It is a given that the PGA Tour is celebrating the unexpected prominence of Tiger Woods. On Sunday perhaps this sentiment was more prevalent than ever. Woods finished fourth at the Quicken Loans National before firing the kind of broadside towards the United States Golf Association – on the course set-up at the US Open – which would always claim column inches.
Meanwhile a far more significant story was playing out. It is a curious aspect of life that cheating in golf is routinely viewed with more disdain than doing likewise towards one’s husband or wife. But that is the reality; amateur golfers have ended up in court rooms, or emigrating, after being accused of tampering with scorecards or ball markers.
Here lies a stigma that never disappears. Just ask Elliot Saltman, who was banned for three months in 2011 after being found guilty of deliberate rule breaches. A year later, as he walked from the 18th tee on a beautiful Lytham evening, a voice bellowed out from the sparse Open Championship gallery: “Are you still cheating?” Saltman replied with profanity but he will have heard the same before – and since.
The player now catapulted into sharp focus is Sung Kang, whose 64 did not just secure a top-three finish in Maryland; the Korean is now exempt for the Open. There he will inevitably face questions regarding high controversy.
The controversy surrounds a drop from a water hazard at the 10th, which Kang’s playing partner Joel Dahmen disputed at the time and did so even more vehemently after their round. Following a long delay – during which other groups played through – a rules official sided with Kang’s contention that his ball had not crossed said hazard before entering it. Cue a drop nearer the hole and a subsequent par.
“Kang cheated,” said Dahmen on Twitter. “He took a bad drop from a hazard. I argued until I was blue. I lost.” Dahmen added: “It was a typical dispute about where or if it crossed the hazzard [sic]. It clearly did not cross the hazzard. We went back and forth for 25 minutes and he ended up dropping closer to the green.”
It is difficult to overstate how rare this kind of utterance is. Crying foul in golf is a stressful and difficult business for amateurs, never mind those who will inevitably encounter the same individuals more than once in a professional environment.
Dahmen was duly asked why, given his contention, he signed Kang’s scorecard. “At that point there is nothing I can do,” he said. “If I don’t sign the card, a rules official will. I would just be delaying the inevitable.”
Joel Dahmen was angry with Sung Kang’s conduct in Maryland. “He took a bad drop from a hazard. I argued until I was blue,” he said. Photograph: Peter Casey-USA Today Sports/Sipa USA/Rex/Shutterstock
Via the PGA Tour, Kang issued a statement on Monday. It read: “He is standing by the ruling that was made by PGA Tour rules officials on Sunday and will have no further comment, other than he is looking forward to focusing on finishing out the season strong, and he is excited about the opportunity to play in the Open Championship again in a few weeks.”
The Tour itself, so hilariously protective not only of its own reputation but of that of its members, said: “During Sunday’s final round of the 2018 Quicken Loans National there was a discussion between fellow competitors Sung Kang and Joel Dahmen as to where Kang’s second shot crossed the margin of the lateral hazard at the par-five 10th hole before ultimately coming to rest in the hazard.
“A PGA Tour rules official handled the ruling, interviewing both players, caddies and marshals in the vicinity. The official then took Kang back to where he hit his second shot, and Kang confirmed his original belief that his shot had indeed crossed the margin of the hazard. With no clear evidence to prove otherwise, it was determined by the official that Kang could proceed with his fourth shot as intended, following a penalty stroke and subsequent drop. The PGA Tour will have no additional comment on this matter.”
There you have it; 137 words which say nothing at all of consequence.
The key problem here is that no one, including the Tour, can provide a definitive account of what happened. Shotlink, the online tool used by the PGA Tour to track strokes, backs up Dahmen’s version but is manned by volunteers and not always accurate. There is no television footage of the affair, a scenario that would never transpire had, say, Woods been at the centre of a rules row. PGA Tour insiders admit that, in a situation where no solid evidence of a rules breach can be traced, an official would indeed sign a card where a player may have refused.
The PGA Tour’s closed-shop policy on disciplinary matters – be it related to drugs or Phil Mickelson’s alliance with the now incarcerated gambler Billy Walters – does them no favours and, in fact, heightens suspicion. The notion that competitors will continually play within the rules because of some lofty moral status automatically bestowed on golfers is laughable, not least with modern stakes so high.
One does not have to dig far into golf’s upper echelons to hear tales of those routinely loose with the laws. Jimmy Walker, a major champion, recently and strongly defended his right to “back stop” on greens – which essentially equates to helping whichever fellow competitors he has a soft spot for – without the Tour uttering anything by way of contradiction. It took other golfers, most notably Lee Westwood, to highlight Walker’s idiocy.
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There are important sub-plots. One involves the ongoing dispute between the PGA Tour and those who make golf’s rules regarding whether or not driving distance is a problem. Another relates to the move to allow sports betting in the USA; when that transpires, golf will have to work harder than ever to appear beyond manipulation. “No additional comment,” isn’t going to work.
Kang and Dahmen will at least be united by grievance. The accuser will maintain frustration that his statements were ultimately ignored while Kang will carry that stigma, he clearly believes wholly unfairly. This was a storm worthy of far more scrutiny than Woods’s birdies and bogeys.
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