The 92nd PGA Championship is now in the books. The event took place at Whistling Straits located on Lake Michigan in Haven, Wisconsin. The field featured some of the best players in the world for the last major of the season.
Highlighted were players like Phil Mickelson who is well on his way to becoming the world’s number one ranked player and Tiger Woods who is fresh off a devastating finish at the WGC-Bridgestone the previous week. Both these players, and many more, were featured throughout the week and into the weekend as the PGA handed over another Wanamaker trophy.
The trophy went to Martin Kaymer, a twenty-five-year-old from Germany. He played some great golf and managed to get himself into a playoff with long-ball hitter Bubba Watson. But when Dustin Johnson came to the 18th tee, he had a one shot lead heading the pack at twelve under par. An arrant tee shot, landing some twenty yards right of the fairway, would later lead to a bogey finish. This would put him into a playoff with Kaymer and Watson.
Whistling Straits, designed by Alive and Pete Dye, features over 1,200 bunkers. Because of this the PGA had made sure all players and rules officials were aware of the rules of golf in regards to bunkers. If you play golf then you know there are a few rules you must follow. One of the most basic things to remember is you are not allowed to ground your club until you hit the golf ball. If you ground your club before in a bunker it is a two shot penalty. Most golfers know this, especially PGA Tour players.
On 18, when Dustin Johnson his hit tee shot way right, he would just be lucky to find the ball, let alone get a good lie. Where he hit spectators and sure enough surrounded the ball, he had a good lie. His ball ended up in a section of the course that has been trampled down by spectators all week long. The ball was sitting up and he had a shot at the green.
Dustin grabbed a club from his bag, took his stance, and grounded his club. The video shows that as soon as he grounded his club he backed off and made notice to a shadow that was affecting his thought process. He carried on and managed to hit the shot up by the green. From there he would fail to get up and down and would be forced into a playoff with the other two competitors.
Before they could even tee off, someone called his attention back to the area in which he had hit his second shot. Dustin was in a bunker. One of the many bunkers on the course, and one that had been walked in all week from onlookers trying to get a good view of the action on the course. Eventually he would suffer a two shot penalty and end up finishing in a tie for fifth place.
All day I have been hearing about this incident. Even yesterday, after they called attention to the rules violation, more attention went to Dustin than did the winner of the championship. Dustin was upset and all of the media attention went to the locker room just trying to get a piece of his story.
What bothers me is he broke a rule. Golf is one of the greatest games on earth and has a rulebook as thick as a phone book. But just the same, he broke a rule. Golf is based on tradition and the rules of golf are held very close to those players who take the game seriously. While I take the game of golf seriously, I break some rules from time to time. But I am not a professional athlete playing on the PGA Tour with a one shot lead going into the final hole of a major championship.
You might remember Dustin having thrown away the US Open at Pebble Beach earlier this year. He went into the final round with a huge lead and managed to just throw it away one shot at a time. Dustin is only twenty-six years old, so perhaps this is just another lesson well learned, but at the end of the day he broke a rule.
Dustin never once argued the violation, it was eventually left up to the rules committee. But you could tell by the way he approached the media he did not agree with the final call. I will give him credit that the area where his ball finished looked more like a waste area than a sand trap. You are allowed to ground your club in a waste area. But playing on a course with over 1,200 bunkers he might have thought to ask if he could ground his club before just assuming he was in a waste area.
I will stand by the rules of golf and by this decision. He broke a rule and had to suffer the consequences. There is no reason to keep talking about his mistake. How about we pay attention to the man that had the lowest score at the end of the week? Martin Kaymer is whom we need to be focused on here. Let’s all give a round of applause to Martin Kaymer, the winner of this year’s PGA Championship.
Did you see the tournament this past weekend? What did you think of the ruling? Was it a fair decision or was Dustin robbed of another shot at a major victory?
I had a guy instigate an argument via Twitter with me over this one after I expressed the same sentiment as in your post. His feeling (other than wanting to be a pain in the hindquarters) was that it was ridiculous to expect Dustin to have treated the trap as such yet allow the gallery to stand in it. I feel that the PGA selects courses for major tournaments because they are challenging and unique. Therefore players should be expected to approach as if they had their own unique set of rules.
Regardless, I think Dustin Johnson will be back and will eventually win several majors. Just look at Phil Mickelson, he didn’t win a major until he was 33!
Thanks for the comment Steve. Golf is not an easy sport, no one ever said it was. And these are the best of the best. They should play on hard golf courses. I liked it when the first event ever held at Bethpage Black yielded hardly any scores under par. I think ALL tournaments should be like that. Rather than who can get ten, fifteen, even twenty under par is uncalled for. Yes the players are getting better. Yes the courses are starting to get longer. But the courses should be hard. Part of my point was that the winner is getting next to no media coverage for the biggest tournament in his life to date. Regardless, I am glad that the PGA decided the way they did and Dustin has no one to hate but himself. Not even his caddy. He is the one the shot. Great ruling in my eyes.
And you are right. He will be back and he will win a ton more times on tour, I assume a handful of majors. He is only twenty-six years old. Great reference to Phil as well. He can’t stop winning them it seems!
Indeed, a rule was broken.
I look at how a seasoned tournament player and caddie might’ve approached things differently. Like, for instance, Tiger and Steve Williams.
Steve Williams would’ve walked up to the area where the ball lied, and would’ve began coordinating the mass exodus of the hundreds of fans who were still hovering in the area. There would’ve clearly been enough space created to have seen that the ball was indeed at rest in a bunker. Point number 1.
Point number 2. – Steve Williams might be a real d!ck for a caddie as it relates to the fans, but he understands his job. And part of his job is to give his player every opportunity to execute a golf shot successfully, even if it means snatching a camera from a rogue reporter who feels that he’s not obligated to follow the PGA Tour’s policy on cameras and cellphones. So it goes without saying that Williams would’ve wasted absolutely no time in herding the gallery out of the area. It also goes without saying that Williams, as well as Tiger himself, would’ve taken a moment to read the information about special rules that pertained to the tournament that week. Had this episode involved Woods and Williams, there would be no talk of this misfortune Monday morning. It wouldn’t have happened.
Point number 3. – The PGA Tour rules committee instituted an additional rule this season that clearly states that ALL BUNKERS WITH SAND, INCLUDING POTENTIAL WASTE AREAS, should be played no different than traditional bunkers, meaning that grounding the club is a breach of the rules in either instance. The reason this rule was instituted was to remove any confusion that might result in a player unknowingly grounding his club in what he might perceive to be a waste area, but is in reality a traditional sand bunker. Now there is no distinction. Sand bunkers are sand bunkers, and all of them are subject to the same rules procedures and subsequent penalties. A seasoned touring professional and his caddie would know this, WHICH would make the debacle that took place Sunday evening a non-issue as well.
I don’t agree with the premise that Johnson felt cheated in the end, however… In my opinion, any comments that he might’ve made after the fact were obviously made with a deep sense of frustration and shock. He admitted that he grounded his club, he told the rules officials that he didn’t need to see the camera replay to acknowledge it. He admitted that he overlooked the special rules considerations in play for the week in the tournament, despite them being made available to both the player and his caddie. And in the end, he handled the situation with about as much class and dignity as one could expect given the circumstances. Dustin Johnson isn’t making a big deal out of this today.
But fortunately for Nick Watney and Bubba Watson, two guys who should really be getting the brunt of the media frenzy this week for the way their final rounds played out, Dustin Johnson’s penalty has afforded them the seclusion that normally wouldn’t be available to two players who choked as badly as they did. It’s the ebb and flow of what the media decides is the bigger story.
As it relates to Martin Kaymer’s accomplishment taking a backseat to Johnson’s snafu….
In 1999, Jean Van de Velde botched a three shot lead on the 72nd hole of the British Open at Carnoustie. As a result, Paul Lawrie would win the Open Championship in the playoff, which is, by all means, the pinnacle of success for any European player. To this day, some 11 years after the fact, Paul Lawrie is just a mere footnote in the context of that major championship that took place in 1999…. In the span of 20 minutes, Jean Van de Velde effectively rendered the death sentence to that longstanding belief that “no one remembers who finished second.” The gaffe was so monumental that it easily shadowed Lawrie’s win. Along those same lines, to a similar degree, history repeated itself again Sunday afternoon at Whistling Straits, courtesy of Dustin Johnson and his caddie. And indeed – that’s a shame for a player like Martin Kaymer, a world-class golfer who has been one of the most impressive, consistent players on the European Tour for several years now. His accomplishment is, in my view, not diminished because of Watney’s collapse, or Johnson’s epic gaffe on the final hole, or Bubba’s choke job on the botched approach from the deep rough in the playoff. He was clearly the player who showed the most patience and fortitude on Sunday, and 9 times out of 10 – that’s the guy holding the trophy at the end of a major tournament.
How can I respond to that comment without a blog post all my own! Great comments sir and I truly appreciate you not only reading my article but sharing all your comments as well. You know the game of golf, there is no doubt about that. And I am glad you agree with me, even if just a little! Thanks again!