Shambolic, farcical, incompetent? Funnily enough, the rantings and ravings that accompanied the mind-mangling conclusion to the US Open were similar to the mutterings of my aghast fellow diners in a Spanish restaurant as I slurped, sooked and slootered my way through a seafood paella while holidaying in the sun. Tentacles here, crab pincers there, clams flying goodness knows where? Come the end of this fumbling, fishy fiasco, your correspondent reeked like Captain Birdseye’s semmit.
The stink kicked up at Oakmont, meanwhile, was about as fragrant as a prawn’s oxter. It was supposed to be a showpiece occasion as the second major of the season drew to a fascinating finale. Instead, confusion and controversy reigned.
Just a few weeks ago, golf’s image took something of a pounding when the vote on allowing women to join the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers failed to drum up the required majority. On Sunday night, the face of the game took another bruising dunt as the palaver of USGA officials penalising Dustin Johnson made for a quite bewildering, yet ghoulishly captivating, denouement.
To those casual observers peering on from the outside, the events over the last month have probably made golf look about as appealing as the Elephant Man with a bad cold. If it’s not out of touch and backward, then it’s head-scratchingly unfathomable. In his quest for that first major title, Johnson played the last few holes unsure what his actual score was. Those trying to nab the crown didn’t know either. The USGA’s slogan ‘for the good of the game’ would have faltered on the first paragraph of the Trade Descriptions Act.
Having been initially told by Mark Newell, the rules official, that he would receive no penalty for his ball moving slightly on the fifth green after a couple of practice wafts, Johnson was informed on the 12th that he may receive a one shot penalty at the end of his round under rule 18.2: ball at rest moved. That warning came from Thomas Pagel, the USGA’s senior director of rules, and his colleague, Jeff Hall, who had video footage brought to their attention. They felt there was a violation and they felt a need to question Newell’s original decision and the integrity and testimony of Johnson and his playing partner, Lee Westwood. It was a judgement call but one that brought damning judgement.
In between that, Johnson took advantage of the game’s rules when he was allowed a free ‘line of sight’ drop when he missed the fairway on the 10th because of a television tower. He eventually hit his approach over the tower anyway and saved his par. In both reading and application, the rules of golf, with all their intricacies and complexities, can toss up some eye-wateringly befuddling instances.
Coming down the closing stretch in a major, you’d expect a bit of clarity and common sense not clouded uncertainty. The shuddering scenario, of course, was that Johnson could have completed the 72nd hole thinking he’d won, or at least be in a play-off, but instead gets handed a penalty which scuppers all of that. Mercifully, the 31-year-old managed to fashion an advantage which ensured the penalty he eventually received had no impact. The way he finished the job off – launching a 6-iron into a few feet and knocking in the birdie putt for a three-stroke triumph – was how a major championship should be won and remembered for. As that old insurance advert used to say, ‘we won’t make a drama out of a crisis’, and Johnson didn’t. Despite his previous mental meltdowns, Johnson's shrugging nonchalance to adversity probably helped him keep his head while many would have lost theirs. For a spell, you feared that this would be another major championship mishap. On the final hole of the 2010 US PGA Championship at Whistling Straits, Johnson grounded his club in a bunker – there were over 1200 designated traps that week – and was given a two-shot penalty that cost him a place in the play-off. In last year’s US Open at Chambers Bay, he walked on to the last with an eagle putt from 15-feet to win but three-stabbed and lost to Jordan Spieth.
Sunday provided redemption for Johnson. The USGA high command, meanwhile, were let off the hook but the hostility towards them from across the golfing spectrum will linger.
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