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Dustin Johnson Robbed?

• SweetiePie 4,925 Posts

  Thu, Aug 19 2010 7:16 PM

  I know in my little world it would never be a possible concern. I never ground a club or putter. Just the driver...just out of habit.

• Yakublue 125 Posts

  Fri, Aug 20 2010 6:06 AM

  That would be a very tiny world too. Most, if not all, teaching professionals would advise pupils to ground their club as it helps them to relax over the ball. But I'm sure Dustin will take note of your idiosyncracy.

   

  The Yak 

• zagraniczniak 1,984 Posts

  Fri, Aug 20 2010 11:40 AM

  Apparently the PGA was damned if it did and damned if it didn't, as the last time they tried to distinguish between sand that was a bunker and sand that wasn't a bunker and then they were criticized when players were penalized for guessing wrong.

  A final factoid perhaps of interest to WGT players: At our Kiawah Ocean Course, also designed by Pete Dye, the local rule is exactly the opposite of Whistling Straits: " All sand areas on the golf course are not hazards and therefore are played as through the green."

• jakestanfill7 949 Posts

  Fri, Aug 20 2010 10:48 PM

  Yakublue:

  That would be a very tiny world too. Most, if not all, teaching professionals would advise pupils to ground their club as it helps them to relax over the ball. But I'm sure Dustin will take note of your idiosyncracy.

  It's the best way to play though. By not grounding club you're not deemed as officially addressing the ball, therefore if the ball moves, you are not penalized.  I ground club with woods and irons but never with putter.   After I ground my woods or irons I hover it before I take my swing.   This is actually the best was to maintain relaxation and consistent grip pressure.  Most folks who start their swing with club grounded have to change their grip pressure to get the club moving back.  

  Take a look at the greatest player ever Jack William Nicklaus.  He never grounds any club for both reasons stated above, consistent grip pressure and avoiding penalties.

   

• TarheelsRule 5,468 Posts

  Sat, Aug 21 2010 9:42 AM

  Two points I would make...

  Grounding your club, I do it with irons but not my putter because the ball tends to move more on greens than in the rough or fairway.  I just feel more comfortable putting the irons on the ground.

  I heard a commentator, think it was one of the golf channel guys, maybe Ferritity (sp) who commented about the Dustin Johnson deal and the PGA officials.  The rules officials are generally all around the course but the last 5 or 6 groups has one assigned to them, the Johnson group had one.  The commentator said that while the rules officials are not obligated to tell a player, that they are in a trap, in a hazard, etc., in this case he felt the rules official could have said, people move out of the trap so that Mr. Johnson can prepare to play his shot, doing it loud enough so that he would be heard by the player and caddy.  I agree with him.

   

• restorethis 151 Posts

  Sat, Aug 21 2010 11:08 AM

  I think that the official assigned to Dustin also did not realize that he was in a trap. Nobody else did either. Real strange that he was  told about this walking off the green.Should he not have been given the penalty right after the shot was made. Must have been a video playback after the spectators walked away from the bunker. Oh look at that it was a bunker he was in. So I think this call was not made by the official with him but by somebody watching the playback after they realized he was in the bunker. How many other players did this and was not caught by the camera? Black eye for the PGA as far as I am concerned. As soon as he walked away from that bunker and no call was made from the official he should of been set free with no penalty. Thanks for listening to me babble!!

  P.S.  Good thing that he did not shank that shot,somebody could have been killed!!

• TarheelsRule 5,468 Posts

  Mon, Aug 23 2010 10:35 AM

  Actually the rule official who was with Johnson can't call the penalty on him, he has to call it on himself.  The rule official, who I felt should have let Dustin and his caddy know he was in the bunker, informed Johson as he holed out on 18 that they felt they had a rules violation.  They actually did him a bit of a favor, if he had signed his card and then found out he had a rule violation, he would have been DQ's rather than penalized but as you saw he erased that 5 and put a 7 in it's place before he signed and turned in the card.  All in all poorly handled by the PGA and the designer of the course, who made the comment that he would put more bunkers there for the next tournament.

• _radar_ 26 Posts

  Tue, Aug 24 2010 12:01 AM

  Got what he deserved, ignorance is no defence!

• Jpdench3 13 Posts

  Wed, Aug 25 2010 11:57 PM

  regardless of all the comments of here from so called "golf enthusiasts" that know the rules through and through, it was incredibly harsh INCREDIBLY harsh to penalize him in the situation he was in, in the tournament he was playing in, in a "half-assed" patch of sand

  it is just really not in the spirit of the game to go making calls like that either, you're just a jerk if you go all out just to take the chance away from him on the smallest of technicalities like that, and i'm not even american, but really c'mon, who makes that call.

• paddysim2010 124 Posts

  Thu, Aug 26 2010 7:10 AM

  I like the guy,,but the last two majors iv had the pleasure to watch,iv seen the same guy throw away  2 possilbe major victories,,he,s a pro n he shud know every rule thats going its what he gets paid to do,i feel 4 da guy,but i think wen he looks back at it,it could hurt even more,,lets hope he does not end up been 1 of those great players that never won a major.