Golf Tips

A viewer called in to say he grounded his club in the bunker to the right of the 18th fairway, which was very ambiguous as the bunkers looked like a waste area.

Then, this year Dustin marks his ball on the 4th hole, has a couple of practice swings and before he addresses the ball noticed his ball moved a quarter of a roll.

He called the rules official over and explained what had transpired and was given the OK to putt out. Prior to this year, you would have had to replace the ball, however, the rule changed on January 1st, 2016.

As Dustin is playing the 12th hole, a USGA official speaks to him on the tee and tells him that he might incur a shot penalty. I know how I would have reacted to this, but Dustin ground out a great finish topping it off by hitting a driver, 6 iron to 3 foot on the last and making birdie… the second birdie on the 18th all day!

The USGA then hit Dustin Johnson with a one shot penalty, so instead of winning by 4 shots, he only won by 3. This decision was so wrong on many levels in my opinion. Firstly every golf professional around the world agreed with the original decision, secondly how Dustin Johnson could play the last 6 holes not knowing what his penalty was, and thirdly it’s not fair to the players chasing.

It’s like Stef Currie and James Le Bron coming to game 7 last week and the scoreboard being turned off for the last quarter, or our famous Bunker in the NRL saying that they would give their decision 5 minutes after full time on that double movement.

Again the USGA has failed in their decision and the setup of Oakmont. You can’t have greens with that much slope running at 12 on the stimpmetre.

Thankfully it wasn’t hot and the wind didn’t blow or they would still be playing and therefore a score of 25 over would have won.

In this day and age when we are trying to attract the next generation of golfers, the USGA offer a course with 8 inch deep, rough quick sloping greens that were like putting down the bonnet of a old VW beetle.

Bring on the Open Championship at Royal Troon where the greens will run at 10 on the stimpmetre and the challenge will be getting to the greens.