Rules confusion ruins a good time
Rules confusion at the DAC golf tourney a big headache for everyone involved.
A conference title was at stake as things heated up at the Duneland Athletic Conf. tourney.
Lake Central coach RJ Ohlenkamp was doing his best this week to sort out the rules mess from the Duneland Athletic Conference Tournament. It was a fiasco.
The short story is Crown Point arrived late for a noon tee time at the Brassie Golf Club, and all five of its players were forced to take double pars.
The longer, more nuanced story is that rules controversies in golf are almost always complicated and painful.
In this particular instance, a conference title was at stake, which only added to the highly charged atmosphere.
Yes, it got a little ugly.
The Bulldogs arrived as the best team in the DAC with a 13-1 record in the regular season and left with a fourth-place finish in the conference tournament after being penalized a total of 41 strokes.
To recap, Crown Point coach Ryan Bishop had the wrong starting time. He thought it was 1 p.m. shotgun tee-off. It was noon.
Crown Point arrived in position on the tees around 12:22 p.m., according to Ohlenkamp. The last groups teed off at 12:15 p.m. on No. 18 for the shotgun start. The first groups went off at 12:08 p.m.
According to the USGA rules, there are four options to consider for a player who’s late for a tee time.
Assess the player a two-stroke penalty if they arrived within five minutes of their tee time. Disqualify the player. Give him no penalty because of exceptional circumstances. Or allow for double pars on the holes he couldn’t play because of his tardiness.
The problem with the rules is the application being subjective.
For instance, Ohlenkamp said since the team arrived more than five minutes late to their positions, a two-stroke penalty
wouldn’t apply.
Crown Point coach Ryan Bishop argued it should have been a two-stroke penalty per player. Ohlenkamp said the exceptional circumstances rule could have applied.
His rationale?
That it wasn’t the fault of the players that they were late.
It was Bishop who mixed up the time. I disagree.
The exceptional circumstances rule should be an unpreventable problem that makes the team late. An example would be a team bus getting a flat tire on the way to a tournament.
You see how this goes if there are eight coaches in a room trying to make a decision on what to do.
It can turn into a freefor-all, with each school protecting its own selfinterest.
That’s exactly what happened.
Initially, Crown Point was disqualified, but then the coaches changed direction and decided to vote on a penalty.
It was messy and unfortunate. Bishop felt awful about getting the tee time wrong, so he was fighting hard to minimize the damage.
Valparaiso coach Wayne Lichtenberger fought equally hard to have the Bulldogs disqualified, perhaps because his team stood to benefit the most. He had a legitimate case.
Ultimately, the coaches voted 5-3 for the doublepar penalty.
Lichtenberger, through his athletic director, protested the outcome. That protest, considered on Thursday, was denied by the conference athletic directors.
Ohlenkamp is invested in the process because Lake Central will host the regional at Sandy Pines Golf Course. He knows several rulings could come up that would make or break a round.
He has to be ready.
“I’m scared to death of what could happen,” he said of the regional.
The lesson of this story is be on time for your tee time.