The Wie Situation

Reading this article on the Michelle Wie disqualification this weekend got me to thinking about an issue that I've discussed with my golfing buddies several times:

Should spectators be allowed to call players on rules violations?

As far as someone being allowed to call in because they see an infraction on TV, my vote would be no. My reasoning is simple. Every player can not be seen by the cameras. Tiger Woods, for example, has a lot more camera time than any other player on the tour. Phil Mickelson might make the same rules boo boo as Tiger, but since they never show Phil on TV, he would get away with it where Tiger might not. It's not fair to Tiger, and unless every player's every shot could be seen, I think it should not be allowed.

Allowing spectators at the event to call rules violations might be a little different, but you still get back to the fact that the popular players have a lot bigger gallery than the less popular ones, and therefore there are more eyes on them judging their every move. Mr. Bamberger couldn't see whether Natalie Gulbis made the same mistake as Michelle, because his eyes were trained on Michelle Wie. That's not fair to Michelle.

What does concern me about this whole situation is that apparently Mr. Bamberger (who seems to have been made the villian in this story) did approach Michelle about the possible rules violation after Saturday's third round...

"He questioned her about it after the round. He slept on it Saturday night. Still bothered, he brought it to the attention of rules officials on Sunday."

Yet we didn't hear anything about it until after the final round on Sunday. Everything I've read or heard about this incident seems to have glossed over this fact and it disturbs me a little bit. I'm wondering if Michelle had been approached about it, why didn't she mention it to a rules official herself? Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that Michelle or her team had bad intentions. She probably just didn't think there was a problem and that this strange reporter was just trying to stir up trouble. It's just something that's not clear to me and I would like to know why she didn't question it more than she apparently did.

In the end, the rules are the rules, and they handled this situation according to them. Should the rules be changed? I don't know, but I do think they need to at least be looked at for the future.

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