No Laying Up - Golf Podcast - 1123: Infamous Rules Controversies

Episode Date: February 26, 2026

Soly, Neil and Tron have searched far and wide for rules controversies from recent, and not so recent, golf history.  Enjoy this look at some of our favorites including Tiger’s drop on 15 at Augusta in 2013 as well as some dust ups involving the Walrus, Monty, Arnie and Brooks. Plus - of course - TC’s extensive list of other possible infractions we’ll save for another day. Timestamps 0:00 - Intro 5:10 - Tiger’s drop at the 2013 Masters 34:15 - 1987 Craig Stadler TowelGate 1:01:30 - Monty’s Jakarta incident 1:13:05 - Arnie at the 1958 Masters 1:34:45 - Brooks at the 2023 Masters Show Notes: Golf Digest Video on the 2013 Tiger Drop Join us in our support of the Evans Scholars Foundation: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://nolayingup.com/esf⁠ Support our Sponsors: Titleist Rhoback Lagoon If you enjoyed this episode, consider joining⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ The Nest⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: No Laying Up’s community of avid golfers. Nest members help us maintain our light commercial interruptions (3 minutes of ads per 90 minutes of content) and receive access to exclusive content, discounts in the pro shop, and an annual member gift. It’s a $90 annual membership, and you can sign up or learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠nolayingup.com/join⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Newsletter here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://newsletter.nolayingup.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the No Laying Up Podcast channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@NoLayingUpPodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the no laying up podcast. Sala here,

join in person in port. We got a couple in person podcasts we're going to be recording this week. Sitting to my left, Mr. Icarito, down from the north. You escape the snowstorm. You're here with us.

Hello, Neil. I just got out more snow this morning. Hey, which Elchapel, Hanchard. Oh, thank you. Good to see you. T.C. first time seeing the office.

I'm loving what I'm seeing. Thank you. Very nice. Very good vibe in here. Thank you. Glad the friendly skies were extra friendly yesterday. They were. One hour delay.

No, no. Impressed with Newark's snow removal strategy. Airport. Multiple. Multiple. Multiple times a free ad for a different company that is not the title sponsor of the no laying up podcast. The title sponsor of the no laying up podcast is, of course,

our friends at Titles. We are going to be talking today about some rules controversies. This is not necessarily part of a series that we've done, but we've really, really, really enjoyed, I think doing a bunch of deep dive episodes. We each have different topics that we're going to dive into. One rule you're probably all familiar with. You can only have 14 clubs in your bag at a time.

I also learned in some of my research, the rules of golf have changed over the years. I was deep in the rule book last night. Not only have they changed, the number of the rule has changed. You know, 13 becomes eight, three, all kinds of stuff with the modernization of the rule. Sorry, I interrupted your ad. That's quite all right.

You want to make sure that each of those 14 clubs, those serves a specific purpose and works with the rest of your setup when you go tee it up. Easiest way to make sure you are dialed with all 14 clubs is to go get fit. You could go find out that you have multiple clubs that go the same distance or that your longest iron is flying too low and it doesn't hold the greens consistently. Or you've been playing maybe the opposite lob wedge grind that you should be playing. There's all kinds of examples. That's something that happened. You fall in love with a T-grine and now you're in a K-grind because the wear pattern on your wedge is on the leading edge instead of the trailing edge. That happens.

You could also change your posture to dress, which means maybe you should reset the driver. I don't know. Maybe both of those things happened in January, TC. Me at TPI, yes. I had to change iron shafts and go lighter because I'm a little slower than I used to be. I also. I'm lighter too. I was saying like, hey, you know, I'm hitting the driver poorly, but like that's me.

and they're like, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on. Like, let's look into why it might be something with shaft. Sure enough, a shaft change later, and I was hitting the ball straight again. So go get fit. Spending time with the professional fitter is one of the easiest ways to lower your scores. Go to tidalist.com to find a fitting near you. Guys, what was your, you want to talk of philosophy here? We each did a little separate deep dives into some rule stuff.

We each going to tell some stories, dive back into some history. A little, where did your mind go? When we started talking about, like, rules, controversies, rules scandals maybe some scandalous stuff in there where did your brain go and how did you end up with where you landed my brain immediately went to pee that's what but uh allegedly yeah we're not going there because uh just you know there's there's there's there's libel laws there's slander laws allegedly all alleged there's larry claim and we are here in the great state of florida right so we're not going there we're not doing that today i was thinking scandal

so when i sat down to do my research i was thinking it would be a kerfluff maybe something at the Open Championship, grounding of clubs in places you shouldn't ground them. But it actually, I ended up in a vastly different place with something that I didn't even know about. But I love my selection. I'm pumped about it. I'm glad to hear that.

I was all over the place. I started with Dustin Johnson, you know, at the PGA championship. Rounding of clubs. It was Dustin Johnson at the U.S. Open. I ended up on some master stuff. And I ended up settling on, I'm going to do three dives. We're only going to start with the first one here.

Three dives of different depth here. But it's three examples of Augusta, what I would say call playing God. Augusta kind of making up, not making up their rules, but ruling in a way that maybe only Augusta could get away with. A little thumb on the scale action. And it's all of them are gray.

All of them are like, hey, wait, like by the letter of the law, did they get it right? or can they make a legal case if they wanted to of how they got it right? You could, but you can poke holes in all of them. I thought I was going to have Tiananong Guan on this one as well. I might have flipped on that one. I think he deserved to get penalized.

Yeah, you said he took five minutes. Allegedly took five minutes or so to hit a shot on 16 or 17. I don't know. I dove into that one enough to say, like, all right, I think they got that one right. All right. So I'm going to, of course, start us with the biggest name in golf of our generation that is Tiger Woods. Okay. I want to flash back to the 2013 Masters. This is not that long ago. Of course, Noling Up actually existed during this time.

We were quote unquote covering our first masters on Twitter. It was a disaster. I went back and looked at some of our tweets. It made absolutely no sense. But it is the source for a lot of this conversation comes from a unbelievably well done 24 Golf Digest YouTube video. It was produced by Jake Powell, voiced by Greg Snedeker, with credit to Alan Shipnooks, the drop in SI. Honestly, I was planning to do a ton of research on this, and it just laid it all out in the YouTube video. So big credit to that.

You should go back and watch that because it's got a lot of great images that go with it as well. But Friday evening of the Masters in 2013, it is 6.33 p.m. Tiger Woods is coming to the 15th hole. He's wearing black pants, a white belt, a white Nike shirt with really bad yellow accents. It's like white on the front,

yellow on the back with a black striked. between it it's it's a it's very indicative of the era uh representative of the era but gosh is it really really tough to look back on just just what 13 years later also that's crazy that's 13 years but tiger do you remember where tiger was ranked at this point 2013 as as he gets gets to the the the 15th hole there rough estimate this was like the the kind of post hank bump right oh bro what what like around in the world where do you think he's ranked is he back to number one Yeah, I'm going to go with him. He is number one in the world.

That's exactly right. He was favored to win the Masters. Not only that, when he gets there on that Friday afternoon, Friday evening, really, he's tied for the lead. Okay. Everyone is watching this life. Like this is Friday evening Masters Golf with Tiger tied for the lead. Like one of the most visible and memorable moments in my golf watching. Yeah, the hydrants in the past.

We're back, baby. We're so back. We are so back. Chipping Yips. Don't worry about it. We're good. It was a blip on the rate. We haven't got the shipping yips yet.

That's that comes later. But like it's, look, he's got 15. Yeah. You know, my bad. We,

uh, you know, 2011 fall off. Of course, we all been happening in 2009. 2010 was random and up and down, all that. But all right,

he had a little hiatus there, but he's back to, he's going to go win some majors. So. Tyfully blows the drive way right off the 15th hole and has to lay up in front of the pond. He's got 87 yards to the far left pin right back into the setting sun. 87 very very important detail important detail here it is a blinding setting sun again that pin all the way on the far left narrowest strip of the of the of the green

and tiger is just dialed in at this point and perhaps two dialed sorry just if i'm trying i'm almost picturing it right now he laid up to the left side so it was like he was not left side he was he was farther on the right okay all right because i remember watching it but i had him in my head i had him on the left like going straight at the pin but you're saying he's over on the right we'll get that there actually because that's somewhat of an important detail not kind of like right center maybe in the fair way so it's the shot and it is just on a B line for the flag it quite literally and it strikes it on the way down as strong as it possibly can and ricochets back into the left into the pond shout

the JFK just a massive groan in the gal I mean just a roar in the gallery complete shock from everyone Faradies in shock. All the announcers are in shock. It is one of the worst rubber the greens that you could imagine. Didn't remember this part, but apparently there was some controversy about the pins that year. There had been multiple caddies that had brought up the fact that they thought they were about twice as thick as usual. Okay. And they said, you know, even one of them had an anonymous quote of like, I can't imagine what it would be like if a ball hit one of these pins and affected the tournament in a drastic way. I didn't remember that. Isworth noting an Augusta spokesman denied the flag.

were any different. Okay. It's just a potential new supplier of flags. We'll never know. We'll never know. I mean, I'm sure we could do a forensic analysis of flags. This was pre-Bricon, though. I think if Bryson was in the field, we would have had an analysis of the flag.

Lady J could certainly help us out with that. T.C. 13 years ago, I don't know if those, they probably burned all those flags to make sure. No, I'm just talking about the broadcast. Oh, good point. All right, Neil. Rule 26-1 presents three. options for a drop here. Can you tell me what the three options that Tiger has are? Because it's a yellow marked hazard. Yes. Red would be five. I didn't even know that.

Well, well done for you. So it would be you can always play the ball from within a club length that like replay the shot. That you, you started to meander into an interesting territory. It is in this time in 2013. It is from as near of us of a, of a, as nearly as possible to the prior spot. Yeah. Not a club. link later. That is a later change, but you're on the right cent here. You can go to the drop zone if there is one. Correct. I don't know if there was one. There was one. There was one. Okay. Or you can play it where it went in within two club lengths of where it crossed the penalty area. Close. Keeping the margin of where it last crossed a hazard. Yeah. And this is hazard language back then. Yeah. Keeping that point between you and the penalty area.

and going backwards as far as you'd like. So that, I thought that was only on red. No. So you can go on the line into infinity on the way back with where it crossed with the, in line with the flag, with the yellow. Red, he would have been able to drop in theory where it crossed up by the green. Just no closer to the hole within two club links of where it last crossed out hazard. I thought the rule was where crossed on the fairway side of the hazard. That's where a lot of people get confused.

It is, you got the, keeping the point where it last crossed playable land. Yeah. Between you and the hole back as far as possible. So a, maybe a way that Tiger got a little bit confused with this is it is it is not between, like, if he's looking at where he, where he crossed the yellow line from where he hit it. Yeah. He could go back two yards, which is the mistake he's about to make, which you're going to get to. but the margin was actually to the left. Where the ball ricocheted off the flag went into the hazard.

Correct. He should have gone back if he wanted to use that rule. Yes, if he wanted to use that rule. That's why I'm thinking about him on the left side because I remember him replaying the shot from over there. Well, no. He went over to the left side. So he hits the pin, goes in the water,

and he goes over to the left to take a, goes on a walkabout. You could tell he's, you know, he's not very happy about what just happened. But goes over and. looks at the live in the drop area. Yeah. He's exploring his options over there. He said it was too wet. It was grainy over there.

Quickly ruled out that option and returns to where he hit it, where he appears to return to where he hit it. And replays the shot. It hits another six shot. Stuffs it in there and saves six. Crisis averted. However, watching from home, it was funny. One article said that his home in pun. of Idra Beach, which I got really excited later find out it's actually in Charlotte.

Do you remember who is watching at home and who affects a, has a massive downstream effect into what happens here? And I will say it ends very differently than it begins on this part. I don't remember. I'm guessing it was a former pro, which is going to feature into my show and tell as well. It is a former pro by the name of David Eager. Okay. And Eager is watching the coverage.

later on a recording. His wife asks him to go run to the lawn and garden store, get a bunch of potting soil, get some stuff for the plants, be playing in the garden. He presses record on his TV, goes out, and then when he comes back in, he hears something on the audio that says Tiger bounces back from the bogey, and he knew Tiger was playing 14 and 15. So he rewinds to go see what happened and sees Tiger take the drop. And as soon as he sees Tiger take the drop in, 15-Fairway he knows there's a problem. So again, Eager's a former pro. He's also was the USGA's senior director of rules and competition from

1992 to 1995. And he also ran the PJ. It was the PJ Torres vice president of competition from 95 to 96. So not just a former pro. He's a rules guy. He's a rules guy. He's a rule follower. So he's a rule maker.

Yeah. He's going to be, he's going to be the call in guy. He sends a text to Mickey Bradley, who was a PGA tour rules official. Eager knew that he was working at the Masters. Bradley had already wrapped up from the day. He pulled over on the side of the road and called, called Eager back to get the explanation. Bradley forwarded it on to another rules official by the name of your second guess,

not your first guess. Slugger White. Second guess after Slugger. You got a cameo from it. Yeah, we got a cameo. Gamio for when you, right. Hit her Blanco. Mark Russell. Oh, Mark Russell.

Okay. Mark Russell calls the head of the Masters Rules and Competitions Committee, who is, who would that be at this time? So I'm glad you guys don't read it. Fred Ridley? It's Fred Ridley. You're exactly right. So this is all going on while Tiger is still on the course.

And that would the purpose of Eager's urgency was, you didn't get DQ was to make sure it was caught before signing an incorrect card so initial like reaction was like David eager like narct on tiger that's and listen that's always my philosophy as well like that's tcways don't want to call these things in call them out on twitter so that people know about it before they sign their card course of course changed that rule sense well no that this was this was changed prior to this like this was in effect in advance of this so But a potentially important note here, there happens to be a history between Eager and Fred Ridley. Ridley was the 1989 Walker Cup captain and Eager was on the team. Eager conceded a putt of that he would later call on a golf digest interview 10 inches and Ridley admonished him for it. Wow. Would not, was not a fan of conceding that put.

They don't gain another yard. They were not. They were just, that's one example of. They were not a fan of each other. Again, this was eager to golf digest. He did a M-Shod interview in 2013. He said, in 1998, I qualified to play in the U.S. Open at Olympic. The walking official in my group was Fred Ridley.

After Casey Martin, Ed Fryett, and I finished playing the seventh hole, I noticed there was a weight on the 8th T. The seventh T was also empty. So I practiced putting, which is not prohibited at the U.S. Open as it is at the Masters. in the PJ championship and on the PGA tour. As I was stroking the putts, Fred walked over and said practice putting wasn't allowed, and it was a serious

objection because of Ridley happened to be right, it meant I would incur a penalty. I suggested to Ridley that he checked with another official, which he went off to do while I continued to putt. On the T at 8. Continuing to putt is that. Yeah. Yeah. He's like, no, I know the rules better than you do.

Ridley returned to inform me that the practice putting was indeed allowed. A lot of years passed, but when it became obvious he blew past my take on the tiger drop my 1998 opinion of his rules expertise was reinforced in my view ridley's knowledge of the rules of golf was and is suspect wow right so also in that q and a q and a tv viewer calls in and i handled many call-ins myself when i was at the pga tour you consider the source you weigh that person's credibility and knowledge ridley apparently looked at my objection that Tiger's drop wasn't at a point as nearly as possible from where he played his third shot and rejected it.

Fred's comment that it would be splitting hairs on the drop being improper was a stretch to say the least. So I'm kind of zooming around here enough because we know the tiger does not drop the ball as near as possible. Because there's a divot there. There is a divot there. That is what tipped Egrove off when he's watching this. He went back and watched Tiger's third shot, say, okay, there's no divot there. And now when he goes and places the other drop, it is not as near as possible. to that spot.

Near as possible is so abstract in the rulebook. It's like, so should it be? It's changed. I know, but I'm going back in time. Just how that rule was written. Did they want him to drop it like an inch from? Like what is near as pot? Like what is deemed near as possible?

I think it's, all right, if there's not a divot there and you don't truly know where it came from, the rule is like anywhere, as close as you think to where it was is possible. But there was a divot. There was a divot. And so in theory, you should be, you know, three inches away from the, so there's also kind of something that protects you there. If it rolls in, if you drop in it rolls into the divot, that would technically be closer to the hole in all likelihood because the divot would come after the ball.

So you don't have to worry about dropping in your divot, but it's got to be as close as you can to that spot. But you're right. Now they change it to a club length because it was very vague and hard to tell. So he said, Ridley isn't my biggest fan. Eager would later say he wished he hadn't done that and he wrote Fred Ridley an apology on that. So he said that he wished he wouldn't have called out his rules. No, said that he said that he isn't my fan.

I think I have to look that. Or said that he doesn't know the rules of golf very well. I don't think he regret that part. I don't think he regretted that part. Or bring out the story about the putting at the U.S. Open. Can you still practice put at the U.S. Open? That's a good question.

That sounds like he was doing it on the T-box. in the way it's it was written i don't know exactly what what what i don't think you can practice but on the greens but i sound like he was doing it on the t-box but um of no this is the same day that uh uh guant on long was penalized this the same exact friday afternoon fred was all in that one so uh just really yeah i was really busy with this other ruling here today guys i'm sorry guys i got it i got to penalize this teenager all right this teenager of your causing problems. I can't worry about Tiger. Again, so Lange's group was put, put on the clock, so was warned about being out of position. Then they came back and put them on the

clock. Then he got a bad time. And then he like, then he took the whatever time it took on either 16 or 17. So it's like four warnings was like, dude, you got to speed it up. And he got to. Is it true? It was a true. What about China? Yeah. So Tiger finishes his round at 7.10 p.m. And again, Eager said, all right, I'm a credible person that called this in here's what happened here the whole point of me rushing this was you got to talk to tiger before he signs this card and so he expected when tiger finished out on 18 that there would be a slew of green jackets there waiting for him scrum yeah to talk with him they're not there tiger signs for a 71 and then proceeds to go on tv with tom rinaldi he explains how you how do you feel

How do you feel? He went over to the drop zone and, you know, didn't like the lie, didn't like the angle. And then he went back to where I was and actually took two yards further back. Should be farther. I think T.C. Took two yards further back and tried to hit my shot another two yards off of what I felt like I hit. So he incriminates himself. He incriminated himself.

By using the wrong rule. Rule 261 says you must drop as close as possible to the spot where you played the original shot. So even so intent, he's established the intent that he wasn't trying to drop as close to the spot. So there's a couple things that factor here like eager to his eyes saying like that's not as close as possible already. Fredley Ridley judgment call says a, you know, hard to tell on the camera depth, which I think is fair from Ridley a little bit of like, I mean, like we're doing it right. But then Tiger goes on TV and says no, I was going off the fact that they didn't even question that around is it. That is it. That is it. Like eager expecting like let's go talk about this.

Where did you drop this ball? So, yeah, he comes out and says that. And so, like, that evening, the buzz starts. Nance and Farity are doing voiceover work with highlights. And producer Bob Mansbach comes in and says, like, hey, Twitter is a buzz about a rules violation. Some guy at Tron Carter's going nuts online right now. I went, I think I deleted some of these because I went kind of,

I went really hard at the Tiger tracking. While you were deleting tweets. Like way back in the day. Wow, you're incriminating yourself now. You're like tiger. I was so mad at the tiger tracker. We were all texting. Like this was,

we were all going nuts on this night. Like I would love to go find our old text of like, yo, this is really bad. And tiger trackers like, where's the best barbecue place in Augusta right now? Like deal with one of the biggest rules crisis in history of golf right now. Please.

This was pre-nuclear golf. Correct. Nuclear golf would have been all over this. Say what you want about them. They, so they rewatched the footage and Farity immediately. notices it like with when it brought to his attention they immediately notices it they re-record the show with conversation around the drop and then nance calls ridley

and ridley says that he would look into it uh and really comes back to augusta nance just calls ridley on the phone this is according to that golf digest video and really comes back to augusta at midnight to further review the footage and listen to the interview uh the tiger gave so he watched it he listens and he calls steiny and request Tiger to return to the course early to discuss. And Tiger comes back to the course at 8 a.m. To the principal's office. Brandl, not loving what's going on right now.

Is this pre or post Tiger's a really bad drop at the players? This is just a month ahead of it. A month ahead of it. Or a month behind it. No, because it was in May. Players 113. This is the year where Tiger got an F for his year because it was Cavalier with the rules. He had a ball that moved at the BMD.

At the Greenbrier, he took a, something weird. That was like where did it cross Twitter? No. Off the tea. There was where did it cross Twitter? It was at the players. I feel like I remember him hitting a real slicey one off a tea at the Greenbrier. But maybe I'm thinking of them.

Anyways. Sorry. Randall. He had one in some bushes somewhere. It was weird. That was, I think that was BMW. Tiger took, ends up taking a two shot penalty for the illegal drop. 71 has changed to a 73.

This is where. where it's a little muddy here, but it sounds like Augusta just issues a statement on this, and nobody's available for comment. So, like, this gets lobbed out there. Brando's on the air for like five hours that morning, just going ape shit. He said,

is it coming on Tiger Woods to call this penalty on himself to disqualify himself for signing an incorrect scorecard? And then, you know, when the two-shot penalty came out, he said he called on Tiger to withdraw. Augustus, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, because I just want to be clear,

at this time, it was still a disqualification for signing an incorrect scorecard due to Rule 3-3. We'll build up to that. Okay. So Augusta's statement was the subsequent information provided by the player's interview after he had completed play, warrantsed further review and discussion with him this morning. After meeting the player, it was determined he violated Rule 26 and he was assessed a two-stroke penalty. So like, it's just like a perfect first-take situation.

Graham McDowell says like this is a fair ruling. Shane Lowry says it's a joke and anyone else would have been decued. Braynall says, fuck this, fuck this place. Braydell says if he doesn't decue himself, it'll cast a dark shadow over his entire career. Who said that? Brandle. So, but this is where in retrospect, Eager saved Tiger.

And if he had not called it in, Augusta could not have used Rule 33-7. which is the rule that somebody can't be decued via a call-in. So basically, like, they're saying the Eager's call-in, identifying the rules violation, was kind of their safety net to be able to not disqualify him. Okay. That's interesting. That'll be interesting when I get to my rule, because that's a, God, that's crazy.

It's also worth noting that Eager agreed that he believed that Ridley was correct in invoking 33. So like eager agreed with with the ultimate ruling of this didn't agree with the process, but like using that as as to not DQ Tiger. Rick Riley talked about it on ESP. I mean, there's a there's a great roundtable, Andy North, Curtis Strange. This was the Rick Riley mailing it in years of ESPN. Well, it delivers a bit of a banger here. I got to say still had a little bit of a fastball TC.

He absolves Tiger. He comes on ESPN. There's a great roundtable with Paul Azinger, Curtis Strange, Andy North, Scott Van just like trying to break all this down. Because again, no one from Augustus is talking yet. Yeah. So everyone's just on the airway of speculating about all of this. And they go to kind of cutaway to Rick Riley, who absolves Tiger of the C word.

Like he's saying he did not, he was not knowingly breaking a rule when he did it. He says, quote, a cheater off the course. Yes, we know that. A cheater on. No, I'll never believe that. Whoa. So a later Bob Herrick, 2023, uh, SI article says, Brandel's at T-Bones in Augusta when this breaks.

He makes a prediction. Tiger's going to get DQ tomorrow. He took a bad drop and signed that scorecard. Nobody caught it. And Braynald would say, when we showed the highlight on the air live on Friday, I saw where his divot hole was from the first shot and then from the next shot, and it hit me live on the air. Holy cow, he did not drop it as near as possible to his initial spot.

In commercial break, I argued for us to replay it. So I think it's going to be a big deal. I got overruled and sure enough, it blew up overnight. Randall said, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. Yeah. At this time, it was pretty cut and dried to me. He took an illegal drop. He incurred a penalty and he signed a wrong scorecard.

That's a disqualification. Then he implicated himself when he talked about taking the drop a yard or two back from his initial spot. That's a lot that went on there. So it's a braille said we were on at 7 a.m. until about noon and we didn't have the full story at all. We're doing our best to navigate the difficulty of the day. In my mind, that committee okayed something that was not right. Tiger was entitled to have the benefit of that decision. Sorry, Ridley would say in a news conference finally on Saturday.

Tiger was entitled to have the benefit of that decision when he signed his scorecard. And to me, it would have been grossly unfair to Tiger to have disqualified him after our committee had made that decision. So that's, I kind of believe, I probably need just a little bit more hand up from Ridley on that of like there was a call in. We should have talked to him about it. We would have caught this prior. I don't know the rules. So my knowledge of the rules might be suspect per a source. And so that's where I'm like, and this is going to be a theme with another one of mine later,

like, all right, somewhere along the line, somewhere on the Rules Committee of Augusta messed up. And it led to another like kind of decision that kind of makes up for that. But was it the right application of all the rules? I'm not like fully convinced, but in some ways it's the right application of like what's best for the, you know, it's an entertainment they're putting on like a the augusta production you know it might as well be a a drama that they produce every april and it's like dekewing tiger when he's right around the lead you're not good for the drama or we got to find a somebody get in the rulebook overnight and find a way to work great for the drama yeah i mean it would have been better

if he was leading the masters heading into that weekend and so eager would later say again in that golf digest interview i'd characterize the master's performance as a misuse of the resources available to them. I wonder who viewed the video of Tiger's Drop and who agreed with Fred's no problem original ruling. Mark Russell never saw it, but was included as being on board with Fred. Masters doesn't lack rules expertise.

Many are employees of the PGA tour, USGA, PGA of America, European tour, etc. who know rules and how to interpret every situation imaginable. Even if the violation wasn't super obvious, the inclination among good rules officials would have been to talk with Tiger, its Rules 101. this is where I feel like Tiger is like exonerated a little bit on like Tiger shouldn't have had to withdraw or you know it's not his fault for signing the incorrect card he broke the rule I guess you could say it is his fault for applying the yellow correct rule and properly but that's where it's like you got a two shot penalty here yeah somebody called it in and the rules officials messed up like delivering that news to him yes so this was got to remember this was a pre intent based world yeah Again, this is eager continuing.

An invitation from the Masters who serve on its rules committees is coveted among rules officials. When a person officiates at Augusta, there's a strong desire to be invited back. I believe that desire can trump the impulse to offer a differing opinion on something like the Tiger episode. Also, guest officials know the Masters is entitled to make its own decisions. For what it's worth, the Masters is not alone. The USGA, PGA, PGA Tour, R&A, PGA of America, LPGA, tour, and other organizations also make their own decisions. it comes with the territory. Again, the rule is now changed

so you can now drop within a club length. But the three rules for the yellow-lined penalty area in modern golf now are drop within a club length of where you last. You can always replay your shot. That is the replay of the shot. Yes, that's the replay of the shot. There's a drop zone associated with the yellow hazard

and then the far back on the line that it crossed in relation with the play. flag and where it went in. I'm realizing where I made a mistake earlier. You can keep that, you can take that drop, but it has to be within two club links with a yellow line. You can go as far back as you want with the red line. That's what I was.

So you were so proud of me. Eager's probably, eager's probably calling me before we got to this part of the pod. In my tournament in January, I, uh, I sprayed one right and I went like 150 yards back on the same line. Because it was red. Yeah. Yeah.

Because that's, that's the value of the red is that you get that. my mistake that flexibility whereas yellow you got to he should have dropped if he was going to play that rule he should have dropped where it rolled back into the water correct two club lengths on the fairway side of the pond correct okay you're right apologies and yeah please please please phone that in uh if we're gonna have got rid of so many comments uh before i passed over to you neal uh i want to give a shout out uh to this this little subtle dog logo up here in the top left corner deep deep, deep, deep into the layering season. S-E-N as the kids are calling it.

I don't even know if they call it that anymore. And for the NL community, that means rowback is in full rotation. I want to give a shout to a few pieces, two of which I have on right now. You know I got the Hesie hoodie, but the important part for this cool Florida weather, pairing it with the Fulton vest. I just love this. It's a nice piece. I love the feel.

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All right. I talked for a long time. I'm ready for someone else to take the reins. It's perfect setup for me. So I was digging in the research. I thought we'd be focusing on T.C. like Wedge in the sand in the Bahamas, maybe. P.

Or kind of a rogue grounding at the club at the open, potentially some embedded ball situations at Torrey Pines. Not. We are going to Torrey Pines. Okay. Before I do, though, because it's related to Collins, just think about it in any other sport. Like, this isn't part of the rules of golf anymore,

but imagine, like, in the NFL, if after a game was over, it's going to be like, no, he didn't get the first down there. like the fact that first golf you play from the stands or from the gallery and then also like somebody can just call in and I was thinking about it's like do you have to was there a number or an email where where they like a submission box for this stuff can you Google I want to call in a PGA tour rules like because it's just so I don't know where I call yeah like what I realize is like a lot of these rules issues that are scandals that we're talking about they all had this in common until they did away with. with this in what was that uh january 1st 2019 so the nail in the coffin before i get to the one i'm going to talk about the nail in the coffin was lexie thompson the situation at the 2018 a and a inspiration uh she was winning and then a viewer emailed uh a rules official and i don't know it's like was there like rules at you know l pga.com like i don't know who uh emailed in but that that she marked her ball improperly in her saturday round so then in the middle on i think you know i

think on the front nine of Sunday, they come out and tell her, you're getting a two-stroke penalty because we reviewed the footage from yesterday. Oh, like red-handed. Yeah, but we're getting a two-stroke penalty. And then you're getting another two-stroke penalty for signing the incorrect scorecard. So, and then that's the part where it, like, because in the one I'm actually going to do, it's a, it's a DQ. So she, at this point, she just gets a second two-stroke penalty.

So she was two-strokes up. And then she goes, what's what happens? So then she goes down. Which that's what Tiger didn't get. Like Tiger didn't get an extra two shot penalty for, you know, signing the incorrect card. Didn't get decued because of the rule that you brought up, 26. But he also didn't get the extra two strokes for signing the incorrect card, which is why it's, that's the part that is.

Because Ridley doesn't know the rules. Yeah, that wasn't consistent. So anyway, the Lexi Thompson situation, she goes from up to, then she's down to and she battles into a playoff and loses in a playoff. And like waterworks tears. It was like a big, you know, scandal. I remember that was so tough. That was just like. If they all say like clearly cheated. Well, but it was it wasn't like closer. It was like off to the side, wasn't it? And it was just like she was like like so jittery. Yeah, but like the punishment of four shots for that didn't fit like maybe maybe maybe fudged like point 05 of a shot moving the ball a little bit was if it. I know.

If we don't think it was intentional. Then you think about that being a four-stroke penalty by the time it gets, like, reported to her. But the act of doing that in the middle of the tournament, same thing with Dustin Johnson at the U.S. Open. He, you know, his ball moved on the fifth green while he's putting. They come up to him, I think, on the 11th or 12th hole. And they're like, hey, man, we're reviewing this thing that happened on the front nine. So then the whole back nine, nobody knows if he's getting that penalty stroke assessed. So nobody knows what the lead is.

It's crazy. Throughout the whole back nine, a Sunday at the U.S. open. So for viewers to be able to call in an impacted tournament in real time, it's just like, I just want to call that out as like, what a, you know, shout out to Kyle Porter, like, normal sport. Like, what are we doing? Right. So they do away with this finally. Which if you do want to call in, I can't find a number for the rules department. Just call TC. But 904, 285, 3700 is the number. Just PGA 24 HQ. I'm sure you can get an operator there that'll connect you to the rules department. And if not, try 281-33080-804.

So they do away with this rule in January 1st, 2018, which was almost preempting the modernization of the rules when they did the big facelift to the rules of golf in 2019. And they've done away with the two-stroke penalty of signing the incorrect scorecard in the DQ. They just, like, assess the penalty after the fact if there's an issue. Which, I don't know, what do you guys think? Does that make sense?

Yeah, I'm watching this Lexi replay again. and it's so bizarre. Sorry, continue. I know. Well, that's not the one I'm doing. So the one I'm doing, I want to take you guys to Torrey Pines, 1987.

TC, are you familiar with Craig Stadler's Talgate? I am a little bit, actually. So it was during the 1987 Shearshan Lehman Brothers, Andy Williams, San Diego open. Shut up.

Try to say that five times fast. That's the name of the tournament. We are going to do a segment at some point. I got a few, I got a few good ones here. So this is back in the shout out to RIP Lehman Brothers first off. Shout out to Andy Williams, kind of in the Bing Crosby. Like, he used to have tournament hosts, especially out on the West Coast.

Bob Hope. Andy Williams is just gassing up the pro-am out there in 87. So what was the guy's name that punched? It was a Dick Fold. He was the Lehman Brothers guy who punched somebody out, like on the treadmill or whatever. I don't know. Somebody punched him out when he was. Like when they were melting down in 2007.

I just can't get over the name of this event. Do you want to hear my Lehman Brothers story quickly? Sorry. It was 2008. You want to know how I know why? September 15th, 2008 was the first day of my career. And that was the day at KPMG. And that was the day Lehman Brothers collapsed.

And we're supposed to come into the office for training. And we go in and it's just like chaos from the jump. They were supposed to have this whole training organization thing for us. And they just put us in a room while the partners were meeting about other stuff as Lehman Brothers was collapsed. somebody came in and said like we're like hey what's going on and again i was so close about the world and somebody came in like yeah leeman brothers collapsed and i said out loud both of them i didn't know what the leon brothers were the whole family both of them god the carter brothers collapsed oh my god really how did that happen i mean but just

sheershin lehmin brothers andy william san diego open there's just like what a different time in golf so anyway, Stadler's having a week. He's tied for the lead with George Burns after 36 holes at Tori at 13 under par. So on Saturday on the South Course, he drove it under a tree. He drove it under a literal Torrey Pine. And if you guys don't know, Tori Pines are very rare trees. They only exist in that state park where the golf course is. It's there and on, I think, Santa Rosa Island, like off the coast.

So very specific tree. Obviously, it's the logo and the name for Tori Pines. but he drives down to Tori Pine on 14. So to play his next shot, he needed to get down on his knees, and the Walrus wanted to keep his pants clean. So he lays a towel down and to kneel on before he plays a shot. He plays it successfully. He finishes tied for the lead after the third round

and would play with Burns again on Sunday. And then the Walrus ended up finishing fourth, sorry, he finished fourth round Sunday, 18 under par, tied for second place. He's four back of the winner who's George Burns. Sam's dad. George Burns set the then tournament scoring record at 22 under par. Who has a tournament scoring record now at Torrey Pines?

Justin Rose. Justin Rose, 23 under. So that stood since 1987. That was a pretty long scoring record. So I thought that was interesting. Quick aside here, though, I love this lead in from the L.A. Times, Chris Cobbs and his gamer after the tourney. Quote, George Burns, the golfer, is easily distinguishable from George Burns, the comedian.

Burns, the golfer, is the one who often wears long, faces and has a tendency to get really down on himself. His idea of a good time is riding an exercise bike and lifting weights. It's just like, whoa, what a detonation of the winner that lead off that article. So I don't know much about George Burns. So that one just stuck out to me. Another very stupid fact from the Shearshan Lehman Brothers, Andy Williams, San Diego. Open under the provisions, this is from Chris Cobb's article as well.

Under the provisions of a special arrangement, the tournament sponsor was to award a $10,000 treasury certificate to the golfer who posted the low round each day. So if you had the low round of the day, you got a $10,000 treasury certificate. Absolutely. That's the fastest lap thing we were saying. Burns collected all four certificates, which will be worth $200,000 upon maturity in 20 years. Posting a 63 on Thursday, he had the low score in both the first and final rounds. Because there were ties to the low score for the other two days, the bonus certificates were

carried over to the final. Hell yeah, skin style. And he became the sole property of birds. God, I love stuff like that. When asked if he understood the complexities of the treasury coupons, equipped, yeah. I mean, my kids will be going to college. And quote it. So I thought that, I was like, man, what a nice little wrinkle of like,

Levin Brothers trying to activate. What an incredible. What an incredible week for the guy to win all four. Well, and this article goes over. He had a really bad, he won more winning this event that he made the year prior. I think it was like a 500K purse. I think he won 90K. He had a bunch of health issues.

So he had battled back. That's why he was like an exercise freak because he had like and he had some energy issues. I don't know. George Burns. I was kind of like write that down. Maybe we'll go look him up later. So anyway, they come off 18, finishing the round.

Stadler's like he's supposed to be T2. And he went to sign his card. He was informed that someone had called in to report a rules infraction from his round on Saturday. Stadler was told he violated rule 3rd. 13-3 at the time. This is now rule 8.1a. I think the rules, once the rules are in place, they should keep that number. I know. I got really confusing when I started looking them up.

You know, you add new rules or whatever that takes on a new number, and there's certain rules that like there's no more rule 11. No more 10, 4, 5, yeah. Well, it's like, so 13-3 was a quote, of player is entitled to place his feet firmly in taking a stance, but he must not build a stance and laying a towel down on the ground was considered building a stance. We might have to do like a rules pod later this year because it's just like, I don't know,

I actually think it's kind of interesting. So I wanted to do a rules question here to you. We had one ready for the for the live show at Pebble just like put you on the spot. I'm like, all right, Sally out there is going to this happens. What are you going to do? Oh, dude. I, like I said, I feel like I know the rules pretty well. Like I would be quick to call in an official because I wouldn't want to cost my guy anything.

but like from our Atlanta junior golf days like we did those rules seminars like I I try to have a good knowledge of the rules remind me what else we know from here Atlanta junior golf days from you and the rules oh that soliciting club advice the two shot penalty I think that's why that was such a defining and traumatic experience to be called out on the second hole at the country club of Roswell I was like I need to know the rules because stay tuned okay so um he was so then he was disqual he was then disqual he was then disqual the wall race We're back to the Walrus. The Walrus was then disqualified from the event

for signing an incorrect scorecard on Saturday after finishing his round on Sunday. Now, today, rule 3.B, and then parentheses 3, they call it the exception. Prevents disqualification if a player returns a score or a whole lower than the actual due to excluding penalty strokes. They were unaware of before signing the card. Instead of disqualification, the committee will correct the score

by adding the necessary penalty strokes, provided the mistake is identified before the competition closes. That is the now current rule. But so this is where you were talking about Tiger, I'm like, man, Walrus got disqualified, right? And then Lexi, she gets the two stroke penalty for signing the incorrect scorecard. So I'm, I'm thinking they updated that rule. I don't know this. I forget when the TV, the TV call-in rule came in to say like somebody. It's like 2017, I think. No, but that was there prior to Tiger. So this is where it gets interesting as I did some more digging. The penalty and disqualification costs Stadler, $37,33,33 for his T2 finish.

So I started digging in deeper on some sourcing. We got Pete Trenum's golf blog. Anytime you see blogspot.trenumgolfhistory.org. You know, just like an old school like blog that like is from the 1990s. You know you're in for something good. he's got it that someone had telephoned the PGA tour office while Stadler was playing the 17th hole on Sunday stating that a golf rule had been broken after checking a TV replay the PGA tour had to disqualify Stadler so basically they ran a replay of what Stadler had done on Saturday because they were like oh like check out what happened yesterday like how cool is this shot he's on his knees playing under a Tori Pye nobody had caught it until then nobody caught it so this guy calls in so this this caller he wasn't just anyone he was a stupid eager that's why i was laughing about the eager thing it was a philly golf pro

named robert ski regal do you guys know anything about this guy no absolute menace so i look him up so regals born in 1914 in new bloomfield pennsylvania went to west point in lafayette played baseball and football took up golf in college or after college age 23 won the u.s amateur in in 1947 over Johnny Dawson at Pebble Beach, two and one. He played in the Walker Cup, 1947, 1949 for Captain Francis We May, ever heard of him, when undefeated in his four Walker Cup matches. He was a low amateur at the Masters in 1948, T-13. He then turned pro in 1950 at 35, plays an 11 straight Masters.

In 1951, he was tied with Sam Sneed after three rounds for the lead, finished second to Ben Hogan by two strokes. then he stopped playing full-time in 53, he was a head pro at Radner Valley Country Club, and then he was the pro emeritus at Cape May National Golf Club late in life. So I was like, man, this guy's a legend. And then he, so he dies in 94 in 2000,

he dies at age 94 in 2007. And he had this awesome obituary on usGA.com written by this guy, Ken Clavon, on the USGA website. I just want to read this quote because it's sweet. quote, golf lost an irreplaceable link to its past over the weekend, someone who bridged generations of golfers from Francis We May to Tiger Woods. Robert Ski Regal could count,

We May, Bob Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicholas, his friends on the course. Off it, he mingled with the late Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, and to some degree, Bob Hope. Those were just a few of the many souls Regal touched in what he termed in 2007, a full life, end quote. So like one of these, just kind of a ledge. So back to the scandal. So he calls in. Also a guy that calls in rules, rules by the law.

Well, no. It was similar to this. So he, so ski later, and he got his nickname, ski because he, when he was a kiddy strapped, like just wood like two by four to his feet to just like ski down the hill

with his childhood town. He got called ski forever. So ski, this is from Pete Tranom's blog post. Ski later said that the interesting part of this is he had turned on his TV late, Sunday afternoon and saw Stadler playing the shot while kneeling on the towel, which he later figured out was a replay.

So he thought that it was during the round. Like he just turned it on. Same thing with the Tiger story. Because he was a pro, he's like, I was trying to call it in so that he wouldn't sign an incorrect scorecard, but he ends up calling in something that happened on Saturday. So not realizing he's looking at a replay from Saturday, he grabs the telephone and calls the PGA tour, thinking what he had saw had happened in the fourth round. he wanted to make sure Stadler wasn't penalized

before he signed for the wrong score, which would have been two strokes lower than a score with the penalty. Ski was only trying to save Stadler from being disqualified. Same thing. I was just trying to, I was just trying to help. Skiy said that if he had known what he was seen, it had taken place the day before, he never would have made the telephone call

if the tournament officials had not been notified until after Stadler and all the other players and completed the last round, the results of the final. The result would have, been final with no penalty. So if the tournament ends, then it's like, you're good, then you're good. But within the four days of the tournament, that's the crazy part. It's not the round. It's like the four days of the tournament and then you close the books. So the ending of this whole story is poetic. When Ski called, he ended up getting in touch with the like media PR guy. His name's Rick Schlaas for

the at the time, Shershan Lehman brothers, Andy Williams, San Diego. Open. He's the guy that answered the phone call from Ski in a golf digest article from John Stredge. Sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong. Stregie. Stregie, thank you. In 2017, he says, this is a quote from Rick Schloss.

I got a call from a guy on that Sunday that said a player at broken rule. I thought, okay, whatever. You get crazy people calling it all the time about certain things. He goes on to write. Eight years later, in 1995, that Torrey Pine,

that specific tree on 14, died. Stadler, cut it down. Yeah. Schlaas, and his publicity chops taking over noted that Stadler would be in L.A. for the PGA Championship at Riviera Country Club, the one that Elk won. And at Rive. So this is a quote from Schloss. I said to Tom Wilson, the tournament director of what by then was the Buick Invitational of California.

Let's invite Craig. Maybe you'll come back and cut the tree down, Schlaas said. Stadler said, yeah, I'll come down. So we meet in front of the Tori Pines, in front of Tori Pines and have 15 to 20 golf carts to take us out to the 14th Fairway. Torrey Pines ground crew people had gotten the tree ready to go. Stadler whipped out the still chainsaw and cut the tree down. I've got some pictures that we can layer in. Absolutely epic visuals of Craig and the walrus Stadler chopping this tree down

with the steel chainsaw. So a couple other funny old school callings I found in the research. I wanted to call out because we had the Tiger one, Lexi Thompson. But these are both from a 1987 Chicago Tribune piece about the Stadler situation. this opinion piece was just clowning golf of like this is so stupid you guys just disqualified this guy for something that happened yeah i mean it is it's really dumb that's a tough interpretation of the rule too like i don't think it is it's you're building a stance well no you're protecting yourself from the elements you know no but the moisture that would have been

underneath like the golf goes about having people be able to call in like this i'm not going to read this whole opinion piece but it shouted out to two that i didn't know about so a couple years ago and I looked this up, I think it was the 1984 Doral Open. So Andy Beam won the Doral Open by a shot with a shot that TV viewers insisted should have come with a penalty. Bean had knocked some leaves off a limb during a practice back swing. I went and looked it up. He ended up going back to switch clubs and then came back.

And the telephone calls flooded the clubhouse. There was no rules violation they deemed. But Bean was so distressed that anyone would think he cheated that he offered to give back the trophy and the money. Jeez. And then I didn't know this one, but at Pebble Beach in the early 70s, Arnold Palmer,

when he was at the top of his popularity, PV viewers saw him on the 18th T looking down the fairway with binoculars. Callers demanded he be penalized for using artificial assistance. It turns out he was just looking at some protesters on the beach. It's like solid looking at a bird. I thought he was going to be looking at a bird. He was like climate protesters.

environmental protesters on the beach so they they they approached uh palmer's like no it's just looking down at the beach i think he took some some binoculars from some spectators to check out that somebody holding a sign on the beach at pelage i couldn't find any more we know what he was gawking at on the so come on anyway i didn't know about talgate from from the walrus uh your neighbor i know i was thinking like that's over a hundred k in today's dollars and i mean our h-oa's not nothing back there like i'm i'm i'm sure he would have loved to it's just you can buy him a marg at 1810 that they took that that that happened in 87 and all the rules stuff that as i was like looking this up is it all kind of comes from just like people calling in to make it a you know and i guess it's still

it's such they don't you don't call it in but i feel like they have a referee or whoever in inside the moat looking up rules issues right but they those guys are probably paying attention to social media of like oh my god everybody's going nuts about something they saw on pGA tour live somebody you know yeah they got several guys watching so it so viewers are still impacting it in a way but i guess it's a little more controlled now it's so funny how it works too with with golf with the rules of like the rules are sacred you know you got you got to you got to police yourself and you know and then as soon as somebody like calls in something it's like i you're fucking narc man like what do you're like you're trying to you're trying to screw my guy over here it's like it's such an

interesting interesting conundrum oh he's got the lawn the lawn the squad's here It looks like, oh, this is good stuff, T.C. Never fails. Never fails. Every time. I think we'll be okay here. Is that all for yours? That's it.

That's it. Hopefully that was more intel on Talgate than you had previously. All right. Well, we've talked a lot about fitting, right? To start off the show, we talk a ton about how much we obsess over our gear, getting fit for shafts, tweaking the lie angles, making sure it fits our game perfectly. And then most of us will go home and sleep on a completely generic pillow. we bought five years ago, that makes absolutely no sense.

We partnered with Lagoon because the idea is simple. If you custom fit your clubs, why wouldn't you custom fit your pillow? You go to lagoon sleep.com slash NLU. Take a two-minute quiz about how you sleep and they match you to the pillow that actually fits your body type. It's adjustable. You can dial it in exactly like you want. As soon as we tried these things, TC was just like, you said you slept better than you had in four years. Yeah, I'm a big, I'm a very finicky sleeper.

I have a one of the long lagoon pillows it was immediate relief for me are you team otter i'm otter yeah i'm also an otter my neck uh just just generally speaking like i see a chiropractor about once a month four times a week no once a month and then i also have the lagoon travel pillow as well which i've been using on airplanes and just to beef up pillows and hotel rooms in in in an Airbnb's as well, which can be very, very inconsistent. So I did not take one to pebble and I regretted it because I was not sleeping nearly as well as I do at home. So if you're serious about marginal gains, start with the eight hours before the round. Go to lagoonsleep.com slash NLU and use code NLU for 15% off. It's a serious, it's a difference maker. It really is.

I cannot recommend it. So, they're just all over the place. They're just all over the place. Some, some take pride in it, some don't. But yeah, It's truly, you know, I need some, I need some substance there. Well, that was the crazy thing. The Lagoon pillow, it comes with extra foam and extra stuff that you can, you can adjust it up or dose it down. It's crazy. Like, invest in your experience. I think it's money extremely well spent.

Yeah. And they're not very expensive either. So lagoon sleep.com slash NLU. T.C., you're up next. Oh my gosh. All right, guys, this was kind of a journey as far as getting to. I will say also, I totally stole one of TC's ideas. is and the main one he had.

And so I've sent him on a little bit of a journey to find what he was going to deep dive. But the next one I'm going to do, I totally stole from T.C. All good. Disclaimer. All good. Yeah, I was going to, you know, I think about rule stuff. I think about Ted Purdy and Stuart Sink at the, at the heritage back in the day when. Some people might not know exactly what you're talking about.

Tell me more. Some unfinished business. He thinks that's the same level as the Tiger drop. He talks about it so much. I think it's 10 times worse than the tiger drop. Stu Sink just basically cleaning out the back of his, of his, you know,

lie there in one of the native areas, kind of the sandy native area. I thought he hit it on his back swing, and that was kind of more of what happened. Anyway, that's not, that's not what we're doing. Future deep dive.

And then I thought, all right, Gary Player, 1983 Skins game. You guys know anything about it? We did a dive on it. Watson got, super pissed. Yeah, Watson got pissed. They, you know, very contentious. Gary Anderson, the great man

from New York Times wrote, wrote a piece. Joe Day begged him not to run it. Gary Player pulled out a leaf from allegedly. Allegedly pulled out a leaf and it popped back up. So like it wasn't a it was in the ground. It was it was part of a weed. So but we're not doing that either. And And then I looked, all right, Gary Player at the, at the 1974 Open Championship, at Lhythm, should we be doing that? You know, he, his catty rabbit allegedly dropped the ball on the 17th hole after he couldn't find it in some high grass. And somebody has it in a vault somewhere at some point.

Like, God, if that breaks down the line at some point, I would love it. Listen, we can't verify it. Okay. But, all right, what about Gary Player next to the 18th green on the 72nd hole at Lhythm, where he's, you know, hitting a bunch of stuff. sandaway on his back swing after he played it backwards uh we're not going to do that one either i also thought there was some interesting stuff from that one on uh the subtext of the of that tournament should we order some dinner you think this is from the glasgow harold come on hold on this from the

glasgow harold the royal and ancient golf club's decision to make the larger size one point six eight inch golf ball compulsory for the open championship at royal live mansonians from july 10th to 13th has brought sharp reaction from the golf ball manufacturers conference. Quote, the dangers and disadvantages of this decision are frankly, almost incalculable. In my members view, it was surprise and anxiety, said Sandy Spink, the secretary in a letter to the RNA.

The letter also states it would seem a most undesirable precedent and highly dangerous in every way that the championship committee should set aside the rules of golf for the purpose of one event. It has always been our understanding that the RNA rules of golf permit the use of a 1.62 ball unless and until the general meeting of the RNA decides otherwise are restricting the open to the American size ball may well in many people's eyes become simply one more major championship instead of retaining the distinctive character imparted by playing the british ball under british conditions so uh but we're not going to not doing that we're

not doing that one either we're not we're going to talk about monte okay okay and uh i i are either of you familiar with the Jakarta incident. I'm not. I cannot say I am. Okay. This was in Indonesia. In Indonesia. Okay. The Indonesian Open. Okay. This is in March. Moti, Mr. Worldwide. March of 2005. It's got a spice trade or what? As I was as I was digging into this, we have like this, this might have been the peak for like it, you know, internet golf journalism. Like everything you can like you can find everything. It's still up on the original websites. It's. It's. It's not in archives or anything like that. No way back machine. Yeah. So James Corrigan, Lawrence Donagan, John Hopkins, with three guys, like all over this.

The big three. Yeah. Corrigan wrote some of the, you know, follow-ups on it. But Donigan was at the center of this. Sure. texting with Donigan this morning about it. He was like, oh, we should just have on for a phone call because there's so much here. But basically, Monty, Monty was in a bunker. and there was a lightning scare or like a big storm was rolling in and he couldn't get his stance in the bunker

correctly so instead of marking his ball in the bunker before the rain delay for the weather delay he just leaves his ball there okay it goes back out i can't remember if it was i'll read the articles and stuff but goes back out and the ball's not there okay so a legend which I don't even think it's alleged at this point. This is what happened and he admitted to it. He places the ball about 18 inches different from where it was prior, totally different stance, ends up getting it up and down.

And all of this is very much in question because he's joccing to get inside the world top 50 to get into the players, the U.S. Open, all of that stuff. I was going to ask why was he on holiday in Indonesia and decided to play a national open? This was a big, big national open back in the day on the European tour. I hate that it's not anymore, T.C. No, yeah, yeah. So this is, this is Lawrence Donne.

And so this doesn't break for like months afterwards. Okay. This is, this is kind of swept under the rug. So he was going to, he was going to have an awkward stance in the bunker. It was super awkward. But the lake comes, he comes out. And all of a sudden he's got a conveniently easy stance. Correct.

Yeah. That's not great. And it's all on film. Oh. And I guess there was a YouTube video. of it that it was it was up for a while it's no longer up um this is lawrence donnego on wednesday may 11th 2005 in a rebuke unheard of for a generation on the european circuit colin montgomery was yesterday criticized by his fellow professionals over an incident

at a tournament in indonesia earlier this year during which he replaced his ball incorrectly after a rain delay montgomery has apologized since and donated his 24 000 pounds and prize money to charity. Notably, he did not donate his OWGR points. Right. I'm gladly paid my way into the. The Scott was reportedly questioned for half an hour on Tuesday night at a meeting of the Tours Tournament Players Committee, of which Montgomery is a member, along with 12 other senior European pros, like not, not seniors, but like, you know, highly regarded guys, after which a statement was circulated of the 156 players competing in the British Masters at Forest of Arden.

The committee considered the circumstances concerning Colin Montgomery at the Indonesian Open and his attempt to replace the ball in the correct position after a weather delay. They considered thoroughly and at length all the facts. The committee expressed dissatisfaction to Colin over his attempt to replace the ball in the correct position.

George O'Grady was seeking to calm and put to rest a lot of the disquiet amongst the guys. One European tour source described its criticism of the Scott as unusual. It is believed to be the first such to be issued in two decades. Oof. Two people at the meeting described it as, quote, perfectly amicable. It was a good opportunity to put questions to Colin and a good chance for him to give answers.

He explained what had happened and the committee was happy to accept his explanation. Now it sounds like- What is the explanation? I cannot find a good explanation in one of Lawrence's pieces after he said the Scott was mortified after watching video foot. So you've got Monty returning the following day, the ball's been stolen. Under the rules, Montgomery after consulting his playing partners, was then required to estimate the spot where it had been. This he did, although poor officials were then contacted by the Danish golfer Soren Kieldsen and Jerry Norquist, a member of the Asian PGA tour board. Both had been watching TV pictures and expressed concerns that Scott had played his second ball from a different place.

In this event, Montgomery was able to take a stance outside the bunker with his report. placement ball and shipped to 18 inches where he made far. Such a like obvious. Yeah, man. Because I was wondering for a lightning delay, I thought he was coming back like a couple hours later, but you're saying it was overnight. Yeah. And the ball, somebody just took it. The tournament referee Jose Zamora subsequently cleared Montgomery of any breach of the rules. So that we contacted the European Tour's chief referee, great man, the late great man, John Paramour, later reviewed the television footage with the Scott. If I had been there,

at the tournament, I would have penalized him two shots, Paramour said yesterday. In my opinion, you'd not replace the ball close enough to the original spot as the bunker was there to help him as a visual reference. As soon as Colin saw the footage, he was mortified. Oh my. Under European tour rules, once an event has been completed and the results filed, the result stands unless evidence subsequently emerges that a player deliberately broke the rules. There's no suggestion Montgomery's error was anything other than inadvertent. Scott competing at Forest of Arden said yesterday before the statement that he hoped the issue had been put to bed and added, we are a big family out on the tour.

I'm glad that the issue was raised at the committee meeting. As soon as you don't mark your ball and you come back to next morning and it's not there, there's a guesstimate to be made about where your ball was. I guesstimated too far off the realms of where it should have been. Montgomery said he had not marked his ball because he was concerned about being struck by lightning. I always wondered though about like when you mark your ball overnight. like they'd have to re-drag the bunker right like somebody's got to pick the tea up and then put it back in an estimated spot anyways and or in grass if you're in deep rough like how do they see where your tea markers are i've always wondered how that actually works but i mean i feel like you could like if they saw the tea or the the tournament organizer whomever could talk to the superintendent and say hey you got to watch out for this yeah here uh so this this prop so basically monty gets absolutely vilified in that meeting like he gets crushed by some of these you know guys his

senior and Monty is like the tour at this point I know like I want to give Monty the benefit of the doubt I'm not aware of any of this reputationally for him but it's also like did he just think he kind of get away with one and nobody would I mean it's hard to it's hard to go to bed knowing like hey I've got a really awkward I can't even take a stance in this bunker it's like oh I can hit it to 18 inches the next day you kind of know that's kind of why I was looking for some sort of like when i was doing the research on what i was going to present i was it's hard to find other than like p allegedly intent based like you know or mr player as you've been saying where it's like yo this guy is clearly trying to pull one over like the intent there's malice

in his intent the overnight stuff is interesting too like what what if the ball was plugged in the bunker and then like they go and drag the bunker like do you have to plug it back in the bunker yourself the next day i don't know the but also like you know what you know what you're your stance was totally that's that's the part you said he's standing outside the bunker now that's and i guess there's just like zaprooter film there like the you know one versus the other and uh gary i think there was another guy gary evans he was watching it on on tv from his hotel room like he he spoke up and stuff but this is from lawrence he said uh he said here's a beautiful detail for you fast forward a few weeks after i'd written the the story and things were bubbling the

European tour is at Forest of Arden for an event. There's a player meeting on the Monday night. Monty's there. Da-da-da-da-da-da. Next day I hear about the blow-up, but no details. No one is talking. And then I see John Paramore. And I ask him, and he whistress to me, go over to the tournament office and take a look at the player notice board. What a legend, JP was. The tournament office is off-limit to hacks like me, but I go in anyway, and nobody stops me. And there on the notice board is a letter to members. And it's a statement about the previous night's meeting telling members Monty had been officially reprimanded

for his conduct in Jakarta, the first time that that had ever happened on the tour. You gotta remember, Monty was as big as the tour back then. So this pops back up in 2009 at Turnberry. Sandy Lylel just gets up and like just rips the scab right back off. What about when you're cheating in Jakarta?

Basically. Monty? What about the Indonesian Open? basically he was so so sandy lyle was frustrated about being overlooked for the captaincy the rider company so he accused his fellow scott of a form of cheating this is per you and murray and the guardian uh when playing in the 2005 indonesian open in jacarta despite an attempt in an apology yesterday the two-time major winner did little to retract those words a matter which drew a furious reaction from monte georgio grady the european tour head was similarly

unimpressed. The European tour wishes to state that the tournament committee debated the Jakarta situation extensively and made it full statement at the time. We put that to bed. Yeah. Monty said, I had time to digest what Sandy said yesterday and I've decided to say nothing. I don't think his comments warrant comment. I've come here to play golf and I've been hit with this just because he's disappointed not to be made captain. Please don't take it out on me. I know he's disappointed. That's obvious, that's fine. Please don't take it out on me. And it sounds like Sandy is just kind of incapable of like telling a lie or putting a good spin on things. Like he, he was, he was going to get back up, apologize, and he just doubled right back down. So she's,

which is sick. So Monty at this point was like hovering around 53, 54, 55 in the IWGR. He plays really well end of the year, gets up into the top 10. So the rankings aren't really an issue anymore and then you know 2006 obviously almost wins the US open and wingfoot and stuff but the Jakarta incident and I just love this I love the European tour in that they're just like they're just it's like men dealing with these things right and it's not like they they will use the press to their advantage or they will they will play politics with the press. The press is so different over there yeah yeah and but also the press has different libel laws over there too which are much stricter and more, you know, more, much more enforceable too.

So John Hopkins wrote something about basically like creating a tribunal, like an independent inquiry into this specific incident. Like that's how seriously they took this stuff. So. Jesus. Yeah. There you have. You just want another crack at those majors. All right.

Well, I've got a couple more here of, it'll be a little shorter than my first one of, of Augusta related incidents. How much do you guys actually know about the 1958 Masters? Is this the Ken Venturi, Arnie here? This is the Ken Venturi, Arnie. I believe Arnie played two balls. You're right. I remember the...

On 12? On 12? Everything I know about this is because the men in green, when Michael Bamberger kind of profiles Ken Venturi and he's a crusade to win a major as an amateur. you know, stay a lifelong image or all that. And then how he never, ever let go of this incident. That's, that's stuff I learned in this as well.

That's more than I knew of this. I knew that Arnie plugged a ball on 12 and controversially played a second ball and it made the difference in the Masters. And we will get there. Sources here. A golf channel article from Mercer Bags. Sick name. Yeah.

A 2013 ESPN article from Bob Herrig and a bunch of 1958 newspapers. including the Kansas City Star and various other articles at the time. We don't name people like that anymore. Everyone's going to Trent, Mercer bags. That's like 2004 or five, I think it was. I wasn't familiar with that name. But going into the final round of the 1958 Masters, Arnold Palmer's tied for the lead with Sam Sneed at five under par.

Carrie Middukoff is at four under. Billy Maxwell, Al Mingert, Artwald Jr., Beau and Bo Winninger are all at minus three. Fred Hawkins, Billy Joe Patton, who was an amateur, and Ken Venturi are all at minus two. Okay. And Ken Venturi is an amateur. Ken Venturi's not an amateur. Not an amateur anymore. Okay.

Uh, again, Maxwell, you know, you know, his affiliation, correct? I do not. He used to own Hyde Park Golf Club. Oh, I did not know that. What a dumb. So, oh, again, don't you dare. Arnold Palmer, I believe with Sam's need at minus five. Ken Venturi minus two.

Okay. They're playing together in the final route on Sunday. are out well in front of the leaders television was a new newish thing at this time period i couldn't find the actual t times but arnie in the lead goes out like an hour before the final group uh to get into the television window i believe in some capacity i don't know so we've lobbied for that at times where they should be able to just do whatever they want with the groups pretty much yes more so when it's like a guy finishes if you're tied if they're tied if they're tied instead of being like first guy in it's like we want to put speed in the final round or in the final group the master should

they absolutely should they should they've done it before for the drama that's one they should we're we're going to handle this one guys so uh so again they're out well in front of the leaders so there's but there's and this is also augusta at this time and this is written in the newspapers at the time is viewed as one of the only tournaments you would ever go to or attend or play in and know what is going on around the course because they have leaderboards on the back night. That was not a thing back then. So it is like they're a pioneer in that regard because it used to kind of not matter what order you played in because you had no idea what was going on the golf course. You couldn't really scoreboard watch anyways. So, um, had fast forward to today and

it's still analog. So they get to 12. Palmer's leading Venturi by one shot at this point. Again, it's kind of hard to tell what the actual leaderboard says at this point, but it's 155 yards. What do you think Arnie hits, uh, on the 12th hole? Uh, seven one 50. I was going to say seven. He hits a four iron. Okay. Okay. I only saw that in one place. I don't know if it's accurate, but I found it in a 1958 newspaper.

Shotling. He hit four iron. It might have been into the wind. It's swirling down there. So it's worth noting it was too much club, one. And it's worth noting this is a super wet masters. There's been all kinds of rain. And they both, so both Palmer and Venturi hit it long of the back right hole location.

But Venturi's ball kick. onto the green and he has an easy two put par but Palmer's ball embeds it sticks in the mud he calls in a rules official yes yes and at this time important distinction there is rough there is no for there's no uh second cut second cut so you're right ah god it's not called rough you're not called rough band you want that credential rip right off you come on no intent there calls in a rules official Palmer would say later uh the golf course was very very wet and that day we were playing wet weather rules. I saw an official there and I said,

I'm going to lift clean and place this ball. And he said, oh, no, you're not. He says, you can't do that. Who is the official? Fred Ridley. Well, of course, I knew better. And so I begged to differ with the official. That's the end of Palmer's quote.

The rules official was Arthur Lacey, a former president of USGA. Well, no, you know what continent this guy's from. He denied him relief. Former president of the British PGA. and a member of the 1933 and 1937 Great Britain and Ireland Rider Cup teams. Venturi would say in an interview, it could never happen today. There were only five of us there and there were no cameras.

I told Arnold that he should get a drop. And that's when Arthur Lacey said it was half embedded. Well, that's like being half pregnant. It either is embedded or it isn't. And Arnie would say, I said I'll play two balls and I did. And this is where accounts vary. So playing two balls rules, which, which isn't, it's allowed. Yeah.

If you declare it before you do it. Okay. This is where we see some accounts are going to vary and where Ken Venturi, I think it's a really raw into the deal here. So Ken would would write later write in a book. I agreed with Palmer on the original call. The ball was absolutely embedded, but he didn't declare he was playing a provisional until after he made the double bogey.

So he's forced to play on by Arthur Lacey. He chops it like a foot and a half, chips it on the green, misses the putt, makes double bogey. Okay. So at that point, playing a provisional, would you have to play that, not only declare that you're playing the provisional,

but also go back and play it and then play both? I would have thought that if you were going to play the two ball rule, you would play the ball as it lies, and then immediately drop it. Or are you supposed to play out the first ball and then play the second? I think you declare it. I'm going to play two. Yeah.

You play out the first one and I'm not sure if it matters, but play out the first one. And you have. So the key here is you can't go make double and then say I want to do over. Because the key is also you, if, if the committee rules that the provisional ball is the correct rule, that's the score you have to take. Yeah. So if in theory, Arnie, from this half and half pregnant lie, if he holds it, he wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to go play my provisional now. He would have said, I'll take my birdie. So in theory, if you're going to try it, if you want to play the provisional,

and the committee is going to rule that the provisional ball is the right rule. And the other score is lower, you can't take that. Yeah. That's an important distinction with this. So it's a he said, he said thing with regard to whether or the action. Which is important. Yes. Because at first, I was like, oh, that's so, that's ticky tack.

But then you're like, no, because he made the double and it was like, it doesn't sound like. at the time and Arnie later would say, I said I'll play two balls, but Ken and Cherry did not hear that. And again, Ken agrees with Arnene that it was embedded. And we'll get to there to say, eventually

Augusta says that the rules official didn't know what he was doing. He did not apply the rule correctly. So again, he plays the ball out. So after he holds out, he says, I'm going to go back and play another ball. And he chips it stone dead and makes a three.

So we walk off the 12th. And at this point is like 1958, is Arnie the dude? He is like, yeah, so all, a lot of the major winners, a lot of the master's winners are like between the ages of 33 and 40. The guys are older. So he's a young guy. He's written in this time as being built like a blacksmith. He's from La Trobe, Pennsylvania. His dad does not, is not able to attend the final round of this master's because his other son is joining the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania.

I'm being able to be there this day. So like, Arnie was popular and on his way to being popular, but it's not complete Arnie. This ends up being his first. This is first master's. Yes, this is first master's win. I don't recall that's his first major. He's building his Army T-C. First major.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, he had finished T-10 in 55, T-7, 57, and then he finished seventh at the U.S. Open year prior. So, I mean, I think he was orchestrated to be in the TV window, though, because I think august so that's where it's like he's going to get a favorable ruling here and it's from like it sounds like it's from bobby jones and clifford roberts we'll get there uh and it's like is this august of putting his thumb on the scale to say sorry excuse mr jones so he walks off 12

and he is either made a five or a three obviously that's going to make a massive difference in this tournament especially as venturi he's trying to pace off of him he goes on steps up to the thirteenth hole hits a three wood and makes eagle uh and on the 15th hole he gets word from bobby jones and there's a there's a photo of him bobby jones clippard roberts and kevin chrie talking about it that the three would stand and palmer would say i knew the rule and believed i was within my rights to do what i had done so this is where again it's hard palmer was right the ball was embedded and should have gotten relief yeah so it's he gets a bad ruling but he likely didn't apply the provisional rule properly but why were we in this spot i got a bad ruling but he's it's he gets a bad ruling but

And so it seems kind of like Augusta, you know, whether or not he played the provisional properly says, like, well, you got a bad ruling. He played the second ball anyway. It's like you made a three. Let's let's move on. So Venturi again, also believed Palmer should have been playing both balls simultaneously. So it was to not gain a competitive advantage by getting a feel for green conditions. Yeah. Playing one and then the other.

USGA rules at the time under which the tournament was being contested stated that even if a player did not announce his attentions ahead of time, the score he made with the second. ball would count, which in Palmer's case was the par. Venturi's argument, which he made in his book, was, what if he had chipped in for Bertie with the first ball? He wouldn't play a second ball. Would he says Palmer now about the accusations. Again, this is some 50 years later. Well, that bothered me a little, yeah, because we talked about that,

and that's a dead issue. We moved on. Sounds like Mr. Venturi has not moved on. Oh, he didn't move on until he never moved on. So before, on the eve, like about a. a couple of weeks before uh arnie's getting rid of play in his 50th masters venturi releases this book where he writes about it and i don't disagree with anything venturi wrote but arnold palmer friend of everyone in the press like people start to pile on venturi for like stealing his moment of

k he's got some pretty shitty timing right well i mean his publisher is probably like this is books about the mass you know it's you know my ken he's got an army yeah it's got an army but like per the usGA rules i mean Yes, if Palmer would have chipped in with the first one, yeah, of course he's not like, he's not going to play the second one. Like I get that, but he didn't chip in with the first one. And per the USGA rules, he was entitled to play a second one, correct? Right. But what if he got that one up and down, the first one up and down? Well, it seems like more of a hole in the rules, not necessarily.

Well, I guess the point is you have to do it simultaneously so you can't figure out what your score is. He's saying from what you just read. They changed that afterwards, right? The rule didn't state, the USGA rule at the time. Yeah. Didn't state that you had to. If a player did not announce his attendance, the score he made with the second ball would count. But yeah, I got, but that goes back to like if he gets it goes and makes part.

Yeah. I agree with you that it would be he, the rule, which sounds like they changed, you should have to state, I'm playing a second ball. I'm putting that in place. with the ruling and i'm i i want to play both what's interesting is the the common denominator here it's when these rules scandals happens is like the rules compound it's like one rule leads to the improper application of the next rule so it's like oh god you get like a chain reaction where like oh you you you mess this up so now you're dqed because you sign the wrong store card it's like you just went down a a decision tree cover up is worse than the crime exactly um which is again like what a stupid game

some irony in Palmer's book, quote, playing by the rules. He wrote that he told Lacey, he was going to play a second ball and appeal to the rules committee, but Palmer said Lacey wouldn't allow that either. And the rules do allow for playing a second ball. Lacey really didn't know the rules. Yeah. Tough look for my name. He wanted proper golf.

He's like this wet weather conditions. What are those? We're not doing that. Maybe really just came from the Lacey Rules tree. He said it is, it is. It is possible that Venturi did not hear this conversation as he elected to play out. So that might be some of the gray area there. He's probably stewing.

Nobody asked him. John Morissett, a former director of Rules of Golf for the United States Golf Association, said he believed Palmer originally got a poor ruling, and perhaps the committee was trying to make up for that when it allowed the second ball to stand. According to Morissette, it did not appear that Palmer played the second ball correctly. How many guys are we talking about on this committee? Any idea? I have no.

I have a feeling that's Bob Jones. and Clifford Roberts. It's a two-man committee. Some of the, one newspaper wrote, Arnold Palmer, a mighty young man with a golf club or a rulebook, made the best use of both today and won the 22nd Masters and the cavalry charge finish. Kevin Venturi's book, it says,

not nobody, not even Palmer is bigger than the game. I firmly believe that he did wrong, and he knows that I know he did wrong. Venturi would go on to finish fourth, not second. But both Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins, had chances on the 18th green to tie Palmer, but both missed. And Palmer ends up winning Masters by one single shot. So wouldn't have even been in a playoff.

If the ruling had stand, ruling gets flipped, and he wins it by one. And Palmer is henceforth known as a great man. I would say, though, it is good. At least the ruling, it got finalized on the 15th hole. Yes, it happened pretty quick. I thought it all got finalized when they were trying to sign their cards, but that clears some of it up a little bit. And it does sound like a fuck up of just truly the guy like didn't.

Yeah. Like we're properly imply the, apply the embedded ball rule. So again, it's kind of like, that's that gray area. Like, do they get it right? I think so. Like he shouldn't have had to play the embedded ball. But did they follow the proper procedure to get there?

No. They ultimately get it right. They follow the proper procedure. Because Arnie could have said to the rules official, hey, I'm, I'm playing a second ball. And Venturi just didn't hear it. Could have. It does not sound like that.

the time that it that's up the later writing from arnie makes it sound that way but it does sound like he makes the double he's fuming and then goes back and plays the second ball is where it it's how it played out but in arnie's book a golfer's life he wrote keminturi who was continuing that afternoon was among those who felt he'd been cheated by my actions on the whole but i knew the rule and i believe i was well within my rights to do what i've done this is from that same masters in nineteen fifty eight um this is i'll hold the name back for a second here uh the nineteen fifty eight master's was a memorable one. It hinged on how Arnold Palmer paired with Kim and Cherry played the 12th and 13th hole in the final day. Since the course had been thoroughly soaked by reins, a local rule had been invoked for an embedded ball.

On the 12th, 155-yard par three across Ray's Creek, Palmer's iron carried over the green and embedded itself in the steep bank of rough behind it. The official evidently was not aware of the local rule as he instructed Palmer to play the ball as it lay. And Palmer did this, he holed out in five after missing a short put. then politely but pertinacuously. I've never heard that word. Palmer went back to the pitchmark of his T-shot. He obviously felt that the official's ruling was not correct and elected to play an alternate ball.

With that ball, he made three. At this point, no one knew whether Palmer score was three or five. Palmer Eagle 13. And while playing 15, he was informed that his official score on 12 was three. That, in effect, won in the tournament in his first major championship, professional championship. I felt that I should try to come up with some appropriate name for the far corner of the course

where the critical action had taken place. The only phrase with the word corner I could think of was the title of a song on an old Bluebird record that I'd first heard back in my college days, shouting in Amen Corner. The more I thought about it, the more suitable. I thought the Amen Corner was for that bend of the golf course where the decisive action in the Masters had taken place.

That is from Herbert Warren Wind, the first mention of Amen. in corner at Augusta national how about that and how about a got them's saying rough in there yeah within three holes yeah definitively making the ruling yeah um also of note the 1958 masters i've never heard this story and it's only on the wikipedia page there's no articles written about this anywhere and i don't even know if it's true uh a gentleman by the name of alan perkins got on the grounds of augusta by asking carry middlecough to share around from the hotel they were staying. Club staff assumed he was a player. Yeah, share right.

Club staff assumed he was a player and he helped himself to a spot in the locker room, practiced on the putting green and began playing on whole one when Perkins was forced by security to buy a ticket and remove his belongings from the clubhouse, not forced to leave, forced to buy a ticket after playing whole one on Sunday of the master. Paul, please, now driving. Alan Perkins. What the hell is Alan Perkins? I tell you what a weird thing for me is on this whole thing.

Can Venturi finish T4? Yeah. He finished six shots back of Arnie. Yeah. I don't think it's like, yeah, this ruling robbed me of it. It was just like, he was my guy here. That's kind of seemingly how it's always come across. Yeah.

From Venturi. It was like he, he got so wrapped up in it and felt so personally. Well, he's kind of responsible for it, though, as the, as the playing partner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but like, I think he felt so personally shortchanged by it when really like Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins were the guys that finished second. I think he's he's protecting the field. I'm kind of team Ken on that regard of like I'm Doug Ford and they're not they weren't there.

They didn't hear any of this. They didn't see it play out. No, I know. I'm just saying I think I know I think Venturi's like if you read Men and Green and a lot of his comments after the fact, he's pissed. Venturi always, like, it always felt like he stole the masters from me. Yeah. No, man, like you shot 72 in the final round. Yeah. After Saturday's round, Ken Venturi was also upset. He had to put over six divot holes.

And the way this is, again, this is written in the newspapers. He said, with the rules that were in effect, ballmarks on the greens cannot be repaired until after the players hole out. Love that. So, but it's also written, it, it, it, he's saying he shouldn't have to pay for other players' mistakes as in like, nobody fixed their divots after they hold out. And I couldn't quite tell if that meant like you can't fix your own divot mark

before you hole out. And then you just don't go back and fix it. It sounds like it's like breaking a bunker. Like you couldn't. What I'm understanding is the rule used to be you had to play, play out, finish the hole. And then almost like after you hit a bunker shot, you rake the bunker for the next group. But what if like your own pitch mark was in your way, could you repair it?

I couldn't, if anybody knows about this rule from this part of history, please let me know, because I couldn't figure this out. But he had put over six divot holes on Saturday. But again, he kind of blames it on other players' mistakes, like leaving them there. But I'm also wondering, could you only repair your own marks? I was confused by that, but that was in the newspapers as well. Also, of note, Arnie played an 18-hole Monday playoff that week at the Azalea at Cape Fear in North Carolina. He shot either 78 or 79.

The newspapers have it in two different ways, but that week began with him playing an 18-hole playoff for a non-major, 18-hole Monday playoff for a non-major event during the actual Masters week. And the Master, well, like, the Masters wasn't yet really the Masters. This is the 22nd one. Yeah, but it was still written at the time of being the best tournament. Like this was, this was the clear best tournament.

He's built like a blacksmith. Yeah. And I think with Palmer looking at the scorecards and everything, Palmer, if he makes double on 12, he would have gone to minus two. I've been sure he would have been one ahead of him. Yeah. And then, yeah. So, yeah, I could see him getting jaded looking back, being like, oh, I would have had him then if I was out in front.

And then Arnie, which it's pretty sick that Arne Eagled. Eagle 13. Yeah, it is pretty sick. And it took like a three, again, back then it took a three wood. Okay, I prepared one more short one. Please, come on, for the road. This is for the road. A big source for this one was

2023 article in Golf Digest by Joel Beal. This is from the 2023 Masters. It says, for those who miss what happened Thursday at Augusta National cameras caught Brooks Keppka's caddy, Ricky Elliott, Mowling 5 to Gary Woodland and Woodland's

caddy Brennan Little after his second shot into the par 515. Kebka also appears to be flashing five digits with his fingers before taking off his glove and photos show screenshots show that Kekka did hit five iron into the green. As outlined under Rule 10.2A, golfers aren't allowed to give or ask other golfers for advice.

We feel this. The penalty for both parties calls for two strokes. This was absolutely like smoking gun. I still am willing to die on this hill. Like this is absurd. And people that we don't talk about this in the same level that we talk about, like the Monty thing is absurd. And the arrogance with which it was.

For sure. Carried out. For sure. Of course, no penalty was called an official statement from Augustine National Confirm. All involved were adamant that no advice was given or requested. Like, we saw the video. Like Ricky Elliott, Mows, 5. And I have the images right here of Kepka after he wins his fifth major.

The next one, he does, he mockingly gives the five. I remember a live show. Harry, um, Harry Higgs. Harry Higgs came on. And he was like, oh, you guys being. Everybody does this. Everybody does this. I was like, it's still illegal.

I know. I was like, but they got. caught they should that they should that's bullshit man it was kind of like lighten up you can look in a player's bag the rules is pretty specific like uh you you can you can you can look in a players back but you can't like touch other clubs in somebody's bag to see what information's out there that is legal if that catty happens to flash to a television camera you know that it's five iron and you see that that is legal like that is fun but you cannot not and like their heads are turned looking up the fairway like either asking we can't see them ask but like very clearly looking for the information in both rickie

and brooks give it to them and it's as clear as day this is another kind of tiger situation where the more they talked about the more it sounds like that well that just implicated you even more yeah kepka said we looked at it when we got back in uh you know gary and and brennan had no idea what we were hitting they didn't even know i know that fact because wouldn't ask me what we were hitting walking off when we were walking off when we were walking down. That's, of course, a lie. Ricky says five. Kepken Motions five. You can zoom in on the club and it was clearly five. When asked about like his weird way of taking the glove off, I don't know if you're supposed to take your glove off with your fist closed or what now.

Yet there was a bunch of videos. There's a bunch of videos going around of Brooks like clearly taking his glove off in a very normal fashion, fashion instead of like this with the five fingers wide. Brooks would say the last thing I'm going to do is give it to Gary, the U.S. Open champ. The funny part about it is I think if he would have known we were hitting five he would have hit six because I don't think Gary is that short and he's 10 yards in front of me which again just didn't make any sense like they're different distance you weren't telling him to hit five he's going to make the adjustment Woodland was 22 yards ahead of Kepka on that hole Woodland confirmed that he would have hit six iron not five had he known about Kepka's club choice which wouldn't make sense like 22 yards

is more than a club distance between the two and Woodland's likely longer than Kepka again they're just like explaining lies upon lies because he said that would likely would have put him in the middle of the pond which again doesn't even make sense so mc paul mcggelly said this is common practice on tour whether you like it or not happens in every professional event around the world this is not considered a serious breach among the players as long as i've been on tour this is what it is which and i get that too where it's like it's just not that big of a deal like you still got to execute the shot but it's a rule and it's it's a rule and you got it's a rule yeah it's a rule and when they asked you did you do this they lied and augusta except

accepted the lie. And if we're going to disqualify the walrus for for building his stance and protect his pants and, yeah, and hit the teenager with a, uh, this was a low play penalty. Just, we're just asking for some consistency. I was very glad Brooks did not win this master's because I think it would have been a, a very serious asterisk on it, like extremely serious asterisk. He broke the rule and lied about it. The piece of it that's interesting to me, so the rule states that both players would be

penalized two strokes. Correct. I thought it was only the instigator. So now I go back to my junior golf incident. Well, there's, it's great. And it was actually, well, if it gave you the number, if he gave you the number, plus that event's complete. You can't go back to it.

You'll ask him so that he gets penalized, even though he doesn't give him the answer. Well, yeah, you still get a penalty. Just to get me all up. First, first competitive event I've ever played second hole. par three this kid you know i just made double with the first his kid he's off and just very naively i was like oh great shot man what did you hit there and the other kid in the group was like soliciting club advice is a two stroke penalty i was like oh cool man i cool i hate this sport thank you

i make i'm a football player i'm going to start playing tennis and i remember thinking like so is that like is that it or was that like a warning we didn't say anything else so i finish out and it's like i make four you know i dump in a bunker chip on And I'm like, okay, maybe what I thought was a good four. I was like, four. He goes, you mean six. It's bodyed me. I went on to shoot like 64 and nine holes.

I got detonated. Thanks, guys. Love this game. Whoa. You know what you didn't do for? In cups, man. You didn't deny that you did it. No, of course.

I was like, I didn't know you couldn't do that. Which isn't an excuse. Nobody told me. No, which I, since then, I've always been like, that doesn't matter. Like, if you break the rules, you, you know, even if you didn't mean to. But these guys. It's getting away with so much with intent. Like, oh, no, I didn't mean to do it or we didn't do that.

Like, and then they're just, they kind of take their word for it. It's like some guys where they see TV evidence, it's like, well, no, you did it. Even if you didn't intend to, we're going to penalize. Yeah. And it's one, I don't know. It's one thing that this happens at like Thursday at the Zurich, you know, of like, look, I can go out of my way to look in your bag to do it. And you're like, I'll just save you the walk over.

That's where I'm like. It's just something a little... The fucking Masters, man. It rubs you the wrong way at the masters of, like, just straight up, like, colluding. Yes. This is one of the few rules where it's like you... It felt gross.

You know, it's a protecting the field thing. I don't know. It does feel gross because it's like, it's not against the course, you know, because golf is against you and the course. This is where it's like colluding with another player. It's just like something... I remember that I'm with you.

It rubbed me the wrong way at the time. And I remember being like, are we being like too old fashion? But it's like, no, it was kind of bullshit. You can't take... collectively enforce the rule the rules the same thing with mcginley saying saying that was like all right well mcginley you probably also don't have a problem with backstopping like i think there is a line with backstopping there is that's like technically not against the rules like this is that there isn't even a rule

written for that which is a good point it's just like this is like this is you can't ask for that for that like right the way the way the rules work with backstopping is you can't ask for someone to leave it there but is that true i think so i think so i think he he's right. I think you can play, like, you can say, I'm going to play my shot, but if a guy, I think it's if the other person has declared their intent to mark. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Yes. I think that's what it is. I think you're right. Yeah. Um, which guys need to intend to mark. Correct. Your intention must be to mark. But again, this, that, that's like grayish. This is point blank, man. This is a rule of golf. And, um, you know, it's hard because it's not like Brooks gained an advantage

there, but who knows how much of an advantage he got throughout the course of that round. I know, that's when you get to it, you're like, oh, man, it's just so stupid, though. Like, what do you think about getting rid of this rule? No. Where it's like guys can just... No, no, no, it's a rule.

You can't ask for advice. Can't give advice. Fair enough. I'm just, I'm spitball here now. You want that 64 to be a 62? So, anyways, I think we left a lot on the table. We could do a lot more rules episodes in the future. these are weirdly we're weirdly fun of course very well you like you know about the macro you

remember it like even the lexie thompson thing i remember that but then you go back it's like god that was like 2018 that feels like it was 20 years ago the details the tiger thing i'm like i'm kind of embarrassed i didn't remember in that level of details a little before our time but i need to get lawrence on to just that's that jack johnson 13 uh no that's adam scott adam scott okay yeah so you get Lawrence on to just give us the blow by blow because there's so many fun characters. We should just do a dive back into what European Tour Golf was like back then.

Yeah. I mean, I watched a ton of that growing up. It was the best. It was the best because like, well, we, like, you know, all the golf courses were terrible. It was like Renton-Lade law in the most minimalistic broadcast. Yes. They wouldn't talk a whole lot. Guys are just back spinning it 50 feet at a time. That's all it was.

They're playing in, yeah, they're playing in Jakarta, Indonesia. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. So, all right. that's going to do it thanks to title list thank you to roe back thanks to lagoon uh greatly appreciate everyone watching and listening we're going to do an in person pot on sunday night as well hell right from the studio i think so uh thanks everyone for listening and joining we'll see you here later this week cheers