CRASH COURSE
Like Tiger, HS golfers held to high standard when it comes to rules
BILL NIKLAUS, head coach of the Archbishop Molloy boys golf team and the CHSAA golf chairman, had several of his golfers approach him on Monday wondering why Tiger Woods was not penalized right on the course for an illegal drop on the par-5 15th after his shot bounced off the pin and into a water hazard during the second round of the Masters on Friday.
It wasn’t until late Friday night and early Saturday morning that Woods was determined to have purposefully dropped the ball two yards back from its original position, and after Woods had implicated himself in a television interview following the round.
“The kids said, ‘We spotted it, but why didn’t the marshals?’” Niklaus said Wednesday before his team’s match against St. Francis Prep at Douglaston Golf Course. “In their minds, they were thrown off by, ‘Is it favoritism?’”
The Stanners’ plausible conspiracy theory aside, the fact that they knew the best golfer in the world had made a mistake shows the standard they’re held to at the high school level.
“We tell the kids in eighth grade: When you come into high school, we don’t have time to teach you (the rules). You have to know the basics,” Niklaus said. “When you come in, it is full USGA rules, plus the local rules in CHSAA. When you put it all together, we’re bound by (many) rules. I’ve had kids call rules that average golfers would go, ‘Huh?’ But it’s real. They’re not just learning the basics. They have to play real golf.”
That being said, the kids aren’t expected to know every single nuance of the rulebook. As St. Francis Prep coach Brian McCormack says, adults don’t even know them all.
“A lot of the rules don’t come up until it actually happens on the course,” McCormack said. “It’s impossible to go over every rule in the USGA rulebook. When they happen, we teach them the proper way to drop. But it’s tough. There’s no way to put out every scenario that can happen. It’s impossible, even in the pros, to know every single rule.”
Molloy sophomore golfer Michael Tammaro said Niklaus recently taught his players about a putting infraction that results in a twostroke penalty for reaching over the hole for a tap-in.
“There are some rules that are confusing,” Tammaro said. “But there are always people around to help you.”
Junior Terrier Jacob Vir- ginia gained most of his knowledge of the rulebook from playing in competitive summer tournaments in the Metropolitan PGA. He admits there are “crazy” rules that nobody will memorize, but he has the main rules down pat.
“If we didn’t know the rules, we shouldn’t be out here in the first place, to be honest,” Virginia said. “Tiger, he just messed up the rule.”
Brian McGowan, a senior Terrier who’s attending the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall, said he knew what to do in drop situations like the one Woods found himself in during the second round at Augusta.
“In that situation, you have to play the ball from where it was. You can’t go as far as he did away from the spot,” said McGowan, who added that in a similar scenario he would “place the ball as close as you can, and check with all your peers to make sure it’s okay.”
Glenn Markoe, the boys golf coach at McKee/Staten Island Tech, said he spoke to his players about rules during practice on Wednesday, pointing out that since there are so many intricacies in the game, not even the greatest players in the world get them right all the time.
“We teach the basic rules of golf, and if something ever came down to it that would decide a match, we have rulebooks and we go right to the rulebook,” Markoe said. “But we’re trying to teach kids how to play golf first. It’s really more about the fundamentals of golf, golf etiquette, how to act on the golf course, how to dress on the golf course.
“And when rules come into play, they are addressed at that time.”
High school players have to have a good feel for most of the USGA’s convoluted Rules of Golf, just like the pros. But Woods proved when his infraction set the golf world abuzz that even the elite can make errors, and everyone can learn from them.
“Something like this, it’s a teaching opportunity, for everybody,” McCormack said.