[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by John_W

I watched the broadcast on Sunday when the ruling was made and they replayed the events of the day before. The emailer said he noticed that when Lexi marked her ball the coin was not visible, but when she replaced the ball the coin was visible.

For those who play golf, you know sometimes you'll mark your ball at an angle to keep the coin or marker out of another players line, such as Lexi was probably doing this time. The marker was placed at angle away from the camera, thus hiding the coin. When she placed the ball back, she put it directly in front of the coin, so the coin and the ball were both visible at the same time. The total distance was probably 1" at the most, more likely 1/2" she gained by placing her ball back incorrectly, all of this is about a putt of about 1 foot. In our games, it's what we call a gimme.

If they want a rules change, don't penalize a player 2 strokes for signing an incorrect score card. Because when they signed the card, it wasn't incorrect, that didn't happen until a day later when she was assessed the 2 shot penalty.

Had this happen last year, she wouldn't of even been playing on day 4. The old rule was if you signed an incorrect score card, you are disqualified completely. Booted, kicked out of the tournament. She actually came out ahead, in the eyes of some people.

Ok, what you described is a 2 stroke penalty because she did not replace the ball in the exact spot, according to the rules of golf. I have seen a lot of good golfers miss very short putts, especially if the ball is in a spike mark. That is why there is no such thing as a gimme in pro golf. Did you see Ernie Els on the first hole of last year's Masters? If you don't penalize a golfer for signing an incorrect score card, you may as well not have them sign it at all. Why do we want to downgrade golf to the level of other sports where anything goes as long as the referee doesn't see it?