COMMUNITY

Already tried that back in the 90's. When a player was called out by a rules official (Kite) he and other players bitched about it and the experiment was dropped. Just last week Slugger White, PGA Tour VP for rules and competitions said it's not being reconsidered. He further said he has no problem with viewers calling in potential rules infractions.

As was pointed out, this surfaced in January in Hawaii and was discussed here. I said it then and I'll say it again. The ONLY way I believe it can be fair is if EVERY SINGLE PLAYER receives the EXACT SAME SCRUTINY! Whether the check would be for $6,000 or for $600,000 is no matter. If it's wrong for #41 in the world Camilo Villegas to move a piece of a divot and then get a $600,000 check, it's JUST AS WRONG for #243 in the world Keegan Bradley to ground his club in the bunker and collect a check for $6,000 (I'm not saying he did). BUT the big difference is NO ONE SAW Bradley do it because there were only 40 people in the gallery at the time AND no TV cameras were zoomed in on his ball (again, I'm not saying he actually did this).

It sounds like some people are okay with a sort of reversal of the way it is in the NBA now where the big stars never foul out or get called for traveling (oh wait, there is no traveling in the NBA anymore). They don't mind the big names or the tournament leaders who get the TV coverage getting penalties called on them or even DQ'd but they don't care at all about what the folks we don't see who finish at the bottom of the money get away with. It's almost like "Well, they only got $3,000 so it's OK."

If the PGA can't police itself and has to rely on the fan, then we all should be getting a check from the PGA. After all, we're doing its work for it.

Cheating's wrong. The player should know the rules. The player should abide by the rules. Other players should have the guts to point out violations when they see them. All that's true. But nobody can convince me that a fan calling in a rules violation isn't absurd on every level.

If it is NOT absurd, then I should be able to, from my couch at home, call the NFL and get all those holding penalties committed by the Washington Redskins flagged properly so my Dallas Cowboys don't get cheated out of valuable yards. After all, the Redskins are CLEARLY holding right there for God and everybody to see. For the integrity of the sport, I should call, yes?

I ought to be able to call David Stern when Kobe Bryant's foot is on the 3-point line but the referees miss it when the Lakers beat the Rockets by one. Integrity of the sport, no?

Surely, I should be calling MLB's home office when the home plate umpire is squeezing Neftali Feliz in the ninth inning at Rangers Ballpark ... we all would accept that, right? Laser-driven technology is showing me at home what is and isn't a strike. For the integrity of the sport, isn't it my duty as a lifelong fan to phone in a mistake on what should be the game's final strike when the umpire misses it?

About 5 million TV viewers need to see a clear rules violation during a U.S. Open. The player needs to win that tournament after not calling the violation on himself, and the fallout needs to be so extreme that the PGA Tour finally will be embarrassed into policing its own rules.

Or it can rely on you to phone it in. Never mind all the violations the TV cameras don't pick up that never get called. Or maybe fans in those situations actually on the course will be good foot soldiers (unpaid, of course) for the PGA Tour and phone those in.

God forbid a cheater win. That's never happened.

I think a lot of the controversy could be avoided if the PGA would stop disqualifications for signing incorrect scorecards. If a guy gets a penalty called on him from a TV viewer and he has already finished his round he should be in the clear as long as he corrects the scorecard before beginning his next round of play.

Another solution would be to get volunteers to follow every player and act as a rules official. there are always people volunteering to do sign ins drive courtesy cars whatever you could get guys to walk behind tour pros for a few hours free of charge i'm sure. obviously these guys would have to pass some type of rules knowledge test, but that could be arranged easily enough. you have the Farmers the last week in January so in november the Tour sends guys a test or have them taken online. once you get a pool of a couple hundred of these rules volunteers established at each tour stop it is simply a matter of refreshing them ever year.

Having qualified volunteers assigned as a rules official to each group beats waiting for the phone to ring.

And the incorrect scorecard signing has always seemed to me to be of unnecessary severity.

I'm 100% all for strict rules of golf ... I mean, I hit shots off cart parts and from tree roots and wherever else just because I can't live with giving myself free relief when there is no cause then posting a number I know isn't right. I hole out everything, even the 2-inchers, and I've missed too many 1-footers to count over my life. So I need not be lectured on the integrity of the game ... I feel it watching me everytime I remark my own ball.

There just HAS to be a better way for the PGA Tour to police itself other than waiting for the TV viewer who has nothing better to do than play PGA CSI to phone in the rules updates. It makes me want to say if the PGA can't police its own rules, then it needs less rules.

I can promise you this: If the devil himself Phil Mickelson cheated at Augusta National and I saw it plain as day and he stole a fifth Masters jacket from Tiger Woods because he cheated, I for one would not phone Tim Finchem. If Phil didn't call it on himself and nobody else saw it and he got away with it, so be it. He, Augusta National, the ghost of Bobby Jones and the PGA Tour have to live with it. Not me.

There's the answer, and it is what I advocated a couple of weeks ago.

Call the PGA Tour with that! Perfect idea ...

For those of you who watch Golf Central, you may have seen Jack Nicklaus last week explaining that he has a friend who is both an attorney and a USGA rules official. He told Jack that the bar exam was much easier to pass than the exam to become a rules official.

I'm not sure that giving a crash course to a bunch of volunteers is the answer. Even seasoned officials occasionally make mistakes. The first time a volunteer made one at a crucial time would cause more problems for the Tour than the alternative.