MORE IDIOTIC GOLF VIEWER VIGILANTISM!

by Doug McAllister

Last Tuesday I wrote about golf vigilantism gone crazy; armchair rules officials calling in to rat out hapless golfers who — most often without thinking — break the rules.

Well, it's happened again. Just like that. Julie Inkster, the veteran of the LPGA, was disqualified after a pseudo sleuth called in and reported seeing Inkster using a training donut on her club as she waited to continue her round. Damnable! To think that a consummate pro like Julie Inkster would attempt to take advantage of her fellow players in such a way. Why, it's as bad as using performance-enhancing substances! Don't just disqualify her. Stone her!

Moreover, the infraction has become the stuff of other golf blogs. Parents, lock up your sons and daughters! First, Dustin Johnson seeks the downfall of our youth by cheating at the PGA Championship and now Ms. Inkster has done the same. Shameful!

RUBBISH! As noted in my previous post, it's time to turn the water cannons on the idiots who call in and, by so doing, break up the sensible play of golf tournaments everywhere. Golf, just like other sports, continues to be a game played by fallible humans — just like you and me. Also, the game continues to be officiated by similarly mistake making carbon-based life forms. Ergo, mistakes of every sort are going to me made. Mistakes by players and by those assigned to officiate. And that should be a locked circle!

Allowing individuals to call in and report infractions is tantamount to sanctioning an instant replay in golf — the game that is supposedly so honorable that players can and should call penalties on themselves.

My appeal, then, is as it was in my previous post: Please, PGA and USGA and R&A and all others upon whom falls the responsibility to officiate golfing events, turn off your phones. Refuse to accept calls from outside agencies who want to become your extra pair of eyes and ears. Determine that you will officiate yourselves and, should mistakes be made or infractions be missed, accept that it's all part of the game.

For the rest of us...

Hit 'em Long & Straight!