Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Hurts Golf more than Wie

The disqualification of Michelle Wie this past Sunday has been widely reported as being bad news for Wie... but in my opinion this is much worse for the game of Golf.

According to reports, she dropped her ball about one foot too close to the hole, after a bad lie. Even the Sports Illustrated reporter who reported the infraction stated that he felt she had been "hasty" rather than feeling that she had in any way intended to "cheat."

If she had understood that the drop was closer to the hole, she should have added 2 strokes to her score (giving her 76 instead of 74). Her disqualification was for signing her score card without these two strokes.

Disqualify? Why not just add the two strokes, and re-determine the rankings based on her new score of 76? If all are in agreement that she did not intentionally cheat, that this was merely an error, why punish her in this way?

In my opinion, Professional Golf comes off as ridiculous in this dispute. After playing for days, to disqualify a player for a misjudgement that all would regard as difficult to be sure about, makes Golf look like a game for accountants, not for athletes. No offense to accountants intended.

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