Armchair referees banned

In a much­–needed outbreak of collective sanity, armchair referees will no longer be able to submit potential rules violations that they see while watching tournament broadcasts.

A working group led by the R&A and the USGA has all agreed to adopt a new set of protocols for video review when applying the Rules of Golf.

The PGA Tour, LPGA Tour, European PGA Tour, Ladies European Tour and the PGA of America are on board with the decision.

As part of the new rule, all have agreed to assign one or more officials to monitor the video broadcast of a competition to help identify rules issues.

The USGA and R&A have also approved the adoption of a local rule that eliminates the additional 2-stroke penalty for failing to include a penalty on the scorecard when the player was unaware of the infraction.

This has always been a ridiculously harsh rule – 2 shots for doing something that you didn’t know you had done. Our blood boiled earlier this year when this was applied to Lexi Thompson, after a TV viewer had called in over an incident the day before. In fairness, the rule change should be called the Lexi Ruling.

David Rickman, the Executive Director of Governance at the R&A, said: “This has clearly become an important issue in the sport that we felt we should address at this stage ahead of the implementation of the updated Rules of Golf in 2019.

“We have concluded that whilst players should continue to be penalised for all breaches of the Rules during a competition, including any that come to light after the score card is returned, an additional penalty for the score card error is not required.”

Tell that to Lexi.

Related:

Lexi sabotaged by armchair referee