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The new rules were supposed to make things simpler but one change has left pros confused and furious.
The USGA and R&A may be onto something. One way to make golf more interesting and dramatic is to hand out two-shot penalties at a whim and with no real basis to do so. It will make the game a complete farce, but it will sure get people mad and talking about the sport.
We went over this on Sunday with Haotong Li and the European Tour but here’s a short refresher: the new rules, which took effect on January 1, were designed to make the game simpler and speed up pace of play. That’s the intent of a letting players putt with the pin in or dropping from knee height to limit the chance of the ball rolling away and having to re-drop. These were the high-profile and conspicuous changes through the first month of the season.
But there’s a third rule change now in the second month of the season that’s making the most significant impact and it’s not for the USGA’s intended reasons. The application of this new alignment rule has become a mess. We saw it with Li in Dubai on Sunday, where he lost $100,000 in earnings thanks to a capricious but allegedly correct application of the new rule. It caused a Monday morning pissing match between the European Tour, which had to enforce the rule, and the R&A, which helped write the rule.
Now we’ve seen a similar random application on the PGA Tour with Denny McCarthy at the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Here’s the clip of the “infraction” that has pros both confused and furious.
This is even worse than Haotong Li!! Y’all did my boy @_dennymccarthy dirty!! Practice swings, no intention to hit the ball, lines HIMSELF up, AND THEN GOES INTO HIS STANCE... get outta here @PGATOUR@WMPhoenixOpenpic.twitter.com/sbBbsaaLjl
— Brad Schneider (@bschneid117) February 2, 2019
Some players, especially on the LPGA, have had their caddies stand behind them to check their alignment and make sure they are aimed properly at the target. When that’s done, it can take forever and slow down the pace of play. Making that practice illegal came with fine intent but the letter of the new rule and its application are threatening to create a mess of whimsical two-stroke penalties this season.
The practice of lining up your player is now outlawed, both on the green and in the fairway or tee box. On the green, caddies obviously often stand behind their players to read the break as opposed to help align them. On the green, the player can simply back off her/his ball and re-address it on the green after the caddie walks away and this is what Li could have done in Dubai to avoid his two-shot penalty.
But this McCarthy penalty occurs out in the fairway and not up on the green. His caddie is standing behind him as he takes some practice swings. The caddie walks away and McCarthy then steps off the ball to line himself up! I’m not here to explain how this works because it makes no sense but here’s the subsection of the rule that McCarthy violated:
10.2b(4) Once the player begins taking a stance for the stroke, and until the stroke is made, the player’s caddie must not deliberately stand on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball for any reason.
There’s a mistake, I suppose, in the caddie being anywhere near an area behind his player that could be construed as lining him up. But McCarthy steps off the ball here after his caddie has vacated that area! This would have absolved Li and allegedly, but who the hell knows anymore, resets everything up on the green but does not when you’re in the fairway or on the tee.
Here’s Joe Skovron, Rickie Fowler’s caddie, comically scurrying out of the area while looking down at a yardage book. It’s amusing to watch, but this is the circus this rule has created!
Joe out there trying not to get Rickie Haotong Li’ed in PHX. cc: @the_woke_yolk@NoLayingUppic.twitter.com/jHXchdAeRt
— Matthew Galloway (@matthewgalloway) February 1, 2019
McCarthy told Ryan Lavner of Golf Channel that he was not even aware his caddie was in that area behind him and that he’s never had a caddie line him up in his career. He was told after the hole that he might be subject to the penalty because his caddie was in the “line of play” when he assumed a golf posture.
The rule puts PGA Tour and European Tour officials in the tough spot of having to inflexibly enforce a rule that seems to discard intent. There was no intent by Li or McCarthy to be lined up and in actuality, they were not lined up by their caddies. They gained no advantage. The quickest fix is at least doing away with this judgment call of what is a “golf posture” and the delineation of being able to absolve yourself by stepping off the ball up on the green but not in the fairway.
As you can imagine, the reaction to this two-shot penalty was swift and furious from pros and caddies on Twitter. In lieu of embedding the dozens of outcries here, we’ll just go with Justin Thomas, perhaps the most high-profile player to fire off his umbrage at the penalty.
This is ridiculous... the fact this is a penalty is mind blowing. @USGA this NEEDS to be changed ASAP... there is nothing about this rule that makes the game better https://t.co/wtPmPOcss4
— Justin Thomas (@JustinThomas34) February 2, 2019
So, at least at the pro level, this has done nothing to make the game simpler. It has only made the rules of golf and those who write them, the USGA and R&A, look incompetent again. That’s not a look they want. As with the NFL adjusting different roughing the passer rules on the fly, expect this rule to be altered or scrapped entirely in the coming months.