Every Golfer Is a Referee

>>> Every Golfer Is a Referee

Guest post from Barry Rhodes author of the book, ‘999 Questions on the Rules of Golf’

I am sorry to say that one MAJOR fact is missing from this otherwise good post.

The Definition of Marker.

MARKER

A "marker" is one who is appointed by the Committee to record a competitor's score in stroke play. He may be a fellow-competitor. He is not a referee.  

There is a reason for this.   When playing in a competition, a player may call upon a Rules OfficialReferee to make a Ruling. The Ruling given by that Official can not be later over-ruled, unless facts given to that person were known to be wrong at that time. i.e. a player gave false information. So if Harrington had had a Rules Official tell him to play his ball from the position he did, he would not have ended with a DQ, but his original 67.

TheLyth

Feedback from the author Barry Rhodes on this:

I would guess that well over 99% of all competitive rounds of golf do not have an official referee attending them. Fortunately, golf is a self-regulated game and many/most players call penalties on themselves as they arise. Unfortunately, there are some that don't. In which case a marker that has witnessed a breach of the Rules, the penalty for which has not been included in the score that the player has signed for, should not attest this score by signing the card. If they do, they may and should be disqualified (Decision 6-6a/5). In this respect the marker does indeed act as a referee, though obviously not with the same authority as someone who has been appointed by a Committee to that position. Hence the title of my article, 'Every Golfer is a Referee', which is intended to get golfers thinking about their responsibility to other competitors in the same event.

With reference to the Harrington incident, I am sure that you are aware that he did not need to call for a referee to avoid any penalty. Knowing that he had brushed his ball and it had either oscillated or moved, he could have lifted the ball again and replaced it at his ball-marker, thus avoiding any penalty.

For a while now I have argued that we have two ways of looking at The Rules, from a Players point of view and an Administrative outlook. It seems Barry takes the Administrative side here.

A Player needs a certain amount of concentration to play the game well (some more than others) and if you ask them to 'police' their fellow competitors you are also expecting them to break that concentration. The Rules themselves side with The Player. "A Marker is not a Referee".

If a Player sees a breach, that is another matter, but they should not be expected to be looking for any breach during normal play.

TheLyth

Very well put point.

Did you see any of the golf today and the Jaidee incident ?  not sure if anything else has been reported but for those that didn't see one hole went like this.

Tee shot - dropped behind golf course light (the have lights on courses in India, night time golf)

2nd shot - hit light and went OB

3rd shot - hit light and went OB

4th shot - just short of green

a reporter then spoke to a rules official and asked what was the ruling if your ball hit one of the golf course lights.  The local rule was to replay the shot without loss of strokes

It then transpired that the tee shot had in fact hit the light so off he went to the tee to retake his 1st shot!

It is one of the only times it is OK to have 9 strokes and call it a 5.

I have taken a lot of Flak saying Pro Golfers should know the Rules. Here it seems Jaidee knew them and the Rules Official didn't.

TheLyth

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A Player needs a certain amount of concentration to play the game well (some more than others) and if you ask them to 'police' their fellow competitors you are also expecting them to break that concentration. The Rules themselves side with The Player. "A Marker is not a Referee".

If a Player sees a breach, that is another matter, but they should not be expected to be looking for any breach during normal play.

TheLyth  

Totally agree with The Lyth,  i used to play with a mate who couldn't help himself, whenever he hit a ball into the tree's he always found it and always had a good lie, we used to play for money to make it a bit interesting and the thing is whenever he went into the tree's i found myself rushing my shot so i could keep an eye on him, when all i wanted to do was relax, enjoy and concentrate on my own game. [ thankfully i dont play golf with him anymore, haven't seen him for 3 or 4 years now, the sad thing is he was a good golfer hit the ball miles.]

Welcome to Golfshake Barry.

You will find many friendly people here who enjoy the game, but not too many who are scholars of The Rules. They know enough to play within them but don't get involved in many "What if's?" I will be the first to admit that I discuss The Rules in depth elsewhere.

Maybe it is time to start here too?

TheLyth