Rules are Rules are Rules...

As most any Golf Fan knows, the past couple of weeks have had a couple of controversial rulings during tournaments that ended with a two stroke penalty for Dustin Johnson and then a disqualification for Juli Inkster.

First up was Dustin at the Wyndham Championship, when he was in an apparent bunker outside of the fairway. He had grounded his club and thus, incurred the 2 stroke penalty which took him out of contention for a potential 3 way playoff.

Second, was this past weekend for Juli Inkster at the Safeway Classic. Julie was on the 10th tee and had a considerable wait before her group could tee off. This was common throughout the tournament due to the course structure, etc. Juli had decided to loosen up and she placed a weight onto the shaft of one of her clubs and took some swings to stay loose. The rules state that you are not allowed to use any type of attachment onto a club. What is allowed, is a weighted head cover, etc. The LPGA officials recieved an email telling them of what occurred. They then went back and reviewed the video coverage to confirm this had occurred. Once they did so, Juli was down to having one hole left to finish, so they allowed her to finish. They spoke with her after her round and let her know of the disqualification.

Now, on one hand these may seem ridiculous or petty. On the other, there are RULES for these very reasons. The governing bodies of both the LPGA and the PGA as well as other Tours, cannot allow golfers to just do whatever they feel like doing or to change the rules for each individual. This has to be an across the board Rule and in both cases this was. For Dustin, the rules given to all players prior to the start of the tourney stated that "ALL bunkers within the fairway and outside of the fairways would be played as Bunkers". For Juli, it stated that "use of anything other than the allowed weighted head cover would result in disqualification".

What is so unfortunate is that just like Dustin who was in contention for a possible 3 way playoff prior to his grounding his club in the out of the fairway bunker; Juli was in a tie for 2nd place during the round in which she was disqualified. Two great golfers, two different situations, and the end result was stated clearly in the Rules and they had to be followed.

I'm not going to say whether I think these rules were right or questionable, they were simply the Rules that had to be followed. If one had went back and allowed this for one player, then favoritism complaints would come into play. There are reasons for rules and no matter how unfortunate these two instances were, the Tours were appropriate in the way they were dealt with.

At any time, a player can and should ask an official if they are unsure of a given situation or their options. I was raised and told that "No question is a dumb question", and in this case, questions could have made the difference of potentially winning tournaments.


Now, GO Hit Some Balls...................