On the Tube
BY GENE WESTMORELAND
Tournament telecasts offer a prime opportunity to see how the
world’s best players handle Rules situations
The MGA is rich in Rules talent—our volunteers put in
long hours at championships and play a big role in our
mission to educate area golfers. While our Rules seminars are well-attended, they pale in comparison to the
millions who watch the occasional live seminar on a tournament telecast. Alas, far too often there just isn’t enough
time for the announcers to explain the Rules.
Take this year’s Honda Classic in Palm
Beach Gardens, Florida, when Mark Calcavec-chia pulled his tee shot on a par three into a
greenside bunker. He left himself with a delicate downhill bunker shot onto a fast green —
with a large pond directly behind the hole.
To the amazement of the NBC announcers, Calc’s soft bunker escape landed well
short of the hole, checked up, and then simply kept on rolling, past the hole and across
the red line indicating the margin of the
lateral water hazard. It was only stopped from
rolling into the water by a three-foot border
of jagged rocks! Poor shot, perhaps, but cue
the Rules Seminar.
When the ball came to rest, just before a
commercial break, it was pointed out that the
ball was “unplayable” in the rocks. When the
action resumed there was Calc, on the green,
putting for four! Wait a minute… his second
shot goes into a lateral hazard, unplayable in
the rocks, and he’s on the green putting for
bogey? Here’s how it happened.
