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7 hours ago, fringo said:

He did get penalised in the end but thankfully it didn't affect the result.

Some folk seem to be trying to blame the officials. Not Dustin, I would imagine he isn't giving a monkeys about it. The rules officials probably weren't there at the time of the incident so it's going to be more difficult for them to decide. The players should know the rules themselves. I am often surprised how many times these guys ask for a ruling when it's perfectly obvious what the players options are. Sometimes I think they are just buying some time to calm down after a pish shot. It's often harder for the rules officials to make a decision because they didn't see what happened so they don't know the full story of what happened. They have to rely on what the players tell them.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/20/2016 at 9:38 AM, Orraloon said:

Some folk seem to be trying to blame the officials. Not Dustin, I would imagine he isn't giving a monkeys about it. The rules officials probably weren't there at the time of the incident so it's going to be more difficult for them to decide. The players should know the rules themselves. I am often surprised how many times these guys ask for a ruling when it's perfectly obvious what the players options are. Sometimes I think they are just buying some time to calm down after a pish shot. It's often harder for the rules officials to make a decision because they didn't see what happened so they don't know the full story of what happened. They have to rely on what the players tell them.

I think the issue was that Dustin didn't know what caused the ball to move because it wasn't him. I think he did the correct thing in informing the referee (knowing fine well someone will have seen it on tele - not to say that's the only reason he highlighted it) because depending on what caused the ball to move and whether his club was deemed to be grounded or not may have had a different outcome. The USGA then made a complete and utter erse of it.  The referee at the time was satisfied that Dustin had not made the ball move and had not grounded his club.  The USGA went against their own rules in "investigating" it further (those rules being that the referee's decision is final).  Utter shambles. 

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6 hours ago, SMcoolJ said:

I think the issue was that Dustin didn't know what caused the ball to move because it wasn't him. I think he did the correct thing in informing the referee (knowing fine well someone will have seen it on tele - not to say that's the only reason he highlighted it) because depending on what caused the ball to move and whether his club was deemed to be grounded or not may have had a different outcome. The USGA then made a complete and utter erse of it.  The referee at the time was satisfied that Dustin had not made the ball move and had not grounded his club.  The USGA went against their own rules in "investigating" it further (those rules being that the referee's decision is final).  Utter shambles. 

Whether he grounded the club or not doesn't matter any more. That bit has been taken out of the rules to make it simpler. It only matters if the act of grounding the club caused the ball to move. In which case it was the player who caused the ball to move - one shot penalty. It isn't good enough to say "I don't think I caused the ball to move". You need to know, or be virtually certain, what did cause the ball to move. If the player can't say what did cause the ball to move then the player himself is deemed to have caused the ball to move.

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18 hours ago, Orraloon said:

Whether he grounded the club or not doesn't matter any more. That bit has been taken out of the rules to make it simpler. It only matters if the act of grounding the club caused the ball to move. In which case it was the player who caused the ball to move - one shot penalty. It isn't good enough to say "I don't think I caused the ball to move". You need to know, or be virtually certain, what did cause the ball to move. If the player can't say what did cause the ball to move then the player himself is deemed to have caused the ball to move.

Ok, but the issue remains - nobody knows what caused the ball to move..... (we had the benefit of slow mo - it was pretty clear that Dustin did not touch the ball).  Dustin could only be clear that he didn't make the ball move.  The referee was satisfied it wasn't Dustin.  That should have been the end of it.

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43 minutes ago, SMcoolJ said:

Ok, but the issue remains - nobody knows what caused the ball to move..... (we had the benefit of slow mo - it was pretty clear that Dustin did not touch the ball).  Dustin could only be clear that he didn't make the ball move.  The referee was satisfied it wasn't Dustin.  That should have been the end of it.

You don't need to touch the ball to cause it to move. A big lumbering giant of a man with huge clodhopper feet stomping round the ball could cause the ball to move. I think the reason he was penalised was what he said, not what he did. I didn't hear it, but I've seen it reported that he said "I don't think I caused the ball to move". By definition that means he is not "virtually certain". If he had said " The ball moved but I didn't move it. It was the wind what done it" then he probably wouldn't have been penalised. 

If in doubt, take the penalty and move on. I wouldn't want to win a medal and have it in the back of my mind that I only won it because I broke the rules.

 

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1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

You don't need to touch the ball to cause it to move. A big lumbering giant of a man with huge clodhopper feet stomping round the ball could cause the ball to move. I think the reason he was penalised was what he said, not what he did. I didn't hear it, but I've seen it reported that he said "I don't think I caused the ball to move". By definition that means he is not "virtually certain". If he had said " The ball moved but I didn't move it. It was the wind what done it" then he probably wouldn't have been penalised. 

If in doubt, take the penalty and move on. I wouldn't want to win a medal and have it in the back of my mind that I only won it because I broke the rules.

 

So the bigger your feet the more liable you should be when a ball moves for no apparent reason?  It could be argued that he was being too honest by saying that he "didn't think" he caused the ball to move. It happened in a split second when his entire concentration was on something else.  I think it's safe to assume he genuinely had no idea why the ball moved but that it wasn't him (as pictures would suggest). He should not be penalised for that. 

The point I was originally making though was the USGA got it wrong.  The referee's decision is final - those are the (their!) rules.  Why they went on to muddy the waters and cause an absolute shambles is anyone's guess. 

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2 hours ago, SMcoolJ said:

So the bigger your feet the more liable you should be when a ball moves for no apparent reason?  It could be argued that he was being too honest by saying that he "didn't think" he caused the ball to move. It happened in a split second when his entire concentration was on something else.  I think it's safe to assume he genuinely had no idea why the ball moved but that it wasn't him (as pictures would suggest). He should not be penalised for that. 

The point I was originally making though was the USGA got it wrong.  The referee's decision is final - those are the (their!) rules.  Why they went on to muddy the waters and cause an absolute shambles is anyone's guess. 

Was Shane Lowry not penalised for the same thing in a previous round? It would have been very unfair if Dustin had not been penalised and gone on to win by 1 shot. I know it didn't matter in the end but it could have done.

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1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

Was Shane Lowry not penalised for the same thing in a previous round? It would have been very unfair if Dustin had not been penalised and gone on to win by 1 shot. I know it didn't matter in the end but it could have done.

Yes, you're right, Lowry penalised himself but I don't know if he knew whether it not he caused the ball to move or indeed what the circumstances were. To be fair to your earlier theory - he's quite a big lad too!!

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Wasn't the reason for the stramash that he was first given the green light, then several hours later told we're looking into it (as were the other players), then it took until after it had all finished before a decision was made ?

All the commentators were suggesting it could have been cleared up in a few minutes almost immediately (or at least at the mid point when he was told it's being looked at?)?

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4 hours ago, fringo said:

Wasn't the reason for the stramash that he was first given the green light, then several hours later told we're looking into it (as were the other players), then it took until after it had all finished before a decision was made ?

All the commentators were suggesting it could have been cleared up in a few minutes almost immediately (or at least at the mid point when he was told it's being looked at?)?

I don't think it would be possible for the rules committee (or whatever it's called for the US Open) to make a proper decision without speaking to the player involved. What Dustin said to the rules folk would be as important, or even more important, than what he did on the course.

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  • 1 month later...
16 minutes ago, Toepoke said:

That's a surprise, thought it would be a much rarer occurrence!

 

 

Think the one prior to that was in the 90's. 

The tiger influence made sure it never happened a lot between those times. 

I would expect it to happen again in the next few years also. 

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  • 5 months later...
On 30/06/2016 at 1:35 PM, SMcoolJ said:

So the bigger your feet the more liable you should be when a ball moves for no apparent reason?  It could be argued that he was being too honest by saying that he "didn't think" he caused the ball to move. It happened in a split second when his entire concentration was on something else.  I think it's safe to assume he genuinely had no idea why the ball moved but that it wasn't him (as pictures would suggest). He should not be penalised for that. 

The point I was originally making though was the USGA got it wrong.  The referee's decision is final - those are the (their!) rules.  Why they went on to muddy the waters and cause an absolute shambles is anyone's guess. 

I must have missed this bit last June. Golf is all about honesty. If you are not being totally honest, you are not playing golf, IMO. This is especially true at amateur level. 

Anyway, the reason I came back to this thread was to say that the R&A and USPGA have introduced a new local rule to try to ensure that this sort of thing doesn't happen again. I think this is a sensible rule change.

http://www.randa.org/News/2016/12/New-Local-Rule-for-Golf

There will still be some confusion around deciding whether the player moved the ball accidentally, or was it moved by wind or something else? But at least there should be no penalty now.

 

 

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