he feel as he sees her collapse into sobs, her dream crumble to dust? Omnipotent? Perhaps even aroused?
We do not know the name of the mysterious television viewer who decided the fate of a major tournament last weekend. For the sake of argument, let us call him Chip McTwerp III. We can be fairly certain it was a man, at least.
Every pedantic letter I have ever received from a reader – pointing out that, actually, “South Wales” is not a place, or that, actually, Barcelona have not won five Champions Leagues but four Champions Leagues and a European Cup – has been from a man. If there is an essential social difference between the sexes, it is that men generally like to tell people they are right, whereas women silently know they are. You might even describe Mr McTwerp’s intervention as a sort of elaborate “mansplaining” by proxy.
The phenomenon of TV viewers enforcing rules on behalf of the officials is one peculiar to golf. This should hardly surprise us. Golf adores its minor infractions to the point of fetish. The more minor, the better, in fact. Perhaps this is why it so often struggles to see the bigger picture.
This is, after all, a sport that will happily disqualify a player for not submitting their scorecard in the designated tent (as happened to Michelle Wie in 2008) but has very little problem with awarding the Open Championship to courses that for centuries have banned from the clubhouse any woman not wearing a pinny and carrying a plate of sandwiches. I suppose you could extrapolate conclusions beyond golf, as well. How a culture of pedantry and trifling complaint has slipped into broader society, which is why online discourse so quickly descends into rancour. You are wrong, I am
Golf, at its most rarefied levels, seems to revel in telling people what they cannot do
right, and everyone must know this forever. It is why social media is not really a conversation at all, but a cacophony of competing monologues. But space is limited, and there is a certain irony to a column complaining about people complaining, so we will probably leave that one there.
Of course, the ultimate shrine to golfing pedantry – its Mecca, Taj Mahal, Uluru and Western Wall (not the Wailing Wall, as all true pedants will already know) – is the Augusta National, where the Masters begins tomorrow. And in its litany of petty proscriptions – no phones, no jogging, no chairs with arms, no backward-facing baseball caps, no black members until the 1990s – it is possible to identify a certain tinpot paternalism, a sense that rules exist not simply to regulate the spectacle, but to regulate the mind. Sport has always been about exploring what humans can do. Golf, at its most rarefied levels, seems to revel in telling them what they cannot.
But back to California, and back to Thompson, who shrugged off her four-shot penalty to force a play-off with Ryu So-yeon, which she lost.
Afterwards, LPGA rules manager Dan Maselli lamented the trouble caused, saying: “People do see things, and I wish they would speak up more quickly. Because then we could have taken care of this during her round.”
This, perhaps, is the ultimate act of golfing pedantry: complaining about a prior act of pedantry on the grounds that it was not prompt enough.
Chip, if you are reading this: raise your game, my man. You have a rival.