Golfing News

Martin Kaymer won a playoff over Bubba Watson to win the PGA Championship on Sunday, bla bla bla.

But the only thing that anybody wants to talk about is the 2-shot penalty that Dustin Johnson was assessed on the 72nd hole for grounding his club that the PGA of America — and them alone — said was a bunker, therefore a hazard.

Right after Johnson holed a bogey putt that (he thought) put him in a playoff with Kaymer and Watson to decide who’d win their first-ever major, a rules official pulled Johnson aside and said , “We have a problem.”

CBS TV replays showed he indeed grounded his club, and since he was “in a hazard” was assessed the penalty. (At least they cleared it up before he signed his card for a 5 and got disqualified.)

Thus whipped up the firestorm (or sandstorm, in this case) for many reasons. First off, when the PGA said “Any piece of sand on the whole course is a bunker,” as Johnson said was told to him, they changed the rules of golf. At my course, there’s a fill sand patch near the driving range, and sand runoff from new sod on a couple of holes. I know that’s not a bunker. Johnson never thought that was a bunker, so there was no malice to break a rule.

Johnson hit his shot from a place that the gallery had been all tournament long. Of course there’s going to be sand, dirt and whatever else lives underneath grass right there. You mean to tell me the PGA let the gallery stand in a sand trap — a hazard — all weekend long?  

Then there was the replay, the only way rules officials knew about this. If it happened on Johnson’s 2nd shot on the 3rd hole of the first round, nobody ever knows about it. So then Johnson is simply asked, if he grounded his club. There’s 3 possible answers he could have given:

– No. Well, that’s a lie. Golf’s about honor, so you can’t do that.

– Yes. Admitting it is technically the right thing to do, but why do the right thing after the PGA changed the rules? Doing so eliminates any chance to win. That leaves the 3rd answer …

– “I don’t remember. Look at the replay and you tell me.” That would have been my answer. Who knows, maybe there isn’t clear evidence on a TV screen that says he did it. At least it would have left a little bit of chance to get Johnson in the playoff so he could win.

So, lots of cans of worms to go around. Here’s another one: say Johnson sinks his par putt on 18 that would have given him a 1-stroke win … and then the rules official comes and says, “Uh, no, you just lost by one.” That might have been the last ruling that chap would have ever made.

So the record will show that Germany’s Kaymer won the 2010 PGA Championship. Ironically, Johnson, with whaty became a 5th place finish, qualified for a spot on the U.S. Ryder Cup team in October. So he’ll get his pound of flesh against the Europeans. And, Kaymer is on that European team.

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