PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon, as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

As I have been sitting at home during the coronavirus pandemic, my mind has sometimes wandered to an arcane subject – golf rules.

To some of my friends, it will not be a surprise that this is true, especially to one whose wife loves golf rules as much, if not more, than I do.

Yes, I am golf rules junkie. And sometimes, lately, this has extended to rules on golf handicapping, which are often hard to fathom, especially if the still-new World Handicapping System puts my personal handicap so low I cannot play to it.

Oh well. Such is life for a golf-addicted person – me.

Links Magazine contributed to my thinking about golf rules when its “golf insider” on-line edition produced a story under this headline: ”Rules of Disorder: 10 Moments That Shouldn’t Have Happened.”

As I reviewed the list of rules incidents on professional golf tours, I would have remembered only about half of them.

Here is a list of the incidents, abbreviated for readability:

1.  Roberto De Vicenzo 1968 Masters
: April of 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of a memorable Masters—but one that made its indelible mark in history for the wrong reasons. A Sunday in Augusta that should have been remembered for Roberto De Vicenzo holing out for an eagle on the first hole on the way to a 65, and for Bob Goalby shooting a 66 to set up a playoff, instead became notorious for De Vicenzo signing an incorrect scorecard that left him one stroke behind a champion whose title would forever be marked with a figurative asterisk.

2:  Jackie Pung, 1957 U.S. Women’s Open
: Pung, like De Vicenzo, signed an incorrect scorecard, but her situation was even worse. Seemingly a one-stroke winner over Betsy Rawls at Winged Foot Golf Club’s East Course, Pung was disqualified for signing for a score on a hole lower than what she actually shot—marker Betty Jameson had written down a “5” instead of a “6” on the 4th hole. In an effort to lessen the sting, Winged Foot members took up a collection and handed Pung more than $3,000 (first place paid $1,800).

3:  Craig Stadler, 1987 Andy Williams Open: In the third round, Stadler knelt to play a shot from near a tree on the 14th hole, putting a towel on the ground to keep his pants dry. At the beginning of Sunday’s telecast, NBC included the shot in a package of highlights. Unfortunately for Stadler, a recent addition to the USGA’s Decisions on the Rules had deemed such use of a towel to be “building a stance.” Upon finishing the final round in an apparent tie for second, Stadler was informed that he was DQ’d for not including a two-stroke penalty in his third-round score.

4:  Lexi Thompson, 2017 ANA Inspiration: In 2016, golf rules were changed to allow penalty strokes to be added retroactively, including two extra strokes for an incorrect scorecard. That didn’t save Thompson. Leading by two after completing the 12th hole of the final round, Thompson was informed that four strokes were being added to her third-round score because she had replaced her ball on the green in a slightly wrong spot. Thompson rallied to tie So Yeon Ryu in regulation, only to lose a playoff. The incident precipitated a pair of Rules changes for 2018: no more consideration of viewer call-ins or emails (a tournament official will monitor broadcasts) and no additional two-stroke penalty for an incorrect scorecard if discovered after the scorecard is signed.

5:  Dustin Johnson, 2010 PGA Championship
: After missing a putt on the 72nd hole, Johnson thought he was headed to a sudden-death playoff. Instead, he was met by a Rules official who informed him of an impending two-stroke penalty after TV-watching officials had seen him ground his club in the sand of one of Whistling Straits’s outside-the-gallery-ropes bunkers. Johnson ended up T5.

6:  Dustin Johnson, 2016 U.S. Open: At least Johnson won this time, but it was an ugly situation as he was informed on the 12th tee during the final round that he was subject to a penalty for causing his ball to move on the 5th green while grounding his putter for a practice stroke. The ruling was controversial, as was the fact that the one-stroke penalty wasn’t applied until a post-round review, so as the championship came down the stretch the players didn’t know what the leading score was. It’s a scene that won’t be repeated:

Under a commonly adopted new local rule, a player is no longer penalized for accidentally causing his ball to move on the putting green.

7:  Arnold Palmer, 1958 Masters: Leading by a stroke during the final round, Palmer was told by a rules official that he wouldn’t get a drop for an embedded ball behind the 12th green. Palmer didn’t agree and played a second ball, making a par instead of the double bogey he made with the original. It wasn’t until the 15th hole—after Palmer had eagled 13—that the rules committee gave Palmer a par on the 12th. He ultimately won his first major by one stroke.

8:  Tiger Woods, 2013 Masters]: During the second round, Woods had the misfortune of hitting the flagstick with an approach shot to the 15th hole, his ball ricocheting into a pond and necessitating a drop. A viewer called in pointing out that it appeared Tiger hadn’t taken his drop at the point of his stroke, but the rules committee looked at the video and deemed the drop proper. Then Woods told reporters he had purposely dropped two yards behind the previous spot, essentially incriminating himself. A two-stroke penalty was applied, but the committee waived disqualifying him for an incorrect scorecard because of its previous review of the incident.

9:  Suzann Pettersen, 2015 Solheim Cup” When Alison Lee of the U.S. picked up an 18-inch putt after Europeans Pettersen and Charley Hull started to walk away and the referee began announcing that the hole had been halved, Pettersen piped up and said the putt hadn’t been conceded. That gave the 17th hole, and ultimately the four-ball match, to Europe.

10.  More on Solheim: Another case of Solheim Cup acrimony came in 2000 when Annika Sorenstam holed a chip shot but U.S. captain Pat Bradley made her replay it because she had played out of turn.

For me, though I did not watch the De Vicenzo Masters at the time, I have seen it enough on TV that it still ranks at the top of any rules list I would devise.

Number 10 above also ranks high for me, but for another reason. Barb Trammell, the current CEO of the Oregon Golf Association (where I am a member of the Board of Directors), had a ringside seat for the Sorenstam reply. Barb was one of the rules officials on that day, so it as been nothing but interesting to talk to her about re-living that experience.