Rules of golf tweaked to limit role of TV evidence
The R&A and USGA revealed several changes to the decisions on the Rules of Golf yesterday, the most significant being the use of video technology to determine whether a ball at rest has moved.
New Decision 18/4 states that “where enhanced technological evidence shows that a ball has left its position and come to rest in another location, the ball will not be deemed to have moved if that movement was not reasonably discernible to the naked eye at the time. The decision ensures that a player is not penalised under Rule 18-2 in circumstances where the fact that the ball had changed location could not reasonably have been seen without the use of enhanced technology.”
The modification — which comes into effect from January 1 — was decided upon before the incident involving Woods in the BMW Championship in September, where Woods tried to remove a twig from beside his ball before playing his third shot on the first hole at Conway Farms.
Woods felt his ball had only oscillated before he ran up a double-bogey six, but high-definition video footage showed that it slightly shifted its position and his score was amended to a quadruple-bogey eight.
Speaking a few days later, Woods spoke of the “huge transition” brought about by HDTV and pointed out he was subjected to more television coverage than any other player. Woods feels there should be a time limit for such incidents, after which action cannot be taken, but David Rickman, R&A executive director of rules and equipment standards said: “We believe it’s important to try to establish the facts as accurately as we can and then apply the rules... we are fortunate that we do have an extended timeframe.”
In April 2011, the R&A and the USGA authorised committees to waive the disqualification penalty for signing for an incorrect score when the player could not reasonably have been aware of a breach of the Rules. That was known as the Harrington rule after Pádraig Harrington was disqualified in Abu Dhabi when a TV viewer raised the issue of his ball moving as he marked it on a green. Harrington had already signed his scorecard and because of that, the punishment could not just be a two-stroke penalty.
Among other decisions for 2014-15, players can now access weather reports on a smartphone during a round without breaching the Rules, while revised decision 25-2/0.5 helps to clarify when a golf ball is considered to be embedded in the ground and revised decision 27-2a/1.5 allows a player to go forward up to approximately 50 yards without forfeiting their right to go back and play a provisional ball.
