Forget the outside noise, Johnson still shined

Dustin Johnson was the best golfer on the planet this past week and captured his first major championship. Unfortunately, all I keep hearing about is the terrible ruling he had to endure on the final round. From all the talk I’ve heard, I think I’m in the minority here. But I have to say, I believe Johnson was correctly penalized for his ball moving and I think we need to stop criticizing the USGA and celebrate the week that was.

To quickly revisit the incident:

On the fifth green of the final round, Johnson had a short (5 foot?) putt for par. He took two practice strokes right next to the ball. He had his putter pressed against the ground. He moved in to address the ball, and the ball moved off its axis.

Was this a rules-infraction?

In the past — and this is an important point to understand — if a player did anything near his or her ball and the ball moved, it was a one- stroke penalty. Twice growing up I incurred penalties from this exact rule. I remember the one time I was on hardpan and I wanted to feel how firm the ground was so I took a practice swing, hit the ground and the reverberation apparently moved the ball. I did something near my ball. The ball moved. Penalty.

Unfortunately for the USGA, a recent change to this rule has opened the door to “other” outside influences. Basically what happened was a Tour player near the top of the leaderboard on a Sunday afternoon addressed his putt and there was a gust of wind. The wind clearly moved the ball. But, because the player had addressed the ball, there was no wiggle room. Penalty. A short time later, the rules guys decided this was unfair so they changed the rule to allow for some discretion when outside influences cause the ball to move. Keep that in mind.

Back to Johnson. He took practice swings. His ball moved. So, unless there was some outside influence (read: wind gust), that should be a one-shot penalty. It’s not a discussion. And it certainly has nothing to do with “intent.”

I keep hearing this word when people try to defend Johnson: “intent.” There seems to be an argument that it’s not a penalty because he didn’t intend to move his ball. Well of course he didn’t intend to move his ball. That’s what happens when you hit your actual shot. This penalty arises when you don’t intend to move your ball, but you do. That’s exactly what this rule addresses.

In fact, most penalties on the course come from unintended actions. Have you ever heard someone say, “I shouldn’t get that penalty for hitting my cart because I didn’t intend to do that?” Or, “I shouldn’t get that penalty for knocking that branch down in my practice swing because I didn’t intend to do that?” Or even, “I shouldn’t get that penalty for hitting it OB because I intended to hit the fairway?”

Come on now. Rules are meant to penalize players for their unintended shots or actions.

Back to Johnson. The ball moved on No. 5. The officials reviewed the tape for an hour or so and determined there was a possible violation. But because of the rule change allowing for “outside influences,” they had to ask Johnson directly if something else could have moved the ball. There’s no way of knowing this for certain, but I do believe that had Johnson said there was a wind gust that caused the ball to move, the penalty wouldn’t have been called. However, when asked, Johnson couldn’t identify any outside influence that could have caused the ball to move.

Here are the facts: Johnson took a practice swing. The ball moved. They asked him point-blank if any outside influence cause the ball to move? He said no. In my mind, that’s clearly a one-shot penalty.

The only possible critique I could have against the USGA is that it didn’t just call the penalty on Johnson right there on the 12th tee and avoid the whole will it-or-won’t-it confusion for the last six holes.

Johnson was the best player in the world last week and deserved to win his first major. Let’s focus on that and stop criticizing the USGA. It put on a world-class event on an arguably perfect golf course and clearly identified the world’s best player. It’s not a negative that it also enforced its rules during the process.

Jonah Karzmer is a former golf professional who writes a Sunday golf column for The Vindicator. In his spare time he sells commercial insurance and loves getting feedback on his weekly columns via email at Jonah@thekarzmerinsurance.com.