This is the second screw up buy the USGA at Oakmont. In 1994 the, then president of the USGA, Dr Trey Holland stole the Open championship from Loren Roberts by making a bad mistake on a ruling that enabled Ernie Els to stay in the playoff.
Today's ruling was an absolute travesty. In effect that are asking the player to prove a negative. Have these people ever played golf? Have they never seen a ball at rest move on it's own? I was just waiting for them to disqualify Johnson for signing an incorrect scorecard.
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Telling him 7 holes later that he "might" be assessed a 1 stroke penalty (if a rules official hadn't told him to play it, it would have been two strokes) would have gotten into the head of ANY golfer.
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Technically by their own definitions and rules, he should have been assessed two additional strokes. The referee told him to play the ball, but according to the USGA, Johnson gave the referee false information.