The governing bodies of the ancient game of golf have decreed there is a traitor among us, and thy name is technology.
From atop their marble pedestals, the United States Golf Association and the Royal & Ancient now have made rules, effective Jan. 1, to guard against the inherent evils of such vehicles of witchcraft as high-definition television and the public accessibility of video.
Their newest defense in the name of righteousness came down Tuesday, when Decision 18/4 was created to make it OK for a player to move his or her ball, as long as that movement was “not discernible to the naked eye,” and especially not “where enhanced technological evidence shows that a ball has left its position and come to rest in another location.”
But, of course, let it be known throughout the land this is not a knee-jerk reaction to the smoke still pouring out of the ears of Tiger Woods. No, no, no. The sacred bodies of governance never would bow down to the world’s best player. How dare one even make the suggestion!
Do remember, though, it was Woods who was left flummoxed in Chicago at the BMW Championship in September, when he removed a stick from some rubble underbrush and a freelance “cameraman” used a portable sorcery device to document the ball moving. Woods, the man who moved the twig and whose eyes were no more than two feet above the ball at the time, merely thought it had “oscillated.” For those less familiar with the Queen’s language, that means only a nudge, and that the originally position was reestablished.
An oscillation is allowed, movement not, and Woods was so penalized his necessary two strokes.
“Safe to say this rule was already at the printer when that occurred,” Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s senior director of rules, told this humble Post scribe. “When a golf ball moves by such a minor amount that the player could not have noticed it, this is a recognition that [a two-stroke] penalty is too severe.”
And mercy, may sweet mercy be shown on those poor souls like Woods who must be watched and recorded at every turn. How terribly unfair!
As such was the case yet again in April, when it was Woods so enthralled in competition at the Masters he took a woefully incorrect drop after an unfortunate bounce put his ball in the water on the 15th hole, and it was a patron many hundreds of miles away who had to alert the gentlemanly authorities at Augusta National of the malfeasance.
In that instance, there was such a delay in discipline Woods went so far as to sign his name in ink, attesting to his incorrect score, a deviant act that normally would result in disqualification. He admitted to not dropping in the right spot, but goodness, can he be found guilty if his only prosecutor is a voodoo priest in front of a flatscreen crystal ball?
Thank heavens that at the time the USGA and the R&A already had created rule 33-7, which allowed those kind southern aristocrats to make a quick erasure to Woods’ card the next day, change a six to an eight, and — viola! — order was restored.
For too long — centuries, even — it has been a mandate that players govern themselves. The definition of a ball’s “movement” never existed in detail because it always was deemed appropriate to be left to the judgment of the players. Yet how, pray tell, can one both participate and officiate? It is as much a moral dilemma as it is a practical one.
Because to push the rules to their boundaries, and break them when one can, is in the definition of sport, is it not? If no authority present to the infraction can make the ruling, then shall the ruling not be forgotten?
It shall! So please, merciful patriarchs, protect us from ourselves! Protect us from the insolence and indignity of correctness! Protect us from this unholy monster of technology before integrity is yet again in the fabric of our game!