Brian Davis in the playoff -- AP photo

We have all seen it or heard about it by now. Brian Davis was battling Jim Furyk in a playoff for the Verizon Heritage Championship at Harbour Town Golf Links this Sunday. He pulled his ball into the sandy, reedy hazard to the left of the eighteenth green. From there he still had a decent chance to get up and down and send the playoff to another hole. Instead, in his backswing he clipped a twig or a reed that was loose on the ground, and in the end assessed himself a two shot penalty after consultation with a PGA Tour rules official.

The succeeding rush of congratulations for his supposed ‘honor’ and ‘dignity’ and ‘strict adherence to the rules’ was deafening. One publication I saw made Davis the headline instead of Furyk, who won the tournament! The only thing I can say is ‘Are you kidding me?’

Jim Furyk with the Verizon Heritage Trophy and plaid blazer

Every time this happens, the media trots out the now frayed quote from Bobby Jones. Jones once assessed himself a penalty, and when someone had the audacity to congratulate him, he sneered “You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank”. In essence Jones knew it was misplaced praise at best, and insulting at worst. The media seems to think that this type of behavior places golf in some special place as it regards honesty, integrity and sportsmanship. What they fail to understand is that the function of the rules demand it to be so.

In the major sports that we follow, the players are not responsible for the administration of the rules. Officials, referees, and umpires are charged with that task. Frankly, the players are not even responsible to know the rules, and often they don’t. For instance, every baseball player alive will tell you that the tie goes to the runner. And every umpire alive will tell you that it is the responsibility of the runner to beat the play. In plays that they call bangers (known to most of us as a bang-bang play), umpires are instructed to call anything that is deemed a virtual tie as an out.

Frankie Frisch in a bang-bang play

The point is that the players have nothing to do with the administration or application of the rules in those sports. In fact, flaunting them is often rewarded and regarded as being a ‘head’s up player’. Officials are assigned to observe with the express function of inserting themselves into the action to determine rules administration. If you think about it, the players in these other sports are not even responsible to keep score.

Not so with golf. In golf, the player alone is responsible to verify his own score. If he or she does it inaccurately, the player alone bears the brunt of the consequences. The player is expected to know the rules, and further is expected to administrate those rules. Golf rules officials will help when asked, but if not asked will leave it up to the player to sink or swim on their own.

We all know that the rules are a Byzantine compilation subject to massive amounts of interpretation. The Rules of Golf is not much more than a pamphlet. The Decisions on the Rules of Golf is an encyclopedia. The point is that adherence to the rules is and always has been up to the player. So to congratulate Brian Davis for adhering to the rules is like congratulating a toll taker for lifting your coin. He is just doing his job. So let’s stop all the back patting and get to the heart of the matter.

How could Davis be so stupid in the first place? The basic rule in place is Rule 13-4 which generally states as follows:

13-4. Ball in Hazard; Prohibited Actions Except as provided in the Rules, before making a stroke at a ball that is in a hazard (whether a bunker or a water hazard) or that, having been lifted from a hazard, may be dropped or placed in the hazard, the player must not:

a. Test the condition of the hazard or any similar hazard;
b. Touch the ground in the hazard or water in the water hazard with his hand or a club; or
c. Touch or move a loose impediment lying in or touching the hazard.

Every golfer that regularly competes in tournament golf is fully aware of this rule. It is neither ambiguous, nor is it difficult to follow. Yet this is the second time this year I have seen this rule violated on the PGA Tour.  In the second round of the Honda Classic, Graeme McDowell was trying to hit his ball out of the edge of the water hazard and back into play when he skimmed the surface of the water with his club in his backswing. He immediately questioned whether he had done it, and upon finishing the round went into the video truck to confirm he had incurred a penalty so as not to sign an incorrect scorecard and be disqualified. McDowell still made the cut despite the penalty, and went on to earn his check for the week.

Graeme McDowell from the water

Now Brian Davis comes along and violates this rule in a playoff! I must confess I have played tournament golf for 35 years, and I cannot remember seeing another tournament player blow this rule. The rule is so obvious that everyone in a similar situation takes extraordinary care not to make this mistake. How a touring professional golfer can make this mistake during a playoff is incomprehensible to me. He should not be congratulated for reporting the penalty. That was just doing his job. He should be excoriated for committing the penalty! I guarantee you he is still kicking himself, and will be for weeks to come.

So the next time you see a golfer calling a penalty on himself, don’t congratulate him. Ask him why he was stupid enough to commit the infraction in the first place. Then duck.