April 13, 2013

Tiger Woods should have withdrawn from The Masters

Tiger Woods, who has been stuck at 14 major championships, four back of Jack Nicklaus's record, since 2008, would likely be tied for the lead in the Masters tonight if his third shot Friday on the par-5 15th hole hadn't hit the flagstick (video) and rolled into the water. Instead, that bad break has cost him four shots (including three penalty strokes, two applied only this morning by tournament officials), and the disdain of many other pros, who think he should have done the honorable thing and withdrawn for signing an incorrect score card. 

Josh Levin protests in Slate against the country club rules-followers and their sick 19th Century Scottish hang-ups about honor and fair play:
In 1968, Roberto De Vicenzo shot a 65 in the final round of the Masters, tying him for the tournament lead. De Vicenzo’s partner, though, marked him down for a 4 rather than a 3 on the 17th hole, and the Argentine golfer didn’t notice the mistake before signing his scorecard. De Vicenzo was disqualified from the tournament, because golf is stupid. 

No, De Vicenzo was stuck with the score he signed for. As the vastly popular Argentine who won the previous year's British Open exclaimed, "What a stupid I am!" Playing partner Tommy Aaron was declared to be the guy you'd least like to have do your taxes.
Forty-five years later, golf is slightly less stupid, and that’s making a gallery’s worth of Bermuda-grass-huffing blowhards very angry. On Friday, Tiger Woods essentially pulled a De Vicenzo, unknowingly signing an incorrect scorecard. Rather than disqualify him—the equivalent of strapping Tiger into the electric chair for driving with a tail light out—Masters officials sensibly slapped him with a two-stroke penalty and allowed him to play on. 
That’s not good enough for CBS’ Nick Faldo. “He should really sit down and think about this and the mark this will leave on his career, his legacy, everything,” Faldo said on Saturday morning, declaring that it would be “the real manly thing” to voluntarily withdraw from the tournament. (Faldo walked back those comments during CBS' Saturday afternoon broadcast, perhaps because men in green jackets were standing off camera with tasers.) USA Today’s Christine Brennan wrote that “Woods' refusal to disqualify himself the moment he found out about his mistake forever changes his reputation, and the game's.” And CNN’s Piers Morgan wrote on Twitter: “Jack Nicklaus would disqualify himself in this situation. So would Arnold Palmer and Gary Player. Come on Tiger, do the right thing.” 
Given the self-evident wrongness of every position Piers Morgan has ever taken, perhaps there’s no need to press my case further. Even so, I’ll move on to a recap of Friday’s events. On the 15th hole, Woods’ ball hit the flagstick and bounced into the water, leading announcer David Feherty to shout that he’d been “royally cheated.” After a penalty stroke was added to his score, Woods took aim again, placing the ball a tiny bit behind its previous spot. A persnickety TV viewer quickly called this in as a possible violation. Masters officials reviewed it, decreed that Woods hadn’t violated any rules, and Tiger signed for a 71 on his scorecard. 
A post-round interview, though, led 19th-hole ethicists to set their Stimpmeters to GOLFCON 1. In that interview, Tiger said that he placed the ball “two yards further back” when he took his fifth shot on 15, acknowledging that he knowingly didn't place the ball "as nearly as possible" to the original spot.

The relevant rules are these:
If a ball is found in a water hazard or if it is known or virtually certain that a ball that has not been found is in the water hazard (whether the ball lies in water or not), the player may under penalty of one stroke: 
a. Proceed under the stroke and distance provision of Rule 27-1 by playing a ball as nearly as possible at the spot from which the original ball was last played (see Rule 20-5); or 
b. Drop a ball behind the water hazard, keeping the point at which the original ball last crossed the margin of the water hazard directly between the hole and the spot on which the ball is dropped, with no limit to how far behind the water hazard the ball may be dropped;

This was the very rare situation. Normally, if a ball struck precisely at the flag goes into the cross-hazard at 15, it's because it came up short. In that case, the golfer could choose between a) or b) and either drop it right where he'd played or walk straight backward to give him the ideal length. Woods apparently assumed that subrule b) applied so he walked back two yards so that his next shot would land two yards shorter. And he executed nicely and sank his putt for a bogey six. But b) didn't apply because the ball rebounded to the left off the pin, so if Woods wanted to play a longer shot he would have had to play from well to the left, where the angle was worse. So, he took the advantage by confounding a) and b).

Now, dropping the ball two yards farther back sounds like a minuscule infraction, but the advantage gained for somebody with Woods' stratospheric level of muscle memory is considerable. All he has to do is attempt to replicate the exact same swing and if he does, the result will give him a putt 6 feet shorter.

Clearly, Woods didn't realize he was breaking the rules, or he wouldn't have bragged after the round about the advantage he craftily gained from stepping two yards back. But, ignorance of the rules isn't an excuse at this level of golf.

Levin continues:
According to the chairman of the Masters’ competition committee, “such action would constitute playing from the wrong place”—a violation of USGA Rule 26-1. On account of this violation, Woods was penalized two shots, meaning the scorecard he’d signed immediately after his round was incorrect. So why wasn’t this golf scofflaw banished from Augusta National? Because two years ago, the USGA revised its rulebook, decreeing that a player need not be disqualified when “he has breached a Rule because of facts that he did not know and could not reasonably have discovered prior to returning his score card.”
But Tiger Woods didn’t just touch a few grains of sand with his club. After his round on Friday, he said that he’d moved his ball a couple of yards. This wasn’t just viewers calling him out—even if he didn’t know he was breaking the rules, Woods knew exactly where he’d placed his ball. "Based on the way the rules are written I don't see how he's anything other than a spectator,” former USGA executive director David Fay said before the Masters issued its less-punitive ruling. And even though Woods apparently didn’t know he was doing anything wrong—if he’d been purposefully cheating, why would he talk about it openly in an interview?—“ignorance is not an exception to the rule,” as Brad Faxon said on the Golf Channel on Saturday morning, arguing for Woods’ dismissal from the tournament. He continued: “We know that, and that’s the way it should be. We should know the rules and follow the rules.”

That's how tournament golf is supposed to work. A player is supposed to learn the rulebook (what, Tiger is too busy reading Proust to have read the rulebook?) and then police himself because he will sometimes find himself all alone on the course with only his conscience watching. If he later realizes he broke a rule, he would have up until the moment he signed his scorecard at the end of the round to call a penalty on himself.

If the signed scorecard is to his disadvantage, as in de Vincenzo's case in 1968 when playing partner Tommy Aaron wrote down a 4 when he made a 3, the signed scorecard stands. If the error on the signed scorecard is to his advantage, he is disqualified.

If the player realizes after signing the card that he misrembered the rules, then he should withdraw.

Granted, that's a huge penalty that might, conceivably, keep the 37-year-old Tiger Woods from his life's ambition of breaking Nicklaus's major championship record, but that's how golf is supposed to be played.
That line of thinking might sound reasonable if not for the holier-than-thou attitude that inevitably goes along with it.

In other words: Who? Whom? Josh Levin doesn't like the people who like golf's 19th Century Scottish Presbyterian ethos.
Golfers fetishize their adherence to the rules of the game, even—especially—the ones that don’t make sense. In 2010, Brian Davis cost himself a chance to win a PGA tournament when he called a penalty on himself for hitting a loose reed during his backswing. After the event, Davis was lauded for his honesty and compared to the great Bobby Jones, who gave himself a penalty in the 1925 U.S. Open when—out of sight of anyone else—he accidentally moved his ball a tiny bit. “You may as well praise a man for not robbing a bank,” Jones said afterwards, deflecting the praise. 
This is a golfer’s sense of proportionality: hitting a loose reed is no different than putting a hit on someone. Golfers are the opposite of conscientious objectors—they do whatever the rule makers tell them, with nary a thought given to what the rule is or why it exists. ...
But this is a sport that too often traffics in self-congratulation, and that prizes tradition over fairness. ... 

In other words, golfers should cheat whenever they can get away with it. Look how that ethos has made Wall Street such a moral exemplar that we all take their advice on things like illegal immigration as well. Americans loves a winner and weird WASP moral compunctions are so out of date. Instead of not praising a man for not robbing a bank, we should praise him for owning the bank and robbing the rest of us.

63 comments:

FWG said...

I wonder why he didn't call a rules official over just to make sure the drop was kosher, to borrow from Scots-Irish terminology. That would've been the safest thing...unless he really did mean to gain a competitive advantage. I do have to say I think the tv rule cops are pretty lame though, overall.

Goya O'Boya said...

Levin, huh?

Anonymous said...

I don't follow golf, which is perhaps why I really don't get Tigermania. Is it entirely a media-created thing, or do large numbers of golf fans really hang on Wood's every word?1510 andngst

Anonymous said...

In the US you have a 'Josh Levin' white-anting any old WASP structure on behalf of the other. Just saying(the obvious).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_anting

Anonymous said...

He should have been dq based on the history of golf, but golf does have a lot of stupid reasons for dq. What's wrong with just a 2 stroke penalty?

You're dq'd if you don't catch yourself or if someone doesn't tell you before you sign your card.

Wasn't there a woman golfer who signed the wrong card, but was outside the ropes of the scoring tent when she noticed it and was dq'd? If she had just noticed before she walked 10 feet, she would be ok.





Forbes said...

Leftists believe rules are for the little people. No surprise as their mantra is "do your own thing." Why should they be limited to following rules when they can just make it up as they go along.

Anonymous said...

So who remembers Brian Davis now, otherthan his family?

Such kind of quaint notion died long ago.

Tiger
followed the white man's rule for all his life, and all he got was becoming the laughing stock of the world.

So now he is creating his rule now. No one should blame him.

Anonymous said...

"(what, Tiger is too busy injecting PEDs to have read the rulebook?)"

the 14 year old chinese took it better.

Eric Falkenstein said...

A sense of proportion is the essence of wisdom and common sense. Silly rules are indefensible, and hurt the principles used to invoke them.

Anonymous said...

Brandle Chamblee on the Golf Channel called it right: he didn't follow the rule and a golfer is supposed to know the rules and he should have withdrawn.

For that, Chamblee has taken a lot of heat, but for the game of golf this is bad. The world's most famous golfer didn't do the right thing.

Nicklaus would have and every golfer knows it. So would Watson and Trevino.

It doesn't surprise me that Tiger behaved this way. He lacks character. Augusta is a loser too.

Anonymous said...

sadly, all you have to do is read the name 'josh levin' or similar and 99% of the time you know what's coming...

Anonymous said...

Considering the Scots-Irish tendency towards relativism and post-modernist thought, as well as their historical Talmudic based arguing of black into white, are you surprised?

Anonymous said...

"After a penalty stroke was added to his score, Woods took aim again, placing the ball a tiny bit behind its previous spot. A persnickety TV viewer quickly called this in as a possible violation. Masters officials reviewed it, decreed that Woods hadn’t violated any rules, and Tiger signed for a 71 on his scorecard.:

The BIG QUESTION: when they reviewed the tape, WHY could they not see he had placed it WAY back?

In any event, Tiger knew he had and he violated the rules and should have w/drawn, but are we to believe Masters officials purposely didn't "see"? I think we are.

Anonymous said...

Wie was disqualified below. They showed no mercy for her as a 16 year old.

"Then, the 16-year-old Wie no sooner had signed for a 74 to finish fourth -- $53,126 -- that LPGA Tour officials took her out to the seventh hole to discuss a drop she took the day before.

Nearly two hours later, she was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. Because Wie dropped the ball closer to the hole -- by 3 inches according to her, by about a foot according to the rules officials -- she should have added two strokes to her third-round 71.

"I learned a great lesson," Wie said, her voice choking with emotion. "From now on, I'll call a rules official no matter where it is, whether its 3 inches or 100 yards. I respect that."

Wie hit a 5-wood into a Gold Lantana bush Saturday and was barely able to find it. She told her playing partner, Grace Park, she was taking an unplayable lie, dropped away from the bush, then chipped to 15 feet and made the par. It was a critical par save, and Wie steadied herself to get within five shots of the lead.

Michael Bamberger, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, told tour officials Sunday afternoon that he was concerned about the drop. Rules officials Jim Haley and Robert O. Smith reviewed tape from NBC Sports before taking Wie and caddie Greg Johnston to the seventh green after the tournament ended Sunday.

"If I had to make the ruling based on the videotape, to me it was inconclusive," Smith said.

He had Johnston and Wie show him where the ball was in the bushes, then where they dropped. They paced it off, then used string to measure the distance and determined it to be slightly closer.

"The Rules of Golf are based on facts," Smith said. "They had to tell us where it was. The fact was, the ball was closer to the hole by 12 to 15 inches.""

If the officials didn't find out about Woods' drop until after the round, would they have dq'd him?

Silver said...

“ignorance is not an exception to the rule,” as Brad Faxon said on the Golf Channel on Saturday morning, arguing for Woods’ dismissal from the tournament. He continued: “We know that, and that’s the way it should be. We should know the rules and follow the rules.”

Brad Faxon's obviously a racist bigot seizing on any old excuse to keep a black man down. I bet he wishes all the caddies still had to be black at The Masters. I don't want to hear but the rules say this, but the rules that. Just answer the damn question, Mr. Faxon: are you or are you not a white racist who hates Tiger Woods just because he's black?

Anonymous said...

It was Wie who forgot to sign her card. Someone noticed and chased her down, but she was a few feet outside the ropes and she couldn't sign it. DQ, but Tiger gets a pass.

Here is a comment explaining it by someone.


"To answer Geri’s question, she was chased down by volunteers shortly after leaving the scorer’s tent. She went back in and signed the card, but by that time she had crossed the rope around the tent and that finalized her card. The rule is the same for everyone and she know’s it or should know it. You can’t make an exception for Michelle Wie. The Santa Claus comment by Sue Witter is unprofessional and unforgiveable from someone in her position. Sue Witter needs to be DQ’d as well."

Daybreaker said...

If you go down the road of "common sense moderation" in applying the rules when it comes to big name players, you get a system of privilege, with some players more and some less than equal.

And when the top players have no shame, or the top player, you wind up with the situation that chess had when Garry Kasparov was champion, getting credit for a tournament he didn't win (under the countback rules: 1989, Barcelona), getting credit for a brilliancy prize he didn't win (by creating a new jury with himself on it: 1992, Manila) and cheating by taking a move back (against Judit Polgar, 1994 at Linares).

Garry after the game: "My conscience is clean." Judit after the game: "You cheat." The video showed who was telling the truth.

(For ethnic score keeping: Kasparov, formerly Weinstein, only half Jewish, on his father's side. Judit Polgar: Jewish. All former champions, Jewish and non-Jewish: nobody acted like this. Craziness was part of the game from time to time, but never dishonor.)

This does not maintain an image for your sport that attracts sponsors. And it's not easy for rule-following subsequent champions (Kramnik, Anand) to restore order and the right kind of reputation.

Yes, golf needs to stick to its "irrational" code, and the ethos that underpins it.

Matt said...

Gentlemen Only, Liars Forbidden

ben tillman said...

Now, dropping the ball two yards farther back sounds like a minuscule infraction....

Not when Tiger says he did it because it gave him an advantage!

Anonymous said...

There seems to be nothing in America nor anyone in a visible position of stature anymore to stand for integrity and goodness.

The Sixties still live: they and those who adore those days have stripped the country of even its symbols of goodness.

I'll bet Arnie and Jack are shaking their heads.

Whiskey said...

Having rules based on what accounts to be Aristocracy is not Jewish. Its royal. Jews haven't had kings and the like since the days of Josephus. Jewish society was rule-based, it was the only way to survive in a hostile society aimed at annihilating them.

Israel was founded, mostly, by the kibbutzim who wanted a flat, non-hierarchical society.

All societies have rules and regulations, and all elites within them get to evade SOME of them. But to maintain legitimacy the elites have to exhibit "Caesar's Wife" adherence to rules in public, and do things like get slaughtered in battle FIRST to justify their exemption from rules in private.

The sort of mocking and humiliating that Marie Antoinette did of the peasantry rarely works out well.

Anonymous said...

"If the officials didn't find out about Woods' drop until after the round, would they have dq'd him?""

Supposed to, yes, but who knows at this point. It would presumably have been the same group who blew the original "take a look and see".

Why the hell couldn't they have seen from the tapes before he finished his round that he had dropped quite a distance back from where his original ball had lain?

They had the technology at their fingertips to get an answer pronto.

Anonymous said...

As Steve the golfer knows, it's not that unusual for a golfer, even a bad one, to hit the flagstick now and then, and it's almost always bad news when a highly compressed ball hits a metal object. The exception is when the flying orb hits low on the stick and it "caught" by that stick in the hole.

narmno said...

Steve, you are not properly informed about this issue.

Tiger should and would have been disqualified given the facts presented in the blog post.

However, two things were left out:

1. Masters officials reviewed the drop BEFORE Tiger Woods signed his scorecard, and concluded that the drop was fair.

2. There is a NEW rule (33-7) saying that in exceptional circumstances, a disqualification penalty can be waived. Many people were not familiar with this rule as it was very recent and actually designed to deal with this general type of event (where a player drops the ball incorrectly and it is later found to be an incorrect drop after being initially deemed a correct one).

If (1) had not happened, a DQ would've been in order. However, since an official had OK'd Tiger Woods's drop (albeit without telling Tiger), a DQ was off the table.

Tiger Woods should not have withdrawn because he's playing by 2013 rules, not by 1980 rules.

The amount of misinformation on this issue was dramatic, and it saddens me that this blog post did not show an understanding of why the Masters did not disqualify Tiger. There is no doubt they made the correct decision

peterike said...

So looks like Tigah knowingly cheated. Well, that must have been the black part of him. You know how blacks don't follow the rules. No wait, it must have been the Asian part of him. You know how unethical Asians are.

No, it probably had something to do with his white ex-wife. Doesn't everything?

Anonymous said...

"A sense of proportion is the essence of wisdom and common sense. Silly rules are indefensible, and hurt the principles used to invoke them."

Uhmmm... it's a game. The rules can be as silly as you want. Following the rules is part of the game. Making the rules up as you go along is the "wisdom" of small children. Indefensible, now there's an argument. Calvin Ball!!!

bjdubbs said...

There is no proportion to apply, because it's just a game.

Anonymous said...

Yes, she was nonwhite so the officials showed no mercy.

According to the gringo rule the argentinian nobleman de vincenzo was a wetback no better than the newly arrived mestizo and he www treated that way.

Now the gringos are tasting their own medicine by the golf god they created. Serves them right.

narmno said...

So looks like Tigah knowingly cheated.

No. If he knowingly cheated, he wouldn't have revealed the exact way he broke the rule during an interview, thus almost disqualifying himself from the tournament.

It's sad that most written opinions on this issue are ignorant.

Chris in Baltimore said...

Couldn't care less about the merits of the case, but definitely think less of you for the pointless jew- baiting.

Portlander said...

30 comments and no one's followed the money? TV calls the shots, and TV wants Woods playing golf on Sunday.

DYork said...

Yeah this was painfully obvious. A guy named Josh LEVIN writing for a Jewish liberal website sees the black male golfer as a victim of golf and country clubs and stupid (goyishe kopf) old fashioned rules. BOOOOoooooo!!!!

Next they'll be coming for the JEWS!

We got it, Josh.

Steve Sailer said...

"1. Masters officials reviewed the drop BEFORE Tiger Woods signed his scorecard, and concluded that the drop was fair."

They didn't tell him it was fair. They didn't say anything to him. Maybe they guessed that it was an accident.

But then Tiger announced in the press conference that he'd taken two steps back specifically to make his next shot easier. That would have been pretty stupid to do if he'd realized he'd broken the rule, so he didn't know he'd broken the rule. But now the officials knew that he'd broken the rule, and ignorance is no excuse.

Also, Tiger pays his caddy close to a million per year to keep him from making mistakes like this. If his latest caddy is more intimidated than his previous caddies, that's not Tiger's competitors' fault.

And, yeah, they have a new rule that says they can waive the rules in the case of "exceptional" situations, but what exceptional here other than it's Tiger?

Anonymous said...

For everyone who keeps bringing up Arnold Palmer's name, look up what happened in the 1958 Masters.

Palmer received a ruling he didn't like on the 12th, then played out the hole scoring 5. According to his playing partner Ken Venturi, only then did he declare that he was playing a second ball while appealing the original ruling. The rules would have only allowed him to play the second ball if he declared it before completing another stroke with his first ball. He scored 3 on the second ball.

Of course, the tournament officials caved on both the appeal and letting his second ball count. Palmer won by 1.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to see Narmo's reply to Steve because that is the best argument going and the crux of this whole situation.

Hunsdon said...

Steve said: Josh Levin doesn't like the people who like golf's 19th Century Scottish Presbyterian ethos.

Hunsdon said: The perfect encapsulation. Unfortunately, Josh Levin acts on his dislike.

Svigor said...

This is a golfer’s sense of proportionality: hitting a loose reed is no different than putting a hit on someone. Golfers are the opposite of conscientious objectors—they do whatever the rule makers tell them, with nary a thought given to what the rule is or why it exists. ...

One might as well say that's Levin's sense of accuracy: putting a hit on someone is no different from robbing a bank. But really, it's the sociopath's sense of honesty: missing the point on purpose. I've had many occasions over the years - unfortunately - to become quite familiar with the sociopath's sense of honesty. It doesn't exist. Where it should, there's only a child screaming, "me! me! me!"

Svigor said...

A sense of proportion is the essence of wisdom and common sense. Silly rules are indefensible, and hurt the principles used to invoke them.

Lol. It's a game. Silly rules are the whole goddamn point, not wisdom or common sense.

Having rules based on what accounts to be Aristocracy is not Jewish. Its royal. Jews haven't had kings and the like since the days of Josephus. Jewish society was rule-based, it was the only way to survive in a hostile society aimed at annihilating them.

Oh please. Judaism is socialistic and authoritarian. The cult of the big man is very much alive in Judaism.

And Jews needed only stop wandering into everyone else's living spaces to avoid ethnic conflicts. Or stop holding themselves apart everywhere they went. Your kosher-candy-coated, one-sided take on Jews went out with disco.

Svigor said...

This is probably sort of a Goldfinger moment for Levin. In Goldfinger, Bond cheats to disqualify the cheating oligarch villain in a last second reversal of a game played for a bar of gold.

00Tiger (and Levin) cheats to rightfully win back for the black man (and vicarious Jews) what the white man stole from him.

Automatic_Wing said...

Well, it certainly will be interesting if he comes back and wins today.

Anonymous said...

"Yes, she was nonwhite so the officials showed no mercy.

According to the gringo rule the argentinian nobleman de vincenzo was a wetback no better than the newly arrived mestizo and he www treated that way.

Now the gringos are tasting their own medicine by the golf god they created. Serves them right."

The gringos made the decision. How is that a taste of their own medicine.

Stadler is white and they dg'd him when he put a towel down to keep his pants from getting wet when he knelt down. Nobody called him on it at the time.

Why do all these Asians have to move to white countries? They have no business here, just like Mexicans don't.



narmno said...

The point is that the officials' decision to accept the drop before Tiger signed his scorecard protects him from disqualification.

candid_observer said...

"But then Tiger announced in the press conference that he'd taken two steps back specifically to make his next shot easier. That would have been pretty stupid to do if he'd realized he'd broken the rule, so he didn't know he'd broken the rule."

Look, I know next to nothing about golf and its rules, but I should think it pretty obvious that exactly what one is allowed to do when dropping a ball like this is going to be heavily constrained so as not to give oneself a big advantage. Presumably, for example, you can't toss it, you can't walk ten steps away, etc.

How could Tiger Woods not realize that giving himself an advantage might be exactly the sort of thing the relevant rule would prohibit? Is it really possible this didn't even occur to him, and that he had better know the exact rule before he performs the act?

Here ignorance seems equivalent to stupidity. Or maybe he just felt that no one would dare call him on his flouting of a rule?

Anonymous said...

There is a sad decline in Golf. Vijay Singh used IGF1 and was told to withdraw from a tournament by sports journalists. He did not.

Ray Lewis also availed of the same deer antler spray and when told he should withdraw from the Ravens because of the disgrace his presence would have on their Superbowl team he immediately did so.

Well done Ray Lewis and sports journalists shame on you golf.

jody said...

michael rosenberg at sports illustrated is shilling hard for woods, and poo pooing those silly, unfair WASP rules of competitive golf which should probably be stuffed back in the 20th century where they belong, permanently buried along with all other trappings of WASP culture.

rosenberg, levin, something similar among these guys, can't put my finger on it...

Cail Corishev said...

Tiger followed the white man's rule for all his life, and all he got was becoming the laughing stock of the world.

You got it exactly backwards. Following those rules made him so filthy rich that he could use $100 bills for toilet paper for the rest of his life without noticing the cost. Breaking those rules and living the sexual life of an African or Arab potentate was what made him a laughingstock.

Pincher Martin said...

"[Augusta's officials] didn't tell [Tiger] it was fair. They didn't say anything to him. Maybe they guessed that it was an accident."

A drop two yards behind the previous lie is a violation of the rules. So this needn't have come down to a subjective question of what was in Tiger's mind at the time he made the drop.

That a TV viewer immediately recognized the violation when it happened and informed Masters officials about it, prompting them to review the drop before ultimately deciding it was not a violation, shows that Tiger's judgment need not have been the final arbiter of the matter.

"But now the officials knew that he'd broken the rule, and ignorance is no excuse."

Well, officially, ignorance is now an excuse - subject to the discretion of officials.

"And, yeah, they have a new rule that says they can waive the rules in the case of "exceptional" situations, but what exceptional here other than it's Tiger?"

So you think they put that rule in just for Tiger?

Pincher Martin said...

Here's how the head of Masters' competition committee put it:

"''Our committee had made a decision and Tiger, although he didn't know that decision, he was entitled to have the benefit of that decision when he signed his scorecard. And to me, it would have been grossly unfair to Tiger to have disqualified him after our committee had made that decision.''

That seems exactly right. Tiger believed he signed an accurate scorecard. Masters' officials believed Tiger signed an accurate scorecard. Even though Masters' officials were aware of a potential violation with Tiger's drop on the 15th hole, they ruled it was not a violation and did not inform Tiger about it.

Case closed. Until Tiger subsequently reviewed his thinking at the time of the drop.

This seems a strikingly different case than the previous cases where a DQ was made.

Ed said...

I went to some of the sports comment threads elsewhere, and I wound up agreeing with Pincher Martin. This is a good deal of angina over not much.

Basically, once the Committee gets involved, its no longer on the honor system any more. The Committee examined the drop for a potentially violation before Woods signed the scorecard. When the scorecard was signed, Woods may or may not thought it was accurate, but the Committee definitely did think it was accurate.

Had Woods asked the officials at that point whether he should have signed his scorecard, they would have said to go ahead. I hope, though maybe this goes against the culture of golf, that the officials can't tell a player they think the scorecard is accurate, but then turn around later and throw the player out for signing an inaccurate scorecard. The difference in this case is that the officials never told Woods that they thought at first there was no violation. This just means that the case for the DQ is not ridiculous. The case for the DQ still puts the player in the position of having to accurately second-guess the officials. I think its understandable that the officials want to avoid setting that precedent.

bleach said...

"...prizes tradition over fairness..."

Paging Dr. Haidt...

Anonymous said...

"Basically, once the Committee gets involved, its no longer on the honor system any more. The Committee examined the drop for a potentially violation before Woods signed the scorecard. When the scorecard was signed, Woods may or may not thought it was accurate, but the Committee definitely did think it was accurate."

You miss the point: all golfers KNOW that they are responsible for knowing the rules and in the case of pros, they can call for a ruling immediately when they are unsure.

Further, all golfers know the basic drop rules are NEVER that which can improve their lie so as to gain an advantage.

You can argue all day that he was "excused" by the committee, but he himself should have explained to his playing partner, then to a rules official before he signed his card that he knew he was improving his lie.

Anonymous said...

Every once in a while I will try to post a WASP/Anglo friendly comment from a "Scots-Irish" perspective that acknowledges the validity of some of the more reasonable Judeo-skeptic talking points, but adds some nuance from an insider's perspective. One can acknowledge my coethnics' collective shortcomings without over correcting for PC by uncritically idolizing the unfairly maligned old Elite or blaming everything on the Jooz.

For some reason, Komment Kontrol eats my comments. It's not as though the topic is verboten at iSteve so it almost feels as though someone doesn't want the frank and open intercommunal dialogue that Solzhenitsyn asked for in his final work.

It saddens me because a lack of honest, good-faith criticism distorts values and behaviors and fosters the ugly, caricaturesque worldview espoused by men like Levin and decried by men like Sailer. Wether you are a traditionalist, reactionary, conservative, libertarian, citizenist, ethnonationalist, or even a clear-eyed leftist, this isn't good for anyone who cares about the future.

-The Judean People's Front

Anonymous said...

Captcha problems might also be behind my lost comments, but my point still stands.

-The Judean People's Front

narmno said...

Ed and Pincher Martin have properly understood the penalty. Wonder whether Steve will.

Anonymous said...

"Tiger followed the white man's rules all his life, and all he got was becoming the laughingstock of the world".

(This may be the strangest comment I have ever read on Mr. Sailer's blog.)

What he actually GOT was hundreds of millions of dollars, largely undeserved in my view, and a standard of living I, and many millions of other whites, couldn't even begin to dream about in comparison.

As for his "being a laughingstock" he can take full credit for that. He had a drop dead beautiful wife, but he just couldn't keep his 'player' side in check.

Anonymous said...

@anon 7:35 am

Yes, as if the high and mighty have never banged women other than their wives.

Taki, without whom this blog wouldn't even exist, probably banged more women than Tiger but since Taki is firmly a member of the elite he is never touched.

No one talks about why Tom Cruise has divorced two of the hottest women in the world.

But Tiger Woods' dalliances became international news and every intmate detail of Tiger's life was revealed without impunity, as if it wae the moet important thing in the world.

What could ended quietly with a few hundred k's to the first girl instead became part of human history. He has every right to believe that no matter what he can never become anything other than the court jester, and he changed his behavior accordingly.

Steve Sailer said...

"Ed and Pincher Martin have properly understood the penalty. Wonder whether Steve will."

I didn't say Woods should have disqualified, I said he should have withdrawn.

Anonymous said...

No, no, he doesn't want Woods to cheat, he just thinks the rulebook is a "living document."

Anonymous said...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-15/woods-leaves-masters-without-title-as-penalty-raises-questions.html?cmpid=yhoo

Most pertinent part:

"In 2011, the U.S. Golf Association and Royal & Ancient Golf Club, golf’s governing bodies, announced a new interpretation of rule 33-7/4.5 -- in which a player is disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. The change applies in “limited circumstances” where disqualifications are caused by scorecard errors resulting from video review. That revision helped Woods avoid disqualification.

"The groups said the change addressed the situation where a player is not aware he’s breached a rule 'because of facts that he did not know and could not reasonably have discovered prior to turning in his scorecard.' At the discretion of the tournament committee, the player is still penalized, but isn’t disqualified."

MOST pertinent part:

"However, the disqualification penalty would still apply for scorecard breaches that arise from ignorance of the rules of golf.

“'This is not a difficult rule and everybody knows it,' Chamblee said. 'Tiger was clearly ignorant of the rule or he wouldn’t have been talking about it.'"

Hunsdon said...

Anonydroid at 9:24: Taki, without whom this blog wouldn't even exist, probably banged more women than Tiger but since Taki is firmly a member of the elite he is never touched.

Hunsdon: I don't think Taki's conquests are, umm, working girls.

Anonymous said...

"De Vicenzo’s partner, though, marked him down for a 4 rather than a 3 on the 17th hole, and the Argentine golfer didn’t notice the mistake before signing his scorecard. De Vicenzo was disqualified from the tournament, because golf is stupid."

That ain't why golf is stupid!

Anonymous said...

Yes, as if the high and mighty have never banged women other than their wives

You are missing the point, no one was bombing him for chasing women if he had been a single guy. It was because he portrayed himself as Mr. All-American Family Man and even managed to convince his wife. All the while he was chasing every bimbo in the lower 48 states. Even a few months before he was outed, people in the national media were still portraying him as Ward Cleaver, when in fact he was running around like Mick Jagger, only with white trash waitresses, instead of models or starlets. He had also used his financial muscle to suppress a story two or three years before. No one likes being lied to and made a fool of, as he did with the golfing fan base and the media. The media never blasted the multiracial Derek Jeter, the difference was that Jeter was single, Woods wasn't.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 9:24:

You don't get it. The issue was Woods hypocrisy. The difference between the man he really was and the man he pretended to be.

He sold us on the latter and when the public saw that it had gotten itself a pig in a poke, people were resentful. He also used his money and influence to bully the media into burying a negative story about him. All things considered he is a bit of a clown.