I'll do my "5 to Watch" at the Masters post tomorrow. Today it's time for my promised rant about letting TV viewers affect tournament rulings. I think there are a number of things which are being ignored in the debate, even after the Thompson ruling at the ANA Sunday. I'd like to look at three of them in this post.
Point #1: Allowing armchair officials actually works against the ideal of creating a level playing field for all competitors.
The Rules of Golf, like the rules of most sports, were never designed to deal with a digital world. That's part of the reason we're having these struggles now, as are many other sports organizations like the NFL. Of course, golf is having a worse time than most, simply because the other organizations don't allow viewer input at all. For example, former Vice President of Officiating for the NFL Mike Pereira tweeted:Rules officials have reached a new low with what happened in the LPGA. Every rule has an element of common sense. They showed none. Awful!
— Mike Pereira (@MikePereira) April 3, 2017
In fact, here's an thrilling word on how the NFL will now deal with video critiques, as expressed in a choice made at the NFL Owners' Meeting just this beyond March 28:
Most amazing Tuesday turned into the exchange in managing officiating of video replays. Referees will now watch replays on the field the use of drugs, doing away with ?Going beneath the hood? To the watch on television video display units.
League officiating leader Dean Blandino and his workforce in New York will make the final choices on the ones calls, with input from the referee, who inside the beyond was the remaining arbiter after consulting with league headquarters.
?And I suppose that?S vital to consider, we?Re not taking the referee out of the equation,? Blandino has stated. ?The referee will still be worried, the referee will nonetheless deliver enter, however will now not have the very last say.? For those of you who don't recognize why the NFL would need to decrease the component performed by way of the real refs on the field for the duration of a video evaluation, you have to recognize that NFL games are taking area all over the nation and each recreation has a exceptional set of refs. What the NFL desires to do is have most effective one voice in EVERY game making the very last decision throughout video reviews, which will get one regular set of rulings for the entire league.
In other words, the NFL decided that you make the game fairer for every player by MINIMIZING the number of people involved in officiating. And when the golf tours allow viewers -- who aren't even part of the appointed officiating crew -- to influence decisions, they actually increase the likelihood that players will be treated unfairly.
Lexi's ruling changed into a working example. Millions of fans watched the identical broadcast but noticed no violation. However, one person who determined a hassle 24 hours later probable value her a prime. In no different sport -- where simplest the officers on the sphere are allowed to make such rulings -- would a travesty like which have been allowed. Which brings us to...
Point #2: Officials are unbiased. Fans are not.
I realize that this point is going to offend some people, but we have to deal with it. And while I don't mean to insinuate that every fan is motivated in the following ways, the nature of the violations that get reported are problematic. For when fans call tour officials to "report a violation" -- something that none of the officials, nor millions of other fans saw, And mainly when finding stated violation requires examination of intense video near-united statesto verify what passed off (and people close-u.S.A.Weren't proven as a part of the published) -- we have to ask what kind of fan goes to that much trouble.And the solutions are not very quite.
We can be handling folks that sense powerless, and that they raise their emotions of self-esteem via trying to impact the moves of "famous human beings." I suppose we would all agree that those human beings have a mental problem that requires remedy, not the validation of ruining matters for the "famous person." Granted, this is less risky than stalking or attempting to murder a celeb, but it is still no longer something we want to re-enforce.
We can be handling enthusiasts who will do anything to help "their" participant win. In this case, the participant has been especially targeted, instead of the randomness of the previous example. And due to the fact that a particular participant has been focused, the integrity of the sphere has certainly been compromised if we allow those "violations" to be heard.
But perhaps the darkest possibility is that the entire event is being manipulated. Whether the tours want to talk about it or not, we all know that a great deal of sports betting goes on around the world. I wonder how much money -- betted legally or not -- changed hands when Lexi was assessed a 4-stroke penalty and the odds on who might win the ANA changed dramatically?
Worse yet, imagine how much money could be made if the bettor KNEW that the odds were going to change because he or she orchestrated that change? This possibility simply can't be ignored.
One of the perimeters of the controversy I've heard over the past day or so is that "golf is different from different sports activities, and this is part of what makes our game distinct." But I would argue that every selection we make has effects, and we can not honestly forget about a number of them because we do not need to admit they exist. There is a motive why other sports don't allow the fans to influence the referees on this manner.
Tell me: Is the concern that someone may on occasion make a reduce due to a overlooked penalty virtually really worth risking such wholesale manipulation of the game itself? I can't agree with that. The danger is simply too high-quality.
When ANYONE can affect the officiating of a sport, we open the door to all sorts of manipulation which could spoil the integrity of that sport. The only manner to prevent this is to stop it on the supply. We honestly MUST restriction the range of human beings whose voices matter. If we do not, we are being irresponsible closer to the gamers in the subject and the good sized majority of enthusiasts who're content material to allow the appointed officers do their jobs.
Point #3: Eliminating the outside voices will not allow more violators to "get away with it." Rather, the fix is rather simple to implement.
In listening to the debates over the last day or so, I've been amazed at how easily we are overwhelmed by technology. How many officials are needed in the TV truck, for example? Who will keep watch on the 30 or more video streams coming from the on-course cameras? Perhaps we need all the viewers to help us keep watch on the field, to make sure no one cheats!There are such a lot of flaws in this line of thinking that I almost do not know wherein to start. But I'll strive.
First of all, we don't need to worry about all the cameras on the course. In case no one has yet realized it, all of those millions of fans are watching the exact same cameras -- namely, the network broadcast stream. I'm pretty sure the tours can find one or two officials who are willing to take a beer and some pretzels, head off into an air-conditioned room, and settle into comfy chairs in front of a large-screen TV to watch the broadcast! Since this is such a strenuous job, we can rotate the officials every hour or so. That way we'll always have fresh eyes watching.
We can even provide them a direct intercom to the TV truck. That manner, if our "respectable viewers" have to see some thing, they are able to buzz the professional inside the truck: "Hey, can you test Lexi's ballmark on 17? She may have marked it incorrect. Thanks."
Is that truely so difficult?
As I said earlier, The Rules of Golf were never designed to deal with a digital world. But that really shouldn't be a problem when it comes to enforcing them. We talk constantly about the integrity of our players, and we build entire youth programs around the values our game teaches. But we seem compelled to contradict that by our actions...
After all, if our golfers are so honest, then why do we want top notch-magnification on our cameras to locate when the ball has been out of place by way of a single inch? It's apparent, isn't always it? It's due to the fact WE MUST PUNISH ANY IMPERFECTION WITH THE MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE PENALTY! WE MUST NOT TOLERATE LAWBREAKERS, EVEN IF THEY CLEARLY DO SO BY ACCIDENT AND THEIR TRANSGRESSION HAS NO MEASURABLE EFFECT ON THE GAME!
Our game has reached a point where it is no longer about having fun. It's about the paranoia of being perfect in every possible way:
- We MUST have perfect mechanics, or our swings are subject to criticism.
- We MUST hit every wedge shot within a statistically acceptable range, or our players look as if they just ate a live slug and they slam the ground with their clubs.
- And we MUST call every penalty possible on ourselves, lest our integrity be called into question. You say that you caused that ball to shift position by ONE WHOLE DIMPLE? My God, man! Call that one-shot penalty on yourself or forever be a pariah among your peers!
But there's no longer any room for human frailty in our sport, is there? We can't just present an excellent product; it needs to be a perfect product. It doesn't depend whether the so-referred to as violation has any impact at the final results of the game or now not. And in the system, we educate the youngsters developing that not anything we do is ever appropriate enough. We teach them that legalism and punishment are more essential than common sense and not unusual experience. We train them, in effect, to be "holier than thou."
I assume that makes "growing the game" a bargain harder than it needs to be.
There has been a great deal of debate so far over the proposed rule changes being considered by the USGA and the R&A. Everyone is debating whether individual changes are integral changes to the game or just overdue logic. We're even beginning to ask if intent should matter when enforcing the rules. These debates are necessary. They're how we discover what is important in our rules.
But perhaps common sense should play a bigger part in our rules. Lexi was penalized 4 shots for placing her ball one inch to the left of her original line... on a flat putt measuring twelve inches in length. While we don't want our players to get sloppy about marking their ball, there has to be some point at which we simply say, "Oh well, it didn't make any difference to the outcome. But you need to be more careful from now on."
It happened 24 hours earlier, folks. It didn't affect how difficult Lexi's putt was, and the integrity of the field wasn't harmed. But that 4-shot penalty, assessed in the midst of the final round, DID affect the integrity of the field and tainted the whole event. Even So Yeon Ryu, who benefited from the ruling, stood there crying at the end and told Lisa Cornwell that it just didn't feel right.
When the Rules create the very problems they were meant to prevent, it's time for the Rules to change.
I think that any "infraction of the rules" that can't be seen with the naked eye from a few feet away ISN'T an infraction. That's how the rules were enforced when The Rules of Golf were originally written. If the infraction couldn't be seen, the players were expected to call it on themselves. And no one worried that someone would "get away" with breaking a rule. If we modern types believe they will, unless we use the most high-powered enforcement tools available...
Well, maybe we don't believe in personal integrity as much as we claim.
At the very least, we don't need millions of viewers all calling in about it. Video wasn't part of the Rules when they were originally set down. It DEFINITELY shouldn't be part of them now.
End of rant. For today, anyway. ;-)
0 comments