Imagine the scene, it’s the World Cup Final in Brazil, 100’s of millions watching world wide on television, 1,000’s in attendance, Rio is rocking, the final whistle goes! The stadium goes wild, all over the pitch Brazilian players fall to their knees in tears as the celebrate becoming world champions.
But wait!
Out of the tunnel walks Sepp Blatter shaking a finger, the stadium falls silent.
“We have just received a phone call from Mr Smith of Milton Keynes” declares Herr Blatter “apparently Brazil were awarded a corner when it was a free kick” The crowd boo!!
“We have officials reviewing the tapes and will make a decision shortly”
REALLY ???
Could you imagine that ever happening??
The Olympics ? Wimbledon ? In fact in any sport could you imagine that happening ?? Well welcome to professional golf!
I am of an age that I still believe that most golfers a honourable, look at Christina Kim calling a penalty on herself at Kingsmills yesterday, or Brian Davies a couple of years ago at the Heritage?
There is a huge difference between a mistake, gaining an advantage or plain old fashioned cheating!
If a golfer deliberately hit’s a ball into a grandstand from a bad position, knowing that the drop zone is a better position than they could ever get from that lie, is that cheating or using the rules to your advantage?
At Muirfield I saw a major champion deliberately hit from a bunker behind the main stand knowing he would get line of sight relief, so it does happen!
I watched the Sergio incident unfold on TV last night, from the “incident” to its conclusion.
What I saw was a golfer more concerned with not getting on his opponents line than replacing the ball, what I didn’t expect was what we saw in super slow, hi definition replays.
Did it appear the ball was wrongly replaced ? Well to be honest yes it did.
Should there have been a penalty ? Well, again, to be honest if the ball was replaced in the wrong position there should have been.
But here’s the kicker, did Sergio deliberately replace the ball closer to the hole ? I don’t think so.
Did Sergio deliberately seek an advantage ? Again I don’t think so.
Did anyone else in the group think that Sergio had done anything wrong ? Well no, 2 other players, 3 caddies and no one said a word.
For the record I am not the biggest Sergio fan, too sulky for me.
Does he have faults ? Most definitely.
Is he a cheat ? NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS!
Lets compare it with Tiger at the Masters, there is one huge difference for me, Tiger was looking to take advantage from an illegal drop, Sergio was not.
And to me that’s a key phrase “looking to take advantage”.
If instead of Sergio lets say it had been Camillo Villegas would we be having this debate? Well no.
Why? Because the cameras were not on him! And this is my biggest issue with trial by TV.
If every player in every group had every shot televised then fair enough, BUT, not every player in every group has every shot televised.
Lets go back to Brian Davies for a second, the only person who saw Brian’s violation was Brian and he called it on himself! He called over slugger White and told him!
I firmly believe if Sergio thought he had done wrong he would have called a penalty on himself, in fact I am convinced of that.
Trial by television need to stop and stop now!
Play in professional golf is ridiculously slow as it is, players are now walking on rules eggshells, it is getting to the point were they are going to be calling a rules official for every thing just to protect themselves from TV super hawks.
Don’t get me wrong if I saw a player deliberately cheating I would be straight on the phone myself, but deliberately cheating is the key phrase.
If the player has not noticed the infringement, if his partners have not noticed the infringement then that should be the end of it, unless they have deliberately sought to gain an advantage. EG Tiger.
Why cant we just enjoy watching golf eh?
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