Costly penalty a lesson for Johnson

GOLF: DUSTIN JOHNSON is making a name for himself on tour, just not the way he'd want to be doing so. He's become the fall guy, the player who, for one reason or another, trips over himself in the majors. On Sunday, at Whistling Straits, the eminently likeable American left the US PGA Championship without the Wanamaker Trophy but probably generated an even greater awareness than the eventual winner Martin Kaymer.

Now, everyone knows Dustin Johnson. Did he merit sympathy, or was it an act of stupidity for his actions on the 18th hole – where he incurred a two-stroke penalty for grounding his club in a waste bunker to the right of the fairway – which lost him a place in the play-offs? With one rub of the top of his pencil, Johnson erased the original bogey five on his scorecard and replaced it with a triple bogey seven. He moved from tied-first and a play-off place down to tied-fifth.

He had showered and left the course before Kaymer and Bubba Watson completed the first hole of the play-off.

Johnson’s punishment was arguably the cruellest handed down to a player since the disqualification of Roberto di Vicenzo who signed for an incorrect higher score in the 1968 US Masters when victory went to Bob Goalby.

But, should Johnson – in this instance – have known better? Should his caddie have known?

After all, the PGA of America Rules Committee had posted a “Supplementary Rules of Play” notice prominently in the players’ locker room. The list comprised of five rulings applicable to the championship at Whistling Straits and the first rule (see panel) specified that each of the 1,200-plus bunkers on the course were in play.

In golf, rules are rules. And ignorance of the rules is no defence for breaking them, inadvertently or not. Johnson – who had carried a three-shot lead into the final round of the US Open only to finish with an 82, the highest score from a leader since Fred McLeod shot 83 at Chicago Golf Club in 1911 – held a one-stroke lead standing on the 18th tee in regulation before splaying his tee shot into the galleries lining the right of the final fairway.

Remarkably, Johnson had not looked at the notice posted in the locker-room. “I only look at it if I have a reason to, and I didn’t see I had a reason to,” was his too honest assessment. In fairness, the area where his ball came to rest didn’t look like a bunker.

As Johnson afterwards remarked, “I just thought I was on a piece of dirt that the crowd had trampled down. I never thought I was in a sand trap. It never once crossed my mind that I was in a bunker. Obviously I know the Rules of Golf, and I can’t ground my club in a bunker . . . maybe I should have looked to the rule sheet a little harder.”

Although Johnson had the crowd’s sympathy – there was no grey area in the decision making.

Nick Watney, his playing partner who suffered a final-round collapse, was also ignorant of the ruling. “Honestly, I don’t think anyone reads the sheets. I mean, we’ve played in hundreds of tournaments, we get a sheet every week.”

On this occasion, it was a harsh lesson learned for Johnson – and, in fairness, he never once blamed the officials or the rules and took his punishment.

Mark Wilson, a rules official with the PGA of America, described Johnson’s reactions as being that of “a gentleman”, but explained: “I think the golf course is obviously unique, but the one thing true about the game, a principle of the game, is to play the ball as it lies and play the course as you find it . . . this is a unique course with unique characteristics and the dilemma is that it is even harder to say some of these are not bunkers and some of them are because, then, how do you define those? And then a player would be essentially treading on thin ice almost every time he entered a sandy area.”

Wilson actually reviewed the notice posted in the locker room with Johnson after his round and pointed out “that it was one of the reasons we placed it as item one on the rules sheet so if players didn’t get any farther, that they would have a chance to do that”.

Johnson wasn’t the first player to fall foul of the rule. In the 2004 US PGA, Stuart Appleby got a four-stroke penalty after driving into similar terrain down by the 16th hole where he firstly removed twigs and then ground his club in believing he was in a waste area.

Johnson at least secured a place on the US team for the Ryder Cup in October but, as he left the clubhouse with the play-off still in play, that was probably small comfort.

Notice displayed in the players' locker room

Supplementary Rules of Play 1

Bunkers: All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked. This will mean that many bunkers positioned outside of the ropes, as well as some areas of bunkers inside the ropes, close to the rope line, will likely include numerous footprints, heel prints and tire tracks during the play of the Championship. Such irregularities of surface are a part of the game and no free relief will be available from these conditions.

Note 1: The sand area in front, left and behind number 15 green in the lateral water hazard is NOT a bunker (do not move stones).

Note 2: Where necessary, blue dots define the margin of a bunker.