Reply To: WA and amateur golf observations

[Dale Craig]

Rick, I cannot recall how many times I’ve seen guys move their marked ball on the green incorrectly. It usually goes 1 of 2 ways. First way is the ball is on the green and a fellow player asks them to make the mark either to the left or the right of where the ball lies. They come up to the ball and place their putter head next to the ball and place the mark at the end of the putter head (This is wrong). Instead of marking the ball with the marker and then moving the mark out of the line requested the distance of the putter head. In other words mark, measure, move, remark. The other less frequent mistake is they have marked their ball and the player asks them to move their mark. so, they go up and replace the ball and basically do what I previously described instead of just moving the already marked ball. I also tell them they should pick out something beyond the line (eg: a tree or other fixed object) they plan on moving to so they maintain the best possible alignment for replacing the mark back in it’s original position.
As far as Rahm, it sure looked to me liked he placed the ball back in a different position than it originally laid. I hate this video ruling analysis that keeps going on. To me it is up the the player and their opponent(s) to make the call, not someone watching at home. I can honestly see the Rahm issue being an honest mistake. We are all used to marking behind the ball and in this case he had to mark on the side and may have forgotten how he had originally marked. Regardless and for consistency sake he should have been penalized in this case, as it sure appeared to me that the ball was not replaced correctly. If this had happened in the USA he may have but maybe the Euros are more forgiving. 🙂 The bottom line is the ball needs to be placed in the exact same place as it originally lay prior to marking position.