Tuesday, May 30, 2006

"Judge TV" Should Not Be Used in Golf

Hello. After a very busy Sunday, I turned on the Fedex St Jude Classic. Unfortunately the lasting image I took was not from Jeff Maggert's fine play. It was from an incident in the final pairing on the 14th hole.
Tom Pernice Jr had just missed his par putt, and was standing over his bogey putt. His putter appeared to touch the ball forward slightly, then the ball went back to its original position. He sunk the putt. He went on to finish 2nd alone, ahead of 3rd by two, behind Maggert by 3.
A couple of holes later, a rules official came to Pernice and playing partner Tim Herron. He informed Pernice of the "incident" and said after watching it a few times he didn't think there was a violation. Pernice and Herron both said in their opinions there was no foul. Probably because it didn't affect Pernice's position, nothing further was done, and I saw no mention of it on pgatour.com or thegolfchannel.com.
I think this is the way it should be. Golf should not be at the mercy of "Judge TV". Players ultimately judge themselves, and their playing partners. Officials are there to clarify rule interpretations. That should be it.
Why not take advantage of technology? Because in golf's case there could have been 10 rule infractions on Sunday, 9 of which may have occurred out of camera range. Pernice and others should not have "additional help" interpretting the rules just because they're close to the lead.
Let the players and on-course officials police themselves, and put "Judge TV" on the shelf.

Regards,
Steve

1 Comments:

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3:46 AM  

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