Dvr'ing the LPGA is pretty hardcore.

Although the LPGA has completed only about 20% (7 of 34 tournaments) of its 2017 schedule, I don't think it is too early to take a look at some of the ladies that have been the biggest surprises and biggest disappointments of the year so far.

http://www.tonyslpgareport.com/2017/...2017-part.html

Kinda sums it up. Now Lexi just needs to cash in on her martyr status a' la DJ.

Funny I just watched the replay (had not seen it yet) and I disagree, I think she was simply lazy and stood to the side when marking rather than directly behind. Perhaps we need to zoom in on every player marking every putt, so that viewers can call in when the placement is 1mm off? The players are not machines. It's ridiculous (and I'm not even a fan of Lexi).

Also the calling in the next day is even worse - what if someone had called it in today? Would they take her trophy away?

Once the final card is signed the tournament is over and nothing can be changed. But this brings up a good point, what if someone did call in today and it was discovered that she did in fact break a rule and should have been penalized. Then things would be a lot worse as her win would be forever tainted, she wouldn't be able to sleep for a month. For sanity sake she would have probably had to forfeit the win.

Just sucks no matter what.

ehh, you clearly don't really play golf. anyone who isn't at least a little bit suspicious about her intentions clearly doesn't get golf. marking a ball is not difficult. 1mm would be one thing, but we're talking about like 15mm or more which is just ridiculously unlikely happen by accident in a 100% routine situation. i'd bet that it's at least 100x more common for something like that to be done on purpose in a pro tournament than to happen by accident. so without additional information, mr. bayes doesn't like her chances.

Some how I doubt marking your ball after you take your stance and marking from that position instead of directly behind the ball is far from 100% routine.

In any case, she wasn't wronged here in any way. It's her responsibility to write the correct score down. Sucks for her she was unable to do that, but the rules aren't ambiguous or confusing.

The idea being thrown around, that tournament organizers should have some responsibility to catch people who can't write the correct score down on the same day is ridiculous too. I suppose if they want to donate the money to train and send enough rules officials to watch every single player, they might have an argument.

Even arguing that the additional two strokes shouldn't be applied is ridiculous, because then you could always freeroll the field by choosing not to write down your penalty strokes correctly. Say she had realized her mistake right after she did it, or say another player was in a similar situation. What incentive do they have to record the score correctly if they lack integrity when there's no additional penalty for signing an incorrect scorecard? Even the two extra strokes isn't nearly sufficient incentive not to cheat in that spot. It's unfortunate the fans are such morons, because the reality is the DQ really needs to be brought back.

it was on a 2 footer? she decided to cheat on a 2 footer when leading a major(sat)!? that's what golf is? that's what we don't get?

dood go get laid and chill out. you're in the minority.(you and shambelee only) 4 stroke penalty makes no sense.

and who the fk watches golf like that? zooming in for slightest ball movement. i guess guys like him^^^

That's the only reason the debate is interesting. If the majority wasn't so dumb it would be no fun.


Agreed, bring back the DQ

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Stinkypete sounds like the guy you don't want in your 4some


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I agree with stinkypete. How many of you would make such a big error while marking your ball. I certainly don't think I have ever done this.

My point is, it is not 100% certain that she did not try to gain an advantage (forget how moronic that may be). She broke the rules, it is a penalty, she is lucky to not get DQ'd. Go back through all the footage of her marking the ball and see if this is an anomaly or not. If it isn't, a ban is necessary. If it is an exception, then the penalty reminds her to not be so careless.

What definitely needs to be changed is that the penalty was applied the next day. Have a 3 hour period after the scorecards have been signed where penalties can be applied, but after that, it is final.

I agree with stinkypete, and I'm surprised twitter is all on Lexi's side on the matter. I think the LPGA's way of handling it their way of saying 'we think you cheated, but we're not 100% sure, and we're going to let you save face.'

I think that the deciding factor would be if you could go back and look at every time she marked her ball in a similar situation, and see what she did.

PS... If fans don't like viewers calling in, they should all call in themselves and flood the channels where they take the calls/emails.

I've been hoping someone would make a compilation. Ideally including past tournaments. If there's enough footage supporting her innocence I'd change my stance to "careless idiot" from "likely cheater".

Yeah, this. I'm not shocked at how much support she has received with the public, but I am shocked at how much she has received on 2p2. This is extreme stupidity/carelessness in the best case, and cheating in the worst.

If there is even a 10% chance of her being a cheat (and it's >50% imo), then it needs to be investigated.

Like I said I don't really follow the LPGA, but I'm not sure where you get "+50% odds of her being a cheat" from. It's a completely arbitrary # that says more about your cynicism than Lexi's character. I'd say, given the length of the putt, and the miniscule distance, it's far more likely she just made an error.

Anyone can be careless once and not mark a ball perfectly. I'm sure you've done it, stinkypete's done it, and most pros have done it. Since it's a negligible difference, and gives no advantage, and since there are usually not cameras zoomed in on the ball, no one notices or cares.

But feel free to spend your time poring over video of past Lexi putts, to uncover her long-standing pattern of marking her ball 5mm to the left. Let us know how your research turns out.

I'm pretty confident I've never in my life in around a thousand rounds of golf marked, picked up, and Immediately replaced the ball anywhere near that far from the correct position. It's possible it's happened in a mark and let someone else putt situation in a round that didn't matter so I didn't care but that's totally different. A couple mm happens but she visibly moved the ball in a way that's totally inexplicable unless it was intentional.

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Umm no, I have never done that. If you watch the video, she not only marks it closer, she also replaces the ball at a different angle. She marks it to the side, and then replaces it forward. If she does this subconsciously, then she probably does it a lot and deserves to get punished. If she did it on purpose because of a small dent in the green or to gain 2cm or whatever, then she is a cheat.

I said >50% imo, obviously that is just my opinion, you know?

This is a pretty good summary. There's no world in which a score not involving a penalty or DQ is correct. There's also no world in which signing an incorrect scorecard without penalty is correct (except maybe one where rules officials follow every group around the course).

The argument that the fans shouldn't be able to call in rules violations is understandable from people who are used to sports where officials make a call and it's final. But in golf, as a self-scoring sport, it's important to be able to make adjustments where players are found to have failed to perform their duties. In football or basketball or hockey if you get away with a penalty that isn't called, you got lucky and it's fine because everyone understands it's part of the game and they love bitching about bad referees. And there's nothing wrong with respect to integrity with "getting away with one". In golf there's no referee to make a call; as soon as you "breach" the rules the penalty is part of your score. It doesn't need to be called. It just is. If you record the wrong score you're either making a mistake or cheating and both are deserving of a penalty.

People think this incident sets a ****ty precedent, but it would set a much much ****tier one if someone was found to have cheated but nothing could be done about it because the score was already submitted and deemed final.

What's the legal threshold for how far you are allowed to move your ball when replacing it after marking it? Obviously no one is ever replacing the ball in the EXACT same place so what constitutes close enough?

The rules don't specify a threshold. They just say it has to be in the (exact?) same spot. There's no doubt at all Lexi went beyond whatever the practical threshold might be.

who decides what the practical threshold is? Shouldn't it be codified either as a numerical value (no more than X mm/in away from the original spot) or a judgment call left to the player (as close as you can to the original spot using your best judgment)?

It's a judgment call, up to the player and his marker and in case of a dispute the final decision is up to the discretion of the tournament committee. AFAIK nobody has ever been penalized for moving the ball a few millimetres.

No, it shouldn't be codified as a numerical value because then players would have the option to move the ball when it benefits them and there would have to be a way to measure it, which would be no different from the original situation.

I have zero issue with the 2 stroke penalty. I don't think she cheated buy clearly it was a pretty awful re spot. I hate fans calling in, but I hate fans deciding to call **** in from the day before well after the next round has started while they are watching on dvr. That is stupid. No more call ins. Have an official who's job it is to watch the broadcast and look for issues. That will allow any problems to be addressed before the player signs the card. If the players themselves, the on course officials, official watching on tv and caddies don't see it and the player tees off the next day then it is over.