Nice little read about it.
As Dustin Johnson pulled out his 4-iron and gently placed it in the sand beneath his feet on the 18th hole at Whistling Straits this evening, Mike Davis sat in front of his television in his New Jersey home and knew exactly what would happen next.
Johnson had stepped into a bunker — and had committed an irreversible error with a one-shot lead in the final round of the PGA Championship.
“I immediately said to my wife, ‘Oh my God, Dustin just grounded his club in a hazard,’ ” said Davis, the USGA’s Senior Director of Rules and Competitions tonight by phone. “He grounded his club and it was clear to me on TV that he had done it and I was thinking to myself, ‘My God, the whole world saw this and no one is saying anything.’ ”
It turned out that there were eyes on Johnson as he set up for his second shot in the bunker well off to the right side of the fairway. After he finished his final round with a bogey that appeared to put him in a playoff with Bubba Watson and eventual champion, Martin Kaymer, Johnson was notified that he had grounded his club. He would be assessed a two-stroke penalty and sign for a 73, instead of a 71.
But as he spent 10 excruciating minutes watching the tape in the scoring tent everyone was asking the same question.
Was it a bunker or not?
“Walking up there and seeing the shot, it never once crossed my mind that it was a sand trap,” Johnson told CBS TV after it was all over. “I guess it’s very unfortunate. … I never once thought that I was in a sand trap.”
The reason was because as Johnson walked up to his ball, hundreds of spectators were packed in around him and all over the wall of what was deemed to be the bunker in play. Replays on television showed that the ground and grasses had been trampled and broken down because of spectator traffic all week long. But according to the “Supplementary Rules of Play” that were distributed to every player upon arrival and posted in the locker room, all bunkers on the course were in play for the week.
“All of the areas of the course that were designed and built as bunkers would be played as bunkers — whether or not they were inside or outside the ropes,” Mark Wilson, chairman of the PGA’s Rules Committee told CBS this evening. “And the first item of the rules sheet went on to say that this may mean in the conduct of the championship, that some areas outside of the ropes might have many footprints, heel prints or tire tracks. And nevertheless, those were irregularities of surface from which no relief would be permitted.”
Happens to the best of them. Michelle Wie , 2008 at Panther Creek was in 2'nd place after 3 rounds. She failed to sign her scorecard "before" leaving the scoring area. DQ'd from the tournament. 2'nd place was $ 155,000.00 , the winner pocketing $ 225,000.00 2 costly mistakes by 2 very good players.
Ace