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Gay's wait was déjà vu
Posted: Monday March 13, 2000 12:35 PM
Brian Gay and Johnny Miller should've known better. Where was Lee Janzen when they needed him at the Honda Classic? He knows the rule. Janzen once committed the same mistake Gay made last weekend on the 71st hole of the Honda Classic -- waiting too long for a putt to fall -- only with more severe consequences. Janzen signed his scorecard right away and left. He was disqualified the next morning for having signed for an incorrect score. It was a well-publicized error by a two-time U.S. Open champion, especially when it later helped keep him off the U.S. Presidents Cup team. Janzen's gaffe came in the first round of the 1998 World Series of Golf at Firestone Country Club, a no-cut event. If he had simply finished around 25th in the 44-man field, he would have earned enough points to make the Presidents Cup squad. Instead, he finished 13th on the points list and was not selected as a captain's choice. In Janzen's defense, the rule had been modified since the last time it got any publicity -- the 1985 U.S. Open, when Denis Watson drew a two-shot penalty for waiting too long for a putt to fall and wound up finishing one stroke behind champion Andy North -- and practically no one knew details of the update. After Janzen, however, everyone knew the rule. Or so we thought. It was obvious that Gay, a fledgling Tour player, didn't know it. Incredibly, perhaps inexcusably, neither did NBC's Miller and Dan Hicks. Here's what happened, in case you missed it: Gay's birdie putt on the 71st hole teetered on the edge of the cup. Gay walked up, looked at it a few times, made a hand motion to indicate that the ball was still moving, and finally watched it fall in. He picked the ball out of the cup, confident he had just tied Dudley Hart for the tournament lead. Miller is the best golf commentator on TV, without question, and he gets credit for raising the issue of whether Gay's actions were within the rules. However, during several subsequent replays, Miller noted that Gay thought the ball was still moving, and he concluded that because you can't strike a moving ball, Gay had acted correctly. Miller was wrong. The rule is that after a reasonable amount of time to reach your ball, you can wait 10 seconds. After 10 seconds, whether the ball is moving or not, it is considered at rest. Miller did know something about a 10-second rule. He counted to 10 on another replay, which made it clear that, at best, Gay's moves were marginally within the rules. Miller counted slowly and had to hang on to the 10th beat to get Gay in under the deadline. After several replays, the NBC crew incorrectly decided that Gay's putt probably was good while pointing out that it would surely be reviewed by rules officials after the round. When Gay's putt was reviewed after the tournament was over, NBC was slow on the uptake. When Gay was shown with PGA Tour official Slugger White in the TV booth watching the replay, it was immediately apparent from the shocked look on Gay's face and the tone of White's comments that the ruling would go against Gay. When NBC finally comprehended the rule and put a stopwatch on Gay during yet another replay, its clock revealed that 16 seconds elapsed from the time Gay arrived at his ball until it dropped. That made it a clear rules violation. If anyone in the TV booth had known the rules, they could've timed Gay on the replay right then. So all the drama NBC created about Gay having to make a par on the last hole to force a playoff was false. He was actually one stroke behind and needed to make birdie. The mistake cost Gay $88,933 -- the one-stroke penalty dropped him from a tie for second to a tie for fourth. If Miller had been on his game the way he usually is, he would have spotted the infraction when it occurred and nailed it right away. Instead, Gay and NBC learned the rule the hard way ... just like Janzen did. Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle is a regular contributor to the magazine's Golf Plus edition. Click here to send a question to his Golf Mailbag.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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