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 (Les AuCoin), 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.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that it what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions like.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

There was another golf rules fiasco in a pro tournament last weekend.

It’s too bad because such issues can take away from well-played golf as happened on the  Jack Nicklaus famed Memorial Golf Course in Dublin, Ohio.

This time the situation dealt with an issue that I thought had been solved a couple years ago.  It was this:  Should television video coverage which happens to spot a potential rules violation be used to issue a final ruling?

My answer is no.

And I thought the TV stuff had been removed totally.

Not so.

In this situation, the leading golfer in the Memorial Tournament, Jon Rahm, had a shot from the rough just over the 16^th green as he headed toward the finish line.

The TV camera took a close-up as he addressed the golf ball.  To me and no doubt many other viewers, it looked like the ball could have moved, though it was in deep grass.  To my eye, though, the word “moved” is wrong: the ball oscillated, but it appeared to stay in its original position.  Further, Rahm did not improve his lie.

About two years ago, the USGA and R&A put in place two rules — known as Decision 34-3/10 – supposedly to stop television and viewers from having a role in calling golf penalties.

Under the rules, a player would not be penalized:

• When video evidence reveals things that could not reasonably be seen with the naked eye, and
• When a player has made a reasonable judgment about a golf rules situation.

After what happened to Ladies Professional Golf Association player Lexi Thompson two years ago at the ANA Inspiration tournament in the California desert, those in charge felt something had to be done.  Thompson was penalized four strokes during her final round because a viewer at home e-mailed in about Thompson mis-replacing her ball on the green in the third round.

Video evidence did seem to show that Thompson put her ball in a space other than where her marker was (by a short distance), and Thompson was hit with two penalty strokes for the incident and two for signing an incorrect card.  Infamously, she was assessed those penalties in the middle of her final round.

That was just the latest in a long list of viewer call-ins and emails. One of the most famous ones happened during the 2013 Masters when Tiger Woods dropped his ball farther back than he should have on the 15th hole and was penalized going into his third round based on calls from viewers.

The first portion of Decision 34-3/10 is relatively simple.  If you could not have reasonably seen your error (i.e. a ball moving one millimeter) and it is only revealed after a zoomed-in video reveals the mistake, you will not be penalized.  This is a good thing and will be more or less easy to apply to the game.

The second portion of the new rule is a little more vague.  Here is what the USGA and R&A say about it:

Players are often required to determine a spot, point, position, line, area, distance or other location on the course to use in applying the rules.  Such determinations need to be made promptly and with care, but often cannot be precise, and players should not be held to the degree of precision that can sometimes be provided by video technology.

A “reasonable judgment” standard is applied in evaluating the player’s actions in these situations:  So long as the player does what can reasonably be expected under the circumstances to make an accurate determination, the player’s reasonable judgment will be accepted even if later shown to be wrong by the use of video evidence.

So, what happened in the most recent example in involving Jon Rahm who won the Memorial Tournament?  We don’t know for sure, but, on the basis of the information above, he should not have been penalized.

It appears that Rahm and a senior golf rules official went into the scoring tent/building, viewed the TV footage and came away with a two-stroke penalty – which, I add, did not change the outcome.  Rahm still won.

Unfortunately, before going into the scoring area, tournament officials allowed Rahm to be interviewed by CBS-TV and the interviewer showed the bad form to ask Rahm about the possibility of a two-stroke penalty. The question was first he knew something was up.

To me, TV footage still appears to have played a huge role in this situation and that, despite the new rules, remains a problem.  Just think how many other situations a TV camera missed during the four days of play.  Then, one close-up produces a penalty.

Not good for the game of golf.