Round 4: Zurich Classic of New Orleans
May 1 2011
7:15 pm
Penalty costs Simpson again
By Brian Wacker, PGATOUR.COM Site Producer
Golf is a game of inches, or in the case of Webb Simpson about a quarter of an inch. That was the distance the wind moved his ball as went to address it on the 15th green Sunday at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Because Simpson had set his putter down behind the ball — about 4 or 5 inches behind it by his account — it was considered taking a stance and when the ball moved, ever so slightly, he was then assessed a one-stroke penalty.
Simpson finished regulation in a tie with Bubba Watson, who he would go on to lose to in a playoff.
“The problem with the rule is you get greens like this that they get pretty bare, almost like this table top, wind’s blowing, balls can wiggle and move so easily,” said Simpson, who had called the penalty on himself. “I go up to tap it in. It’s not like I rushed up there, I took my time.
“The unfortunate thing and the reason I don’t think it’s a good rule is golf is supposedly the last gentleman’s game. There is so much on the player to call the penalty on themselves. When wind or other natural things affect the golf ball, the player shouldn’t be penalized.”
Simpson wasn’t taking anything away from Watson’s win but this is also the second time the rule has cost him a stroke and possibly a tournament.
In the final round of the 2009 Bob Hope Classic, Simpson was in contention when on the 11th hole in the final round the exact same thing happened. He had a putt inside of a foot, the wind moved his ball as he addressed it and he was penalized. Simpson tied for fifth.
“It just stinks, you know,” Simpson said. “Who knows if that happened or what would happen. It was just unfortunate.”
Simpson certainly had his chances to win in regulation on Sunday.
After playing the front nine in 4 under, Simpson played the back in 1 over with two bogeys and just one birdie. Slowly, a once three-shot lead evaporated.
On the 15th, he approached the ball and set the putter down behind it only for a moment with his feet spread beside it.
“I think the rule states if you’re in a stance where you’re going to hit the putt, that’s considered your stance, no matter what it looks like,” Simpson said. “And my putter was already grounded. I don’t think it matters how far behind the ball it was.”
Simpson is a member of the PGA TOUR’s Player Advisory Council and said he plans to address the rule in the next meeting.
While it’s too early to tell if a change will occur, Simpson said he’ll try to have it changed.
This isn’t the first time the rules have come up this season.
Camilo Villegas and Padraig Harrington were disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard because of a penalty that was assessed after play was completed and their card turned in.
That rule has since been amended, giving tournament committees the ability to add the penalty to a player’s score after the card is signed rather than disqualify them. Whether this rule changes remains to be seen.
”We’re the PGA TOUR, so I think the idea behind rules is to protect the players and protect the field,” Simpson said. “So according to the rule, in my opinion it doesn’t protect us, it hurts us.
“If there’s wind blowing, you’re going to have this happen a number of times the rest of the year, and cost guys tournaments, cost them good finishes. It doesn’t lineup with the rest of the rules of golf which say it’s a gentleman’s game; we should call penalties on ourselves.”
How would he rewrite the rule if given the opportunity?
“It’s simple,” Simpson said. “I think there should be no rule at all. If you address the ball and your putter touches the ball, it should be a penalty.
“There is no way in the world that a player can put his putter behind the ball and cause a ball to move without touching the ball. Just like if you’re in the fairway and you touch the ball, you call it on yourself. But if the ball moves, the ball moved because of the wind or the grass. Then you say, hey, my ball moved. Everybody says, okay, end of story. I think it’s pretty simple.”
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“When wind or other natural things affect the golf ball, the player shouldn’t be penalized”
TRUE….TIME FOR A RULE CHANGE.
Of course, with a tap-in, you might want to practice never grounding your putter, so there’d be no chance of this happening.
definitely should be changed. If nature affects your ball, you SHOULD NOT be penalised. In this instance, simply place it back to where it was (with your partners approval) and play on, simple.
well.. u snooze u loose! stop blame the rule.
Rule applied to everyone as well.
Peace!
He got royally screwed. PGA Tour golf is entertainment. Plain and simple. When guys get taken out by arbitrary infractions that takes 10 minutes of viewing time to sort out, that is a problem. PGA TV ratings are pretty anemic to begin with. So, things like this or what happened to that guy in Q school with the wrong ball make the casual fan shake their head and say WTF? Alot of the rules that these guys play by should be crafted with the “reasonable man” in mind: if a guy is doing something that may give him an advantage, then there should be a rule (e.g., grounding your club in a hazard)
Another thing that should get changed yesterday: if a guy hits his ball into the middle of the fairway . . . into a divot – he should get a drop.
I was perturbed at Bubba Watson. He seemed to be a bit too eager to step up and say that Simpson was making his stroke. I think he should have stepped back and let the rules official do his job. That isn’t the right situation for Bubba to be making sure Webb Simpson gets penalized. He has too much of an interest in the outcome.
Kent, Bubba took himself out of a tournament when he was in contention a few years back when he realized that the 8 iron he hit was not playable because when he hit it earlier in the day he hit a root… not until he hit his shot did he realize the club did not act properly, he called the penalty on himself which did not cost him a stroke, but DQ’d him. Watch what Bubba did today and you will realize he was being sympathetic to Webb. I had taped it and watched it over again because I thought like you, Bubba was glad it happened. Upon further observation, Bubba was not calling the penalty but telling Webb (who called the penalty on himself), to get a ruling from the rules official. Like Johnson last year at the US Open and Webb this year… sometimes the rules bite.
Lam you are laim. This is the stupidist rule in golf. I will play all the rules, but not this one.
i had Webb in my pool…aghh!!!
Coincidentally, it happened in my junior event on Saturday. A 13 year old boy approached me and said that on one hole the wind moved his ball after he had addressed the ball. So we corrected his scorecard. It had no effect on his position in the event. But kudos to him for doing the right thing!
That this has happened to Web Simpson before only speaks to his honesty and honor as a player. That you don’t hear of it happening to others in a setting where the greens are frequently so fast and hard that substantially windy conditions makes this situation inevitable only tells me that most of the other players would not call it on themselves. It is a rediculous rule to enforce, especially under the conditions they play under. Web Simpson won this tournament in regulation 72 holes by that 1 stroke as far as I am concerned. Bubba Watson has the money and FEDEX points but it is a hollow victory. Truthfully, I know this will cause controversy to say but, if I were Bubba Watson, I would have shown my support for my fellow competitors in the need for this obviously stupid rule to change by defaulting the playoff. There is no glory, money and FEDEX points yes, in winning on a technicallity of this obsurdity.
The rule should stay. He got lazy and did not mark his ball. It would have taken him 30 seconds to do it right. He obviously did not learn from his first experience at the Bob Hope.
Sure robb, the game isn’t slow enough already so they need to encourage the players to mark every 1 to 6 inch tap in!
PS- afterall it is a game, not brain surgery, that needs to appeal to a large audience to grow in commercially.
The rule should stay… All decent golfers know the conditions and can assess the likelyhood of a ball moving on any particular green. He is a naive player if he didnt realise this at the time. Good players back off and start there pre shot routine again or simply hover their putter instead of grounding it, just ask anyone that plays links golf in high winds in Britain! Well played Bubba, a breath of fresh air for all those technical players!
mark the ball first..why trust gravitiy
Kinston and hoolie: u are abunch of noobist. If u play at your level putter length “giveme” is fine and that why u r not on TV. But at Pro level.. all Pro should know better. Golf Rule is not new. I feel bad for what happen to Simpson twice. Sometime One has to learn in a hard way.. please do not blame anything else. Suck it up and be a great person!
After all, It is still a great game. :)
Rules are rules…Nature is nature…oh if that water wasnt there I wouldnt have to take a penalty…oh if my ball is stuck in a tree but I cant identify it so I shouldnt be penalized…its total crap…Webb Simpson, Jack Nicklaus never grounded his putter in windy weather…learn from that…there was a reason the greatest ever did it, so he wouldnt be penalized if his ball moved!!!!
this, unfortunately is one of many rules needing change. Any situation of a supposed rule violation which in no way affects the ball or player needs re-evaluation. Fairness is what we need, not unfairness and penalty.
I hated to see either of these players lose. I probably was a little more in Bunnas corner but not enough to wish Simpson the bad break he got. Golf can be very punishing!
To be honest, we don’t know if Web ‘would’ have one if the penalty wasn’t accessed. He would have been perhaps more nervous coming in the stretch so who knows the outcome. Rules are rules and he called it on himself. He lost, fair and square. That’s fair. That’s tradition. That’s golf.
And Steve, we don’t just change the rules that have been in place forever in golf just because you don’t like the outcome. Grow up.
Congrats to Web for pointing out this is a gentleman’s game and calling the penalty on himself. He did the right thing and called the penalty but it is a tough rule. For those of you who say he should have marked it obviously forgot about Padriag last year having the same thing happen after he marked his ball in the US Open (if I remember correctly), and the last thing we need is pros marking every tap in. The rounds take long enough as is. The greens are getting harder and faster by design and the wind blowing should not cause a player to get a penalty. Webb handled the situation well and was not whining or crying about it. Bubba handled the situation well and did nothing wrong. Quit pointing fingers and trying to blame someone.
I think its simple. The rule is in place and everyone has to play by those rules. It does suck that it happened and he really did nothing wrong but until the rule is modified or changed then it is what it is. Unfortunate but he should have learned from the first incident. I was pulling for Webb even though I like Bubba and the excitement he brings to the game. Webb is a super nice young man with alot of talent. He will win soon
I don’t know about any of you but I don’t tune in to PGA Tour golf to watch players make 4 inch putts even if they are meaningful! On those hard fast greens with the wind blowing you can mark your ball, then re-place it and have it be moved by the wind before you have a chance to putt it. If the game was designed to be played on the green without grounding your putter then there would be a rule to that effect. There is no sensible reason to have such a rule in effect on the green if they are not tournament fair greens under the existing playing conditions as in this case. A local rule could have been in play to allow re-placing without penalty a ball moved on the green by any outside agency despite taking a putting stance if the tournament committee was doing their job!
PS- winning that tournament meant more than money and FEDEX points to Web Simpson. It meant an entry exemption for a period of time and invitations to many other tournaments. I would like to see the PGA Tour extend those perks to Web to the extent that they have the say. It would be up to the Masters Tournament committee, for example, to extend their own invitation.
Its time to consider making a rule change when nature moves the ball on the green vs the player.
Simpson was penalized under Rule 18-2 – “Ball at rest moved”. He was not penalized because the wind blew his ball. If your ball is moved by the wind there is no penalty and the ball is played from it’s new position (could even be in the hole) Because Simpson had ‘addressed’ the ball (grounded his club and taken his stance) he was deemed to have moved it, thus a one stroke penalty. The rules are fair – and as pointed out he should take a lesson from The Golden Bear and not ground his putter when the greens are lightning fast and the wind is blowing.
This rule is like that of not repairing spike marks on Greens, absurd. An outside force moves the ball, replace and move on, with partners acknowledgement. You make a divot, disturb the surface of a putting green, fix it and play on.
It’s a dumb rule, period. If the player does nothing to cause the ball to move, only the natural cause of the wind, it is absurd to penalize him. Also, to the eeediots who say Webb was “lazy” by not marking his ball for a 10 inch putt, give me a break! Play, in general, is far too slow to begin with, Lazy had nothing to do with it.
The only issue i have with a rule change to this effect is if the ball is resting on the lip of the hole, you ground your putter with some force (but do not touch the ball) and it falls in the hole. by this new definition you would not have been deemed to cause the ball to move and there is no additional stroke for the ball going in the hole. Any thoughts?
I am a golf traditionalist but I do think this rule should be changed. In this case, like Padraig a few years ago, the player did nothing to cause the ball to move and shouldn’t be penalized for it. Adapt to the technology of the times which captures a lot of activity. If we use technology to “catch” players in a fault, let’s also use it to proclaim them faultless.
I think he has a good point. If the greens are going to be set up at 13+ and they will get faster in windy conditions over the four days apparently, then we can either have even slower play where everyone makes sure they mark their ball everytime or we can modify the rule to better reflect playing conditions today.
There was golf before the PGA and there will be golf after the PGA. Rules are not made for TV audiences.
You guys that say a rule is a rule are silly….90% of the guys on the tour wouldn’t have called it on themself. Webb is in the small minority.
That being said, the rule is BOGUS……no player should be penalized for mother-nature…it is childish. The USGA rules are for kids, the PGA is for men who are making a living.
It is a big deal and it is a FOOLISH rule that helps NO-ONE and hurts the sport of golf.
And uhhhhh Kenny, yeah you do. If oyu know any PGA player personally, ask them what they think…… I have asked over 10 and everyone of them hates that rule because it helps no-one and it is the worst rule in golf “bar-none”
The penalty should only be if the ball makes contact with the putter. Even if the wind blows, and it strikes the putter, it is the players responsibility to consider the windy conditions.
But if a player simply “addresses” the ball and there is no contact when it moves, then NO penalty.
Stuart, all good and bad golfers should know the rules of golf which begins with etiquette, the first part of the rule book. Included in etiquette are headings for “pace of play” and “be ready to play”! The ball moved on the green rule slows play but does not protect against any unfair advantage. Just like accidentally knocking a teed ball off of the tee re-teeing with no penalty on the teeing ground, moving the ball and replacing it on the green gives no advantage to the player and should not be penalized in the interest of speeding up the game. Spectators watch TV Pros take meticulous care on the exceedingly fast greens in pro compettition to prevent this penalty, then they emulate them in their weekend member matches which unnecessarily and infuriatingly backs up the golf course. That rule needs to go! It serves no redeeming or useful purpose. jmho
[...] nach Ansprechen des Balls (=Aufsetzen des Schlägers hinter dem Ball) vom Wind bewegt wird (siehe: Webb Simpson). Ab 2012 gilt für diesen Fall das Gleiche als wenn der Ball noch nicht angesprochen wurde: er [...]
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