Quote:
Originally Posted by biker1
The only real issue I see is that the USGA decided to overrule the official on site after he said there was no rules violation. They should not, in my opinion, be going to instant replay. Be that as it may, when I looked the the slo-mo, DJ appeared to have grounded his club beside the ball (not behind it) before the ball moved. This is what I believe the rules officials were focused on. Given that they apparently decided to use instant replay, they probably felt they had no choice but to impose the penalty since his club appeared to touch the ground and there were no other forces involved (such as high winds, which a rule change was put in place to account for) to cause the ball to move.
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PGA officials have been using replay to call penalties for a couple of years now. It is simply a matter of the replay providing information that the on site official did not have at the time of the original call. Secondly, no one called him a liar. They simply did not agree with his assessment that nothing he did could have caused the ball to move. I am on the side that his final grounding of the club beside the ball caused the movement - or more likely his lifting of the club in a slightly backward motion move the grass just enough. Contact with the ball is not required to cause movement.
It is a shame that this was handled so poorly. The call should have been made as soon as the replay was reviewed, rather than creating a dark cloud.
Never the less, it was great to see him finally win.