Three days ago, I posted about the third round of the Honda Classic golf tournament, played last Saturday. I claimed that Ricki Fowler, who eventually won the tournament, had broken the rule of gold that forbids “building a stance.” (See “Ricki Fowler Should Have Been Penalized.”) It happened on his second shot on the second hole, which was televised. When Ricki took his stance to play, he was standing on pine needles under the pine trees. He scraped both feet backwards multiple times in an effort to remove pine needles and thus ensure more solid footing.
I lived in metro Houston, Texas, for forty years. Houston golfers play golf on pine needles as much as any golfers do, that is, unless you’re like Ben Hogan by hardly ever straying from the fairway. My college home course was Pine Forest Country Club. That name tells you that it had many pine trees. In fact, pine trees lined almost every one of those famously-narrow fairways where the All-American Intercollegiate golf tournament was held for many years as one of the premier events in college golf.
I link all posts on this blog to my Facebook page. For that post about Ricki Fowler, I got about thirty comments on my FB page saying I was wrong about the rule, so that Ricki did not commit an infraction.
Joe Black was the top rules official on the PGA Tour during the early years of my pro golf career. During that time, I only knew one other person who I thought knew the rules of golf better than Joe Black, and it was Joe Dey. He was the director of the U.S.G.A. and then became the first commissioner of the PGA Tour in 1971. Since Mr. Dey is now deceased, I turned to Joe Black for a ruling on this matter. Joe is a “friend” on my Facebook page. So, Monday I contacted Joe on his Facebook page by saying:
“Hi Joe. I posted on my blog that Rickie Fowler built his stance on hole #2 Saturday, thus breaking the rule. Television showed him standing on pine needles, addressing his ball, and dragging both feet backwards about a foot multiple times. I claimed he was ‘building his stance,” which Rule 13-3 forbids. Since I also link all my blog posts to my Facebook page, I got 25 FB comments saying I was wrong. Most focused only on pine needles as loose impediments, saying they can be removed, and everyone assumed that can be done with your feet. Also, Rule 13-2 may apply here. In my day, I thought you couldn’t do that. I also lived 40 years in Houston with its many pine needles. Am I wrong? Or was I right about then, but the rule has been changed or interpreted differently? I’m going to have to make a follow-up post and either admit I’m wrong or not.”
Joe responded today by saying, “Hi Kermit, nice to here from you. I am afraid you lost this one. Pine needles are loose impediments by definition. The rule book does not require any specific method for removing loose impediments. So I see no violation for using the feet. I have seen this done many times and never thought it was building a stance.”
I then said to Joe, “Thanks for this response, Joe. I stand corrected. Then, my first question is, ‘what is building a stance?’ Scraping the ground with your feet seems to me to be building a stance. On pine needles, your feet are not as solidly planted as on turf grass and thus susceptible to slipping. Living in Houston 40 years, I played golf on a lot of pine needles. Do you know if there is some discussion about this in the black book? And I’m surprised that you can remove loose impediments by scraping your feet. I always thought you could only remove them by picking them up with your hands. Looks like I’m wrong about that, too.”
So, that is where this conversation now stands. It appears that I am wrong. As they say in Texas, “everyone needs to eat a little humble pie once in while.” So, I apologize to Ricki Fowler, who is really a good guy. Man, I wonder if I ever would have shot any lower scores if I known you could remove pine needles like a bull scraping his feet!
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