Grant Moir, Director of Rules at The R&A explains a recent ruling that occurred on the DP World Tour.
One phrase we often use during our Rules seminars for aspiring referees is “there are two types of referees, those who have made mistakes and those who are going to make mistakes”. As with all other sports, referees are human and can get it wrong from time to time, and in golf, it is then a matter for the Committee as a whole to work out how best to handle the incorrect ruling.Such a situation arose at the recent Open de France at Le Golf National and, as happens from time to time, I received a call from Mark Litton, Chief Referee on the DP World Tour. If the Tour staff call between Thursday and Sunday you tend to know that it is not a social call, and on this occasion it was in relation to a ruling with Thomas Pieters.Mark was calling from the TV “truck” as he was watching footage of an incident involving Pieters where he had commenced his downswing for a putt, but he had been distracted and had tried to stop his swing before the putter reached the ball. Unfortunately, he had failed to do so, and the putter had struck the ball and moved it a few feet. Under the definition of “stroke”, a stroke is made when the player has begun the forward movement of the club to strike the ball. But, if the player decides during the downswing not to strike the ball and avoids doing so by deliberately stopping the clubhead before it reaches the ball or, if unable to stop, by deliberately missing the ball, then a stroke has not been made. In Pieters’ case, while he had tried to stop making the stroke, by hitting the ball he had failed to do so, and therefore a stroke had been made.The real difficulty occurred when, having called in the referee, there was a misunderstanding as to what had occurred and the referee incorrectly ruled that the player had not made a stroke, and that he had accidentally moved the ball. The referee instructed the player to replace the ball, and as the incident occurred on the putting green, advised that there was no penalty under Rule 13.1d(1). By the time Mark had been alerted to the incident, Pieters had completed the hole and was continuing his round. One of the first things the Rules Team at The R&A will look to establish when we receive a call like this is how much time we have to consider the ruling. Especially when it is an unusual situation, we don’t always have the answer straight away, and knowing that there is a little bit of time to think things over can be very helpful. Mark and I had a brief chat about the situation and he undertook to send me the footage of the incident, and I asked for a little time to review the section in the Official Guide that provides guidance on how to handle wrong rulings by referees in stroke play (Section 6C(11)).I watched the video, and confirmed that a stroke had been made, meaning that this was not an accidental movement of the ball and that Rule 13.1d did not apply. I then consulted the Official Guide, and found the part of Section 6C(11) which deals with the situation where a player in stroke play is incorrectly advised that a stroke does not count. This guidance provides that where a referee in stroke play incorrectly advises a player that their stroke does not count and to play again without penalty, the ruling stands and the player's score with the replayed stroke is the player's score for the hole.This was the closest guidance available for what had happened. Arguably Pieters’ case was slightly different in that the referee didn’t say the stroke didn’t count, but that a stroke had not been made. So, as I often do, I ran the query past my colleagues in the Rules Team, and we agreed that it would be the correct course of action to apply this guidance to the Pieters situation.A call back to Mark followed, where I explained our thinking, and independently he had reached the same conclusion that the initial stroke would not be counted as the referee had, in effect, cancelled it, so the player’s score for the hole would be as he had played following the ruling. Despite there being no need to adjust Pieters’ score for the hole, Mark wanted to meet with Pieters at the end of the round to explain the situation. The main reason for this was to make sure that Pieters would know what the correct outcome should have been, should such an unusual situation happen again in the future.
