Dermot Gilleece recounts some controversial incidents in golf which challenged the rules of the game
When the 1946 US Open champion, Lloyd Mangrum, was once called to heel over his ignorance of the Rules of Golf, his testy reaction was: ‘I don’t know the traffic regulations of every city I get to either, but I manage to drive through without being arrested.’ While it may have made for a quotable quote, Mangrum’s attitude reflected a long-time problem among many of the game’s leading players.
They tend to resent the authority of the game’s referees who are accorded the privileged status of always being right, even when they’re wrong. Looking back over rules decisions that I have witnessed through the years, two have stayed with me for contrasting reasons.
The first of them was memorable because of the pompous reaction of an official acknowledging that a mistake had been made, while the other reflected great credit on an individual’s honest humility.
During the second round of the 1999 US Masters, Darren Clarke struggled on the slick slopes of Augusta National’s greens on the way to a 78 to miss the half-way cut. Meanwhile Bernhard Langer, with a trusty ‘broom handle’ delivering magic, holed putts ranging in length up to 50 feet, when carding a sparkling round of 66 and a 36-hole total of 142. It hardly seemed fair, but as Jack Nicklaus once remarked, nobody ever said that golf had to be fair.
During the 1999 US Masters Bernard Langer asked the official if he could remove the cone and was told he could not. But he was permitted to touch it on his backswing.
With a rules official in attendance, he confronted the problem of hitting a cut-up lob-wedge shot, despite having to cope with a pine cone behind his ball. Langer asked the official if he could remove the cone and was told he could not. But he was permitted to touch it on his backswing.
‘I suspect I moved it,’ he admitted afterwards. To my eyes he most certainly did. Which meant that had Langer taken his action without the permission of an incompetent rules official, he would have been penalised two strokes for a breach of Rule 23-1: ‘Except when both the loose impediment and the ball lie in or touch the same hazard, any loose impediment may be removed without penalty.’
As it happened, the 1985 and ’93 Masters champion made perfect contact with the ball and sent it soaring over pine trees to finish 20 feet from the pin. And the putt went down for a birdie four.
Afterwards, having witnessed the entire situation, I approached Will Nicholson, chairman of the Augusta National Competition Committees, about the matter. ‘We were wrong,’ he said. ‘And it is our style to admit it when we’re wrong. But there was no breach of rules by Bernhard in that he did as instructed.’
‘That got me going,’ said Langer of the unexpected birdie, without a hint of embarrassment. And he proceeded to emphasise his well-being by going on to card what has to be described as an outrageous birdie at the ninth, to reach the turn in 33 _ three under par. Stretching his arms upwards in triumph, he responded more excitedly than he has done for many of his tournament triumphs.
Was it a potential victory leap, I asked him afterwards? ‘Definitely not,’ he replied with a smile.’I only do those when I’m in Ireland.’
Which was a reference to his emotion on capturing the inaugural Smurfit European Open in 1995.
Riding his Masters good fortune, Langer went on to card rounds of 72 and 73 for an aggregate of 287 and a reward of $92,000 for a share of 11th place behind Jose Maria Olazabal.
Fourteen years earlier, in very different circumstances at Westport GC, I found myself writing about a rules decision which was also incorrect. It happened in the fourth round of the Irish Amateur Close Championship in which Pat Lyons beat Arthur Pierse by 3 and 2. Lyons went on to lose to Declan Branigan who was ultimately beaten by Denis O’Sullivan by one hole in the final.
Westport golf course, scene of the controversial ruling in the 1981 Irish Close Championship
Those bare facts, however, hide details of a highly controversial happening in which the attending referee, Ivan Dickson, made an incorrect rules decision. In sharp contrast to later events at Augusta, however, Dickson candidly admitted his error and earned considerable kudos for his entire handling of the affair.
The problem arose on the difficult, 455-yard 13th hole where Pierse and Lyons in a level match, both hit good drives. Lyons then carved a 220-yard three-wood second shot towards heavy undergrowth on the right, short of the green. Pierse’s response was to hit a one-iron which finished left of the target.
As Pierse was about to head for the green, Lyons called: ‘I’ll play another one just in case.’ The Nenagh player then struck another three-wood and this time the ball soared perfectly on line, pitched on the front of the green and disappeared into the hole.
When they proceeded to walk up the fairway together, there was no sign of Lyons’s first ball, whereupon he said he was declaring it lost. He then made no attempt to look for it, but Pierse and members of his extended family who were following the match, proceeded to search for it. In the event, they found the ball within what was then a stipulated five minutes (it’s now three minutes), prompting Pierse to tell his opponent that he had to play it.
When Lyons insisted that he had abandoned it, Pierse was equally adamant that he was obliged to play it, saying: ‘You cannot give yourself that option.’
By this stage, a referee was called. He happened to be Dickson, the General Secretary of the Golfing Union of Ireland and an acknowledged expert on the rules. But there was a problem. Years later, Dickson told me that when going out on the course to make a ruling, he neglected to take the Royal and Ancient’s Decision Book with him. Which meant that he effectively worked from memory when dealing with the issue.
After listening to both players, he ruled that Lyons’s provisional ball was in play and that the player had scored a par-four on the hole. So, when Pierse pitched and putted also for a four, the hole was halved.
Dickson said at the time: ‘I had to make a decision and I’m quite prepared to admit that I could be technically wrong. I intend to have the matter clarified by the R and A.’
A week later, Dickson took the unusual step of making a formal announcement on the matter from the GUI. He had no need to contact the R and A, given that the solution was in the Decisions Book, as he suspected. Where he had been wrong was in omitting to specify how Lyons should have brought his provisional ball into play.
He should have physically removed the provisional ball from the hole before his original ball was found. The fact that he didn’t do so, meant that Pierse should have been awarded the hole. As it happened, the pattern of the match then changed dramatically, with Lyons sweeping to victory on the 16th.
Even allowing for the fact that this particular incident has stayed with me for 40 years, exposure on television tends to make indiscretions by professionals far more public and not so easily forgotten. For instance, I can recall another situation in Augusta from about 1990 when, for the purposes of a feature article, a British journalist asked Nicklaus about a ruling a long time previously in the World Matchplay Championship at Wentworth. It concerned controversial, line-of-sight relief which Nicklaus had sought and received.
Wentworth golf course scene of a controversial, line-of-sight relief ruling in favour of Jack Nicklaus during the World Matchplay Championship
‘That’s a closed book,’ snapped the Bear, with the sort of finality that only he could deliver. For me, however, the Westport case merited reopening, because of the dignified and decent manner in which a pressurised Dickson proceeded to handle it.
