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"The
more I
practice,
the
luckier
I
get"
BEN
HOGAN
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17.11
Reglene kan være strenge:
Ulovlig med to caddier
Men var det slik denne
regelen var ment å ramme en
spiller?
Denne historien er tre år
gammel, men vi bringer liv i
den igjen for å vise at man
bør passe godt på, slik at
ingen går i fella - nå som
det nærmer seg jul.
Det var nok mange som mente
at avgjørelsen om å
diskvalifisere spilleren i
denne saken var temmelig
streng. Rick Reilly er en av
den. Følgende historie er
hentet fra Sports
Illustrated hvor han
skriver, og noen vil kanskje
ha sett den før. Men
likevel. Her er hva Sports
Illustrated skrev; Kanskje
en historie å vise til i
juleselskapene fremover.
Golfspillere liker jo å
snakke om golf i enhver
sammenheng - nesten:
Fra Sports Illustrated:
The Official Fools of
Golf
Av: Rick Reilly
There is small. There is
petty. Then there is the
Arizona Golf Association.
On Father's Day, Mark
Johnson, a 43-year-old
lieutenant colonel in the
Army, came to the last nine
holes of the Arizona
Mid-Amateur at Ocotillo Golf
Club in Chandler with an
11-shot lead. His caddie,
son Seth, was celebrating
his 14th birthday. Mark had
carried his own bag for the
first two days, but Seth
wanted to be there for the
win, and Mark wanted Seth to
be a part of it, even if
Seth does walk a little
slowly and has a lazy eye
that doesn't do much for his
depth perception. It was
kind of a gift to each other.
Right about then the AGA
kicked them both out of the
tournament.
Back at the par-3 3rd hole,
Seth's 12-year-old best
buddy, Derek, whom Seth had
invited to walk with him,
had taken Mark's putter out
of the bag as the group
walked off the tee box and
carried it down the fairway,
both boys trailing behind
the unsuspecting Mark. At
the green Mark turned and
saw young Derek holding his
putter and knew he was in
trouble. A rules official,
69-year-old Doc Graves, was
seated in his cart nearby. "We
got a technicality here,"
Graves said, after Mark had
putted out. "You can't have
two caddies."
Mark turned to the boys and
said, "Derek, Seth's the
caddie, not you. You can't
touch this bag, O.K.?" Derek
said O.K. Seth said O.K. Not
certain of the penalty,
Graves radioed back to the
clubhouse to confer with
other tournament officials.
Mark played on.
Six holes later, the
lieutenant colonel and the
boys were in Mark's truck,
driving the 2 1/2 hours back
home to Sierra Vista, Ariz.
Seth was crying; Derek was
crying; Mark wanted to kick
a cactus.
Officially, it's rule 6-4 in
the USGA's Rules of Golf: A
player may have only one
caddie at any one time. You
can change caddies anytime
you want. You can change
caddies every hole if you
want. But you can't have two
caddies helping you at once.
Penalty: DQ.
Of course, Rule 6-4 was
never meant to cover a boy
walking one hole with a
putter and without the
player's knowledge. That's
known as a casual act of
someone assisting a player,
such as a caddie
absentmindedly asking a fan
to run a glove 100 yards
back to his player, or
another caddie bringing
somebody his eight-iron from
across the green (Rule
6-4/4.5). No penalty.
So why did the AGA give Mark
Johnson the electric chair
for spitting on the sidewalk?
"We had to respect the
integrity of the event,"
says the AGA's director of
rules and competitions,
James Waitt.
"There's no gray area in the
Rules of Golf," says the
AGA's executive director, Ed
Gowan.
"We had to protect the field,"
says Graves.
Oh, stick it in your ball
washer. The "integrity of
the event"? When they DQ'd a
man for something a boy did
innocently, the event
immediately had all the
integrity of Cheez Whiz.
"No gray area"? There's more
gray area in golf than in a
year's worth of Wall Street
Journals. Did you mean to
hit that ball, or was it
just a practice swing
(18-2a/20)? Is the snake
still alive (outside agency)
or is it dead (loose
impediment, 18/4)?
"Protect the field"? Name me
one possible competitive
advantage that Johnson
gained. Did the jelly stains
on Derek's face inspire him?
Golf takes itself so damn
seriously it makes me want
to ralph on a burrowing
animal. The rules say you
can't fix a spike mark, but
if you can find enough
people to help, you can roll
a 1,000-pound boulder out of
the way (23-1/3). John Daly
can slap at his ball 24
times on one hole and nobody
says boo, but Padraig
Harrington forgets to sign
his card after Thursday's
round at the Benson & Hedges
and he's DQ'd on Sunday with
a five-shot lead.
But the AGA bottoms
everything. I've covered
golf for 22 years, and this
is the most nitpicky,
mean-spirited ruling I've
ever heard of. Graves
should've simply mentioned
it to Johnson. Instead, he
shot a mosquito with an
elephant gun.
To his credit, the
lieutenant colonel took the
AGA's decision with more
honor than it deserved.
Johnson took full blame. "I
guess I'm going home," he
said, before gathering the
sobbing boys. Not a word was
said the whole way back to
Sierra Vista. Father and son
opened their presents, but,
as Seth says, "It didn't
feel very good." His mom's
crying probably didn't help
the mood any. Derek still
feels bad.
A man named Jack Burke was
handed the Graves Cup.
That's what the winner of
the Mid-Amateur gets -- the
Graves Cup, named after the
very same rules official,
Robert (Doc) Graves.
Hope the guy uses it for a
spittoon.
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