Why Golf is Such a Great Game...
Today, Paula Creamer finished her round in a tie for 23rd in the Office Depot Championship held at Trump National in California, and would have collected a check for $11,859. However, after the round Creamer realized that she had switched out her 5 iron for a 3-wood to complete her round on Monday morning.
Under the rules of golf, generally, players are not allowed to switch clubs within the same "round." (However, there are exceptions.) Because of the round being suspended on Sunday night and requiring a Monday finish, the final "round" of golf never ended. So when Paula switched the clubs in her bag, she, I believe, would have been penalized 2 strokes a hole up to 4 total strokes for each hole she played with the new 3-wood. But in this case, Paula already had signed her card and was on her way home. As a result, she was disqualified!! Unfortunately for Paula, this mistake cost her a bit of shopping money and at least travel expenses.
The fact that Paula turned herself in is what makes golf great! Golf is a game of integrity where players consistently call penalties on themselves, when players violate the rules. One example that comes to mind was Jeff Maggert in the Masters a few years ago (when Weir won), and Jeff hit the ball out of the bunker that came back and hit him in the chest. The broadcasters commentating on the event did not realize that the ball had even hit him, and if there were not television cameras allowing slow motion replay, I doubt that anyone would have ever noticed. But Maggert, being honest, called a 2 stroke penalty on himself and again made the rules of the game and integrity of the sport great.
I do not remember the last time a baseball player called a strike on himself when he checked his swing. Or a basketball player who traveled when going to the hoop, stop and call traveling on himself. Or a football player to trapped a catch and when the officials did not blow their whistles stopped and told the referees that he did not catch the ball.
Call it what you want, but Creamer's actions today is what makes me love this game.
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I woke up on Sunday, got my paper, and was bombarded with countless articles about how the AMEX comes to San Fran this week. All week, I'll get to hear about the magnificent design of Harding (I have to admit it is nice, but not one of my top 10 in the Bay Area), and how it is in perfect shape (I'll argue against this one forever). When I first took up golf a few years ago (OK...more like 7), I played Harding many times. Graffiti everywhere, bumpy horrible greens, no sand in the traps, and fairways that looked like an experiment to see which weed could beat out all others. Amazing that they have a PGA tournament there now. But the traps are not uniform (some soft, some hard), the fairways still have multiple types of grasses, but the greens are fantastic (and completely new). They took two par 5s and converted them to par 4s. No biggie to the pros. I'm predicting a low score will win. 20 under minimum. And it won't be a blow-out. Yes, they have grown out the rough and cut in the fairways (which drove me crazy last week since my driver was not on, but as a 3 handicap, I shouldn't be able to shoot close to par from where the pros are playing), but the pros should tear the course apart. Only two things may change this. None of the pros will have played the course in its new glory, and it may take a few rounds to get used to the course, and the gun range across the lake will startle quite a few pros on their backswing (you get used to it as a local).
Paula Creamers stock just went up in my book. If I was a corporate P.R. person, I would be calling her agent and asking about endorsement deals.
I remember seeing a similar thing with Tiger fairly early in his career. He was under a tree and thought he could hit the shot without being hindered. On his backswing he clips a branch which broke off and it startled him so he stopped his swing. If he would have continued the swing, no penalty but since he stopped, he improved his lie. Within seconds he called the penalty on himself. It took the commentators a few minues to figure out what was going on.
Creamer took it one step further, clearly nobody would have ever known about the infraction but she still calls it on herself. Way to go Paula.
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