# An Early Rules Violation?



## FrogsHair (Mar 4, 2010)

Seems an "at home viewer" may have caught Villegas in an rules violation that could see him DQ'd from this weeks tournament. 

Eagle-eyed golf watcher charges Villegas with rules violation at Kapaula - National golf | Examiner.com

The big conversation I am hearing about is "should rules violations be phoned in by others". JMHO, but sure why not? I mean the game of pro golf is supposed to be self regulating, so if the players, and on course officials can't, or won't "self regulate", then they need the additional help from outsiders. If the on course rules officials, Villegas, or his caddy get a way with a rules violation, knowingly or not, how is that fair for the other tournament players? It's not. If one of the other players gets away with something, that's not going to be fair for Villegas. Now if the players, and the pga/usga want to get together, and re-write the rules book for the benefit of the professionals' egos who play this game, I have no problem with that. I am an independent contractor myself, but I still have rules, and regs I need to follow when I go to work. :thumbsup:


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## broken tee (Jan 13, 2008)

Playing the devil's advocate, just keeep in mind that I don't disagree with you but that could be used in an unfair situation. maybe I see a threat to my favorite player in a match and I use my cell to call in a violation that didn't happen. who investgates that? The integrity of the player and the game should be policed by themselves and officials

I think Rick and I got into a pretty healthy discussion on this a while back


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## FrogsHair (Mar 4, 2010)

No problem with the devil's advocate scenario. It's just a game, and no malice intended for sure. Tournament officials do not accept the word of a callers report of a rules violation with out looking at the video showing the alleged violation. The video must show the violation. So if a caller called in a bogus violation, it would not be on the video. Now here is a scenario I have seen take place at the LVI Tournament or what ever it's being called now. Walking along I see a player address his ball. The ball moved due to the player "accidently" touching the ball at his club at address, but the player, his caddy, (and me) are the only ones who saw it. He got a natural birdie on the hole, with out the penalty and recorded it as such. When I asked him about it as he walked by me, he just looked at me, but his caddy remarked that "...all the players do it, it's not a big deal..." No I did not report it, but the fact remains that this player did not police himself. I am sure there are others who do not do it either, if they don't have to. The integrity of the game and those who play it, is not 100% up held by all those playing it. When you put humans and money together, the fact is some of those humans are going cheat. I saw this yesterday. A player hits his tee shot into a lateral water hazard. The ball crossed the hazard line a good 120 yards before it eventually splashed down. Where do you think the player placed his ball? Directly adjacent to where the ball hit the water, and not where it crossed the hazard line in the first place. Did not bother me as I was already 10+ strokes a head of him. I see this all the time. 


broken tee said:


> Playing the devil's advocate, just keeep in mind that I don't disagree with you but that could be used in an unfair situation. maybe I see a threat to my favorite player in a match and I use my cell to call in a violation that didn't happen. who investgates that? The integrity of the player and the game should be policed by themselves and officials
> 
> I think Rick and I got into a pretty healthy discussion on this a while back


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## Fourputt (Nov 18, 2006)

He can only be penalized if the video shows the committee that his action could have influenced the movement of the ball. That means that there has to be some evidence that there was a fair chance that the ball could have hit the loose impediment as it rolled back down. If that isn't the case, or if the video evidence isn't conclusive (see NFL replay rule for explanation ), Then I don't see how they can call a foul here.

Unlike most of the viewer call in cases we've seen, you don't automatically incur a penalty in this situation. If your ball is rolling on the green and you pick up a leaf which is 3 feet off from the line where the ball is headed, then there would be no penalty because your action could not be inferred to have ever influenced the movement of the ball. If the leaf is just a couple of inches from the apparent line, then you would be penalized under Rule 1-2.


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## broken tee (Jan 13, 2008)

FrogsHair said:


> No problem with the devil's advocate scenario. It's just a game, and no malice intended for sure. Tournament officials do not accept the word of a callers report of a rules violation with out looking at the video showing the alleged violation. The video must show the violation. So if a caller called in a bogus violation, it would not be on the video. Now here is a scenario I have seen take place at the LVI Tournament or what ever it's being called now. Walking along I see a player address his ball. The ball moved due to the player "accidently" touching the ball at his club at address, but the player, his caddy, (and me) are the only ones who saw it. He got a natural birdie on the hole, with out the penalty and recorded it as such. When I asked him about it as he walked by me, he just looked at me, but his caddy remarked that "...all the players do it, it's not a big deal..." No I did not report it, but the fact remains that this player did not police himself. I am sure there are others who do not do it either, if they don't have to. The integrity of the game and those who play it, is not 100% up held by all those playing it. When you put humans and money together, the fact is some of those humans are going cheat. I saw this yesterday. A player hits his tee shot into a lateral water hazard. The ball crossed the hazard line a good 120 yards before it eventually splashed down. Where do you think the player placed his ball? Directly adjacent to where the ball hit the water, and not where it crossed the hazard line in the first place. Did not bother me as I was already 10+ strokes a head of him. I see this all the time.


You and Rick are right, no argeument here.


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