He was but at first seemed to be defending them. Later came around.

The bold is what I took exception to the first time.

He is an official. It is not up to the player to decide whether he is qualified to rule. As soon as the official ruled (and did not call for help), he deemed himself qualified.

Here is another thing. I assume there is a briefing for all officials. And at this US Open (any US Open), the question of a ball moving on the green had to be discussed.
The issues of
-caused by player
-caused by outside forces
-oscillation

are all tricky. If the head USGA official did not discuss with the walking officials a process for resolving any of the above, them shame on them for not being prepared. Especially after what happened earlier in the week.

I maintain that in fairness to all players, the ruling was made by an official and the USGA should have closed the matter at that point.

Except DJ was not fully truthful to the official.

Yes he was. You need to look up what grounding the putter means in conjunction with addressing the ball, and he did not address the ball.

The putter touching the green while not addressing the ball does not constitute grounding the putter.

Archaic rules and officials is the problem, not some in depth subjective dissection of a player's judgment vs reality.

I think the bigger problem here was telling DJ on the 12th tee that he will "probably" be penalized when he's done. Talk about mind games. Let the guy play his round out and talk to him afterwards.

Also on replay you could see the ball wobble without DJ's club being the cause, his club never touched the ground. Which brings up 2 questions... first if they can't see any visual evidence that the player caused the ball to move, is it fair to assume the player caused the ball to move? And secondly, is a ball wobbling a millimeter and staying in the same place, having zero impact on the putt itself, even worthy of a penalty? I know golf loves their old-fashioned rules, but these are the type of rules that make casual fans think golf is dumb.

[QUOTE=revots33;50264600] And secondly, is a ball wobbling a millimeter and staying in the same place, having zero impact on the putt itself, even worthy of a penalty?

This is a good point. I mean really wtf?

No. DJ clearly grounded his putter immediately beside the ball, which, if he were fully truthful to official would have caused a further discussion. Addressing in this context is irrelevant. If you listen to the rules guys later this was the basis for the review.

The USGA explanation of the Watel ruling compared to the DJ ruling is truly absurd. They are saying that Watel sitting behind the put for 6-7 seconds makes him less likely to have caused it to move and DJ getting behind it for a split second is more likely to have caused it to move. This makes no sense to me. I really cant believe that anyone who watched this would think he deserved a penalty.

You still need to look up what grounding the putter means in conjunction with addressing the ball, and he did not address the ball. I mean it is all well and good to maintain your position, but show me the rule regarding grounding the putter that does not involve addressing the ball. You said DJ was not truthful to the official and that he did in fact ground his putter. Under which rule, decision, or case can you back this up?

This is the big problem. They are using video replay and then "guessing" as to whether he caused the ball to move even though he didn't touch it. The player should receive the benefit of the doubt here. The greens were running 14, ffs....

The ball just seemed to re-settle in a low spot... who knows what caused it.

This "more likely than not" rule is crap...

Arctic, As I understand it, the new rule has essentially done away with the emphasis on whether the player addressed the ball before it moved on the green. Now, it is strictly a "matter of fact" whether the player caused the ball to move.

Of course, to help determine whether the player caused the ball to move they (player, officials) can take into account whether the player addressed the ball, either in the previous operational definition of that term or in a "looser" defn of the term.

Bottom line, they try to take into account exactly what the player did and the circumstances of the incident (wind, slope, etc.) to come up with what they think caused the ball to move. Generally speaking, in the absence of obvious outside influences (windy day, fast sloping greens) the player will be deemed to have caused the ball to move. Of course, on Oakmont's fast sloping greens, it is a tough call to make.

Hope this helps.

good discussion............ rules seem either unclear or really arcane. neither of which is good.

i was reading book about argentine - i won't mangle his name - who lost chance at masters playoff due to signing wrong scorecard.

anyway, the book went through the history about things like that and things like yesterday in major championships.

it seemed like reading the book at times that they just went with "it wasn't intentional and it didn't benefit the player much and you could easily put it back where it was"....... i'm thinking that was BAD rules officiating but it seems like common sense to me.

why in theory can't DJ just put the ball back where it was? i think if he was on fairway and hit ball with practice swing - corey pavin once i think - he can just replace ball. why is green different?

also, reminds me of the solheim cup......... big confusion as to whether peterson/hull conceded a short putt. peterson said she didn't. fine but obviously the communications are pretty informal at best. why can't the european just put the ball back where it was and then putt it?

seems like common sense would solve most of this........

DJ whistling straights was a bit different. in that case the official/organizer behaviour didn't match the ruling but in deep theory the ruling was probably correct.

one of the worst from the masters 1968 book was caddy stepping on player's ball.. but the security only opened the crowd inches in front of the ball. again, common sense should have prevailed.

If you hit the ball with a practice stroke by accident you replace it but there is a 1 stroke penalty.

I agree with all of this. 100%.

My concern was that RogerClemens said Justin was not being truthful when asked whether he grounded his putter. Grounding your putter can only be done in conjunction with addressing the ball (otherwise it is just touching the green with your putter).

So, DJ was not incorrect when he said he didn't ground his putter. Roger Clemens was pretty firm that he thought DJ mislead the official.

Did you see the guy wearing the green t-shirt saying "I'd tap that" with a tap-in putt pic? I lol'ed at that one.

grounding the putter(or any club) is just grounding the putter(touching ground with club head). you can ground the putter anywhere on the green.

Addressing the ball and then grounding the club is where the issue lies. dj did not ground the putter after addressing the ball. but he did ground the putter during his practice putts. twice.

I think you are missing the point of using the terminology in context. Imagine if your are 20 feet from your ball on the green, and you putter is at your side and touching the ground, and your ball moves a 1/2 inch.

If an official comes up and asks you if you "addressed the ball" you are going to say no. If he asked you if you "grounded your putter" you are saying no. Or, are you going to walk 20 feet over and show the official where you were standing when the putter head was on the ground. Of course not, because you know that is not what he meant when he was asking you if you grounded your putter.

The reason that DJ said no when the official asked him if he grounded his putter is because he knew the question was not "was you putter ever touching the ground since you got to the green," but rather, did you ground it while addressing the ball.

"Grounding the club" is not a defined term in the rule book. You're making assumptions based on your own opinions/interpretations.


I did thumb through the rules last night after reading this thread and I will agree that the phrase "grounding the club" is only used in conjunction with addressing the ball, but no where does it explicitly state that "grounding the club" is exclusive to addressing the ball.


You can't touch the ground with the club in a hazard even without addressing the ball (outside of the technically allowed circumstances like saving yourself from falling or setting your clubs down in a large hazard where it would cause undue delay to now allow it, etc).

My interpretation of "grounding the club" may not exactly match yours. I don't believe that it is solely tied to addressing the ball. Your interpretation may be right, but the fact that we can't explicitly prove either of our sides within the grounds of the rule book leaves a bit of grey area in any debate about the subject.

The bold is all I was getting at. What is the general use of the term "grounding" in context of the situation that occurred.

The question is whether or not he caused the ball to move. Whether he was "addressing the ball" when the ball moved is irrelevant. They changed the wording recently specifically to take questions of addressing or soling the putter behind the ball out of the equation.

The only thing that matters is whether or not Dustin Johnson caused the ball to move. The answer is that we will never know. Fortunately it didn't matter.

Here's a guy who played Oakmont on Monday.

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/06/i-pl...nely-difficult

4 handicap shot an 89 from the championship tees.

This is what makes the rule and their enforcement of it in this situation so awful

Nothing wrong with the enforcement in this case. The rule exists and they have to go by the rules.

The problem is that it's a ****ing terrible rule, and the "more likely than not" (51%) qualifier shouldn't be nearly enough to penalize someone.

You know what have been really funny. I know it would never happen in real life, but imagine this:

DJ has already won 4 or 5 majors. He gets in the scoring tent and they tell him the ruling that he "more likely than not" caused the ball to be move, and he has a penalty stroke on said hole.

Justin says, "I don't think so and I was closest to the ball. I know better than anyone whether I caused it to move. So here is my scorecard. I have put in my score without the penalty, and I signed it."

"You can DQ me for knowingly signing a wrong scorecard, which I am doing, based on the ruling you made. And all those folks on the green out there ready to give speeches and give out trophies....... you can tell them to move aside, because I think you now have get ready for a three person playoff. Don't you? Is it still 18 holes? On Monday? That will be fun. Furyk , what's his name and the other what's his name. "

"Catch ya later ."