1123: Infamous Rules Controversies

Be the right club today. That's better than most. How about him? That is better than most. Better than most! Expect anything different? Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the No Laying Up Podcast. Sali here. Join in person. We've got a couple in-person podcasts we're going to be recording this week. Sitting to my left, Mr. Icarito, down from the north. You escaped the snowstorm. You're here with us. Hello, Neil. I just got out. More snow this morning. Hey, I've got to do a little handshake. Good to see you. Good to see you. TC, first time seeing the office. I'm loving what I'm seeing. Thank you. Very nice. Very good vibe in here. Thank you. Glad the friendly skies were extra friendly yesterday. They were. One hour delay. I'm impressed with Newark's snow removal strategy. Airport was five times. Multiple times a free ad for a different company that is not the title sponsor of the No Laying Up podcast. The title sponsor of the No Laying Up podcast is, of course, our friends at Tidalist. We are going to be talking today about some rules controversies. This is not necessarily part of a series that we've done, but we've really, really, really enjoyed, I think, doing a bunch of deep dive episodes. We each have different topics that we're going to dive into. One rule you're probably all familiar with, you can only have 14 clubs in your bag at a time. I also learned in some of my research, the rules of golf have changed over the years. I have too. I was deep in the rule book last night. Not only have they changed, the number of the rule has changed. You know, 13 becomes 8, 3, all kinds of stuff with the modernization of the rules. Sorry, I interrupted your ad. That's quite all right. You want to make sure that each of those 14 clubs serves a specific purpose and works with the rest of your setup when you go tee it up. Easiest way to make sure you are dialed with all 14 clubs is to go get fit. You could go find out that you have multiple clubs that go the same distance or that your longest iron is flying too low and it doesn't hold the greens consistently or you've been playing maybe the opposite lob wedge grind that you should be playing. There's all kinds of examples. Is that something that happened? You fall in love with a tee grind and now you're in a K grind Right, because the wear pattern on your wedge is on the leading edge instead of the trailing edge. That happens. You could also change your posture to dress, which means maybe you should reset the driver. I don't know. Maybe both of those things happened in January, TC. Me at TPI, yes. I had to change iron shafts and go lighter because I'm a little slower than I used to be. I'm lighter too. I was saying, like, hey, you know, I'm hitting the driver poorly, but, like, that's me. And they're like, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on. Like, let's look into why it might be something with shafts. Sure enough, a shaft changed later, and I was hitting the ball straight again. So go get fit. Spending time with a professional fitter is one of the easiest ways to lower your scores. Go to Titleist.com to find a fitting near you. Guys, what was your – you want to talk philosophy here? We each did a little separate deep dives into some rules stuff. We're each going to tell some stories, dive back into some history. Where did your mind go when we started talking about, like, rules controversies, rules scandals, maybe some scandalous stuff in there? Where did your brain go, and how did you end up with where you landed? My brain immediately went to pee. That's right. Allegedly. Yeah. We're not going there because, you know, there's libel laws. There's slander laws. Allegedly. All alleged. There's Larry Klayman. We are here in the great state of Florida right now. So we're not going there. We're not doing that today. I was thinking scandal. So when I sat down to do my research, I was thinking it would be a kerfluffle, maybe something at the Open Championship, grounding of clubs in places you shouldn't ground them. But it actually – I ended up in a vastly different place with something that I didn't even know about. But I love my selection. I'm pumped about it. I'm glad to hear that. I was all over the place. I started with Dustin Johnson, you know, at the PGA Championship, grounding of clubs. And it was Dustin Johnson at the U.S. Open. I ended up on some master stuff. And I end up settling on, I'm going to do three dives. We're going to start with the first one here. Three dives of different depth here. But it's three examples of Augusta, what I would say call playing God. Augusta kind of making up, not making up their rules, but ruling in a way that maybe only Augusta could get away with. A little thumb on the scale action. And it's, all of them are gray. All of them are like, hey, wait, by the letter of the law, did they get it right or can they make a legal case if they wanted to of how they got it right? You could, but you can poke holes in all of them. I thought I was going to have Tianlong Guan on this one as well. I might have flipped on that one. I think he deserved to get penalized. Yeah, you said he took five minutes? Allegedly took five minutes or so to hit a shot on 16 or 17. I don't know. I dove into that one enough to say, like, I think they got that one right. So. All right. So I'm going to, of course, start us with the biggest name in golf of our generation. That is Tiger Woods. OK, I don't flashback to the 2013 Masters. This is not that long ago, of course. No one actually existed during this time. We were, quote unquote, covering our first Masters on Twitter. It was a disaster. I went back and looked at some of our tweets. It made absolutely no sense. But it is the source for a lot of this conversation comes from a unbelievably well done 2024 Golf Digest YouTube video. It was produced by Jake Powell, voiced by Greg Snedeker, with credit to Alan Shipnick's The Drop in SI. Honestly, I was planning to do a ton of research on this, and it just laid it all out in the YouTube video. So big credit to that. You should go back and watch that because it's got a lot of great images that go with it as well. But Friday evening of the Masters in 2013, it is 6.33 p.m. And Tiger Woods is coming to the 15th hole. He's wearing black pants, a white belt, a white Nike shirt with really bad yellow accents. It's like white on the front, yellow on the back with a black stripe between it. It's very indicative of the era, representative of the era. But gosh, is it really, really tough to look back on just, what, 13 years later. Also, that's crazy. It's 13 years. But Tiger, do you remember where Tiger was ranked at this point in 2013 as he gets to the 15th? hole there. Rough estimates. This was like the kind of post-Hank bump, right? Like around in the world, where do you think he's ranked? Is he back to number one? Yeah, I'm going to go with him. He is number one in the world. That's exactly right. He was favored to win the Masters. Not only that, when he gets there on that Friday afternoon, Friday evening really, he's tied for the lead. Okay. Everyone is watching this live. Like this is Friday evening Masters Golf with Tiger tied for the lead. Like one of the most visible and memorable moments in my golf watching history. Yeah, the hydrants in the past, we're back, baby. We're so back. We are so back. Chipping yips. Don't worry about it. We're good. It was a blip on the rate. We haven't got to the chipping yips yet. That comes later. But, like, it's – look, he's got – He's 15. Yeah. You know, my bad. We, you know, 2011 fall off. Of course, we all have it in 2009. 2010 was random and up and down. All that, but all right. He had a little hiatus there, but he's going to go win some majors. So Ty Verley blows his drive way right off the 15th hole and has to lay up in front of the pond. He's got 87 yards to the far left pin right back into the setting sun. 87, very important detail. Important detail here. It is a blinding setting sun. Again, that pin all the way from the far left, narrowest strip of the green. And Tiger is just dialed in at this point, and perhaps too dialed in. Sorry, I'm almost picturing it right now. He laid up to the left side, so it was like straight on? He was not left side. He wasn't. He was farther on the right. Okay, all right. Because I remember watching it, but I had him in my head. I had him on the left, like going straight at the pin, but you said he's over on the right. We'll get there, actually, because that's somewhat of an important detail. Kind of like right center, maybe, in the fairway. Okay. Hits the shot, and it is just on a beeline for the flag, quite literally. And it strikes it on the way down as strong as it possibly can and ricochets back into the left, into the pond. Shout to JFK. Just a massive groan in the gallery. I mean, just a roar in the gallery. Complete shock from everyone. Faraday's in shock. All the announcers are in shock. It is one of the worst rub of the greens that you could imagine. Didn't remember this part, but apparently there was some controversy about the pins that year. there had been multiple caddies that had brought up the fact that they thought they were about twice as thick as usual. Okay. And they said, you know, even one of them had an anonymous quote of like, I can't imagine what it would be like if a ball hit one of these pins and infected the tournament in a drastic way. I didn't remember that. Isworth noting an Augusta spokesman denied the flags were any different. Okay. Potential new supplier of flags, we'll never know. We'll never know. I mean, I'm sure we could do a forensic analysis of flags. This was pre-Bryson, though. I think if Bryson was in the field, we would have had an analysis of the flag. Lady J could certainly help us out with that. TC, 13 years ago, I don't know if those – they probably burned all those flags to make sure. No, I'm just talking about the broadcast. Good point. All right, Neil. Rule 26-1 presents three options for a drop here. Can you tell me what the three options that Tiger has are? Because it's a yellow marked hazard. Yes. Red would be five. I didn't even know that. Yes. Well done for you. So it would be you can always play the ball from within a club length. Like replay the shot. You started to meander into an interesting territory. In this time, in 2013, it is from as nearly as possible to the prior spot. Yeah. Not a club length later. That is a later change. But you're on the right scent here. You can go to the drop zone if there is one. Correct. I don't know if there was one. There was one. There was one. Okay. Or you can play it where it went in within two club lengths of where it crossed the penalty area. Close. Keeping the margin of where it last crossed a hazard. Yeah. And this is hazard language back then. Yeah. Keeping that point between you and the pen and going backwards as far as you'd like. So that, I thought that was only on red. No. So you can go on the line into infinity on the way back with where it crossed in line with the flag. Yes. Red he would have been able to drop in theory where it crossed up by the green. Just no closer to the hole within two club links of where it last crossed. I thought the rule was where it crossed on the fairway side of the hazard. That's where a lot of people get confused. It is keeping the point where it last crossed playable land between you and the hole back as far as possible. So maybe a way that Tiger got a little bit confused with this is it is not between, like if he's looking at where he crossed the yellow line from where he hit it, he could go back two yards, which is the mistake he's about to make, which we're going to get to. but the margin was actually to the left. Where the ball ricocheted off the flag went into the hazard. Correct. He should have gone back on the left side of the fairway. Yes, if he wanted to use that rule. That's why I'm thinking about him on the left side, because I remember him replaying the shot from over there. Well, no. He went over to the left side. So he hits the pin, goes in the water, and he goes over to the left to take a look. He goes on a walkabout. You can tell he's not very happy with what just happened. but goes over and looks at the live from the drop area. Yeah. He's exploring his options over there. He said it was too wet. It was grainy over there. Quickly ruled out that option and returns to where he hit it, where he appears to return to where he hit it, and replays the shot. Hits another six shot, stuffs it in there, and saves six. Yeah. Crisis averted. However, watching from home, it was funny. One article said that his home in Ponte Vedra Beach, which I got really excited. Later to find out it's actually in Charlotte. Do you remember who is watching at home and who affects a – has a massive downstream effect into what happens here? And I will say it ends very differently than it begins on this part. I don't remember. I'm guessing it was a former pro, which is going to feature into my show and tell as well. It is a former pro by the name of David Eager. Okay. And Eager is watching the coverage later on a recording. His wife asks him to go run to the lawn and garden store, get a bunch of potting soil, get some stuff for the plants to be playing in the garden. And he presses record on his TV, goes out, and then when he comes back in, he hears something on the audio that says Tiger bounces back from the bogey. And he knew Tiger was playing 14 and 15. So he rewinds to go see what happened and sees Tiger take the drop. And as soon as he sees Tiger take the drop in 15 fairway, he knows there's a problem. So, again, Eager's a former pro. He also was the USGA's Senior Director of Rules and Competition from 1992 to 1995. And he also ran the PGA – he was the PGA Tour's Vice President of Competition from 1995 to 1996. So not just a former pro. He's a rules guy. He knows the rules. He's a rules guy. He's a rules guy. He's a rule follower. He's a rule maker. Yeah. He's going to be the call-in guy. He sends a text to Mickey Bradley, who is a PGA Tour rules official. Eager knew that he was working at the Masters. Bradley had already wrapped up from the day. He pulled over on the side of the road and called Eager back to get the explanation. Bradley forwarded on to another rules official by the name of your second guess, not your first guess. Slugger White. Second guess after Slugger. You got a cameo from him. Yeah, we got a cameo from when you – Hitter Blanco. Mark Russell. Oh, Mark Russell. Mark Russell calls the head of the Masters Rules and Competitions Committee, who is, who would that be at this time? I'm glad you guys don't know. Fred Ridley? It's Fred Ridley. You're exactly right. So this is all going on while Tiger is still on the course. And the purpose of Eager's urgency was to make sure it was caught before signing an incorrect card. So initial like reaction was like David Eager, like narked on Tiger. That's and listen, that's always my philosophy as well. Like that's a TC ways. Don't want to call these things in, call them out on Twitter so that people know about it before they sign their card. Of course, of course, change that rule sense. Well, no, that this was this was changed prior to this. Like, this was, in effect, in advance of this. So, but a potentially important note here. There happens to be a history between Eager and Fred Ridley. Ridley was the 1989 Walker Cup captain, and Eager was on the team. Eager conceded a putt that he would later call in a Golf Digest interview 10 inches, and Ridley admonished him for it. Wow. Like, he was not a fan of conceding that putt. they don't gain another yard. They were not. They were just, that's one example of it. They were not a fan of each other. Again, this was eager to Golf Digest. He did a MyShot interview in 2013. He said, in 1998, I qualified to play in the U.S. Open at Olympic. The walking official in my group was Fred Ridley. After Casey Martin, Ed Fryett, and I finished playing the seventh hole, I noticed there was a weight on the eighth tee. The seventh tee was also empty. So I practiced putting, which is not prohibited at the U.S. Open as it is at the Masters in the PGA Championship and on the PGA Tour. As I was stroking the putts, Fred walked over and said practice putting wasn't allowed. And it was a serious objection because if Ridley happened to be right, it meant I would incur a penalty. I suggested to Ridley that he check with another official, which he went off to do while I continued to putt. On the tee at 8. Continuing to putt. Yeah, that's sick. He's like, no, I know the rules better than you do. Ridley returned to inform me that the practice putting was indeed allowed. A lot of years passed, but when it became obvious he blew past my take on the tiger drop, my 1998 opinion of his rules expertise was reinforced. In my view, Ridley's knowledge of the rules of golf was and is suspect. Wow. Right? Whoa. Right? So also in that Q&A with Golf Digest, Eager said, When a TV viewer calls in, and I handled many call-ins myself when I was at the PGA Tour, you consider the source. You weigh that person's credibility and knowledge. Ridley apparently looked at my objection that Tiger's drop wasn't at a point as nearly as possible from where he played his third shot and rejected it. Fred's comment that it would be splitting hairs on the drop being improper was a stretch to say the least. So I'm kind of zooming around here enough because we know that Tiger does not drop the ball as near as possible. Because there's a divot there. There is a divot there. That is what tipped Igor off when he's watching this. He went back and watched Tiger's third shot, saying, okay, there's no divot there. And now when he goes and places the other drop, it is not as near as possible to that spot. And near as possible is so abstract in the rule book. It's like, should it be? It's changed. I know, but I'm going back in time. Just how that rule was written. Did they want him to drop it like an inch from? What is deemed nearest possible? I think it's – all right, if there's not a divot there and you don't truly know where it came from, the rule is like anywhere – as close as you think to where it was is possible. But there was a divot. There was a divot. And so in theory, you should be three inches away from the divot. So there's also kind of something that protects you there. If you drop it and it rolls into the divot, that would technically be closer to the hole in all likelihood because the divot would come after the ball. So you don't have to worry about dropping in your divot. But it's got to be as close as you can to that spot. But you're right. Now they've changed it to a club length because it was very vague and hard to tell. So he said Ridley isn't my biggest fan. Eager would later say he wished he hadn't done that, and he wrote Fred Ridley an apology on that. So he said that he wished he wouldn't have called out his rules. No, he said that he isn't my fan. I think I have to look at it. Or said that he doesn't know the rules of golf very well. I don't think he regretted that part. I don't think he regretted that part. Or bring up the story about the putting at the U.S. Open. Can you still practice putt at the U.S. Open? That's a good question. It sounds like he was doing it on the tee box in the way it was written. So I don't know exactly what – I don't think you can practice putt on the greens, but I sound like he was doing it on the tee box. But of note, this is the same day that Guantan Long was penalized, the same exact Friday afternoon. Fred was all over that one. So I was really busy with this other ruling here today, guys. Guys, I got to penalize this teenager. You got this teenager here causing problems. I can't worry about Tiger. Again, so Lang's group was put on the clock. So was warned about being out of position. Then they came back and put them on the clock. Then he got a bad time. And then he took whatever time it took on either 16 or 17. So it was like four warnings. It was like, dude, you got to speed it up. And he got this. It was a true what about China? Yeah. So Tiger finishes his round at 7, 10 p.m. And, again, eager said, all right, hey, I'm a credible person that called this in. Here's what happened here. The whole point of me rushing this was you've got to talk to Tiger before he signs his card. And so he expected when Tiger finished out on 18 that there would be a slew of green jackets there waiting for him. Scrum. Yeah, to talk with him. They're not there. Tiger signs for a 71 and then proceeds to go on TV with Tom Rinaldi. He explains how he was. How do you feel? How do you feel? He went over to the drop zone and didn't like the lie, didn't like the angle, and then went back to where I was and actually took two yards further back. It should be farther, I think, TC. Took two yards further back and tried to hit my shot another two yards off of what I felt like I hit. So he incriminates himself. He incriminated himself. By using the wrong rule. Rule 26.1 says you must drop as close as possible to the spot where you played the original shot. So even so intent, he's establishing intent that he wasn't trying to get out as close to the spot. So there's a couple things that factor here, like eager to his eyes, saying, like, that's not as close as possible already. Ridley, judgment call says, you know, hard to tell on the camera depth. Which I think is fair from Ridley a little bit of like, I mean, like, we're doing it right. But then Tiger goes on TV and says, no, I was going off the paper. The fact that they didn't even question him after the round. That is it. That is it. Like, eager expecting, like, let's go talk about this. Where did you drop this ball? So he comes out and says that. And so, like, that evening, the buzz starts. Nance and Faraday are doing voiceover work with highlights, and producer Bob Mansbach comes in and says, like, hey, Twitter is a buzz about a rules violation on the 13th of all. Some guy in Tron Carter is going nuts online right now. I think I deleted some of these because I went really hard at the Tiger Tracker. Wow, you were deleting tweets? Like way back in the day. Wow, you're incriminating yourself now. You look like Tiger. I was so mad at the Tiger Tracker. We were all going nuts on this night. I would love to go find our old text of like, yo, this is really bad. And Tiger Tracker's like, where's the best barbecue place in Augusta right now? Deal with one of the biggest rules crisis in the history of golf right now, please. This was pre-nuclear golf. Correct. Nuclear golf would have been all over this. Say what you want about them. And so they rewatch the footage, and Faraday immediately notices it. Like when it brought to his attention, he immediately notices it. They rerecord the show with conversation around the drop, and then Nance calls Ridley, and Ridley says that he would look into it, and Ridley comes back to Augusta. So Nance just calls Ridley on the phone? This is according to that Golf Digest video. And Ridley comes back to Augusta at midnight to further review the footage and listen to the interview that Tiger gave. So he watched it, he listens, and he calls Stiney and requests Tiger to return to the course early to discuss. And Tiger comes back to the course at 8 a.m. To the principal's office. Brandle, not loving what's going on right now. Is this pre or post Tiger's really bad drop at the players? This is just a month ahead of it. A month ahead of it. Or a month behind it. No, because it was in May. Oh, it was in May. 2013. This is the year where Tiger got an F for his year because he was Cavalier with the rules. He had a ball that moved at the BMW. At the Greenbrier, he took a – Something weird with bushes. That was like where did it cross Twitter? No. Off the tee? Where did it cross Twitter? It was at the Players. Players. 14. I feel like I remember him hitting a real slicey one off a tee at the Greenbrier, but maybe I'm thinking – Anyways. Sorry. Randall – He had one in some bushes somewhere. It was weird. I think that was the BMW. Okay. Tiger ends up taking a two-shot penalty for the illegal drop. 71 has changed to a 73. This is where it's a little muddy here, but it sounds like Augusta just issues a statement on this and nobody's available for comment. So this gets lobbed out there. Brandle's on the air for like five hours that morning just going apeshit. He said, is it coming on Tiger Woods to call this penalty on himself to disqualify himself for signing an incorrect scorecard? And then when the two-shot penalty came out, he called on Tiger. to withdraw. Augustus, go ahead. Well, I was going to say, because I just want to be clear at this time, it was still a disqualification for signing an incorrect scorecard due to rule three dash three. We'll, we'll, we'll build up to that. Okay. Okay. Um, so Augustus statement was the subsequent information provided by the player's interview after he had completed play warranted further review and discussion with him this morning. After meeting the player, it was determined he violated rule 26 and he was assessed a two stroke penalty. So like it's just like a perfect first take situation. Graham McDowell says like, this is a fair ruling. Shane Lowry says it's a joke and anyone else would have been decued. Brandle says, fuck this, fuck this place. Brandle says if he doesn't discute DQ himself, it'll cast a dark shadow over his entire career. Who said that? Brandle. So, but this is where in retrospect, eager saved tiger. And if he had not called it in, Augusta could not have used rule 33-7, which is the rule that somebody can't be DQ'd via a call-in. So basically like they saying the Eager call identifying the rules violation was kind of their safety net to be able to not disqualify him Okay that interesting That be interesting when I get to my rule because that a God that crazy It's also worth noting that Eager agreed that he believed that Ridley was correct in invoking 33-7. So, like, Eager agreed with the ultimate ruling of this. didn't agree with the process, but like using that as to not DQ Tiger. Rick Riley talked about it on ESPN. I mean, there's a great roundtable, Andy North, Curtis Strange. This was the Rick Riley mailing it in years at ESPN. Well, the liver's a bit of a banger here. I got to say. Still had a little bit of a fastball, TC. He absolves Tiger. He comes on ESPN. There's a great roundtable with Paul Azinger, Curtis Strange, Andy North, Scott Van Pelt, just like trying to break all this down. Because, again, no one from Augusta is talking yet. So everyone's just on the airwaves speculating about all of this, and they go to kind of cutaway to Rick Riley, who absolves Tiger of the C word. Like he's saying he was not knowingly breaking a rule when he did it. He says, quote, a cheater off the course, yes, we know that. A cheater on, no, I'll never believe that. Whoa. So a later Bob Herrig 2023 SI article says, Brandel's at T-Bones in Augusta when this breaks. He makes a prediction. Tiger's going to get DQ tomorrow. He took a bad drop and signed that scorecard. Nobody caught it. And Brandon would say, when we showed the highlight on the air live on Friday, I saw where his divot hole was from the first shot and then from the next shot, and it hit me live on the air. Holy cow, he did not drop it as near as possible to his initial spot. In commercial break, I argued for us to replay it, so I think it's going to be a big deal. I got overruled, and sure enough, it blew up overnight. Brandon said, ladies and gentlemen, we got him. At this time, it was pretty cut and dried to me. He took an illegal drop. He incurred a penalty, and he signed a wrong scorecard. That's a disqualification. Then he implicated himself when he talked about taking the drop a yard or two back from his initial spot. That's a lot that went on there. We were on at 7 a.m. until about noon, and we didn't have the full story at all. We're doing our best to navigate the difficulty of the day. In my mind, that committee okayed something that was not right. Tiger was entitled to have the benefit of that decision. Sorry, Ridley would say in a news conference finally on Saturday, Tiger was entitled to have the benefit of that decision when he signed his scorecard. And to me, it would have been grossly unfair to Tiger to have disqualified him after our committee had made that decision. So that's – I kind of believe – I probably need just a little bit more hand up from Ridley on that, of like there was a call in. We should have talked to him about it. We would have caught this prior. I don't know the rules. So my knowledge of the rules might be suspect per a source. And so that's where I'm like, and this is going to be a theme with another one of mine later, like, all right, somewhere along the line, somewhere on the rules committee of Augusta messed up. And it led to another, like, kind of decision that kind of makes up for that. But was it the right application of all the rules? I'm not, like, fully convinced. But in some ways, it's the right application of what's best for the – it's an entertainment – they're putting on the Augusta production. It might as well be a drama that they produce every April. And it's like DQing Tiger when he's right around the lead. Not good for the drama. We've got to find a – somebody get in the rule book overnight and find a way to fix this. We're great for the drama. Yeah. I mean, it would have been better if he was leading the Masters heading into that weekend. So Eager would later say again in that Golf Digest interview, I'd characterize the Masters performance as a misuse of the resources available to them. I wonder who viewed the video of Tiger's Drop and who agreed with Fred's no problem original ruling. Mark Russell never saw it, but was included as being on board with Fred. Masters doesn't lack rules expertise. Many are employees of the PGA Tour, USGA, PGA of America, European Tour, etc., who know rules and how to interpret every situation imaginable. Even if the violation wasn't super obvious, the inclination among good rules officials would have been to talk with Tiger. It's rules 101. So this is where I feel like Tiger is like exonerated a little bit on like Tiger shouldn't have had to withdraw or, you know, it's not his fault for signing the incorrect card. He broke the rule. I guess you could say it is his fault for applying the yellow rule improperly. But that's where it's like you got a two-shot penalty here. Yeah. Somebody called it in, and the rules officials messed up, like delivering that news to them. Take the consequence. Yes. You've got to remember, this is a pre-intent-based world. Again, this is Eager continuing. An invitation from the Masters to serve on its rules committees is coveted among rules officials. When a person officiates at Augusta, there's a strong desire to be invited back. I believe that desire can trump the impulse to offer a differing opinion on something like the Tiger episode. Also, guest officials know the Masters is entitled to make its own decisions. For what it's worth, the Masters is not alone. The USGA, PGA Tour, R&A, PGA of America, LPGA Tour, and other organizations also make their own decisions. It comes with the territory. Again, the rule is now changed, so you can now drop within a club length. But the three rules for yellow-lined penalty area in modern golf now are drop within a club length of where you last. You can always replay your shot. That is the replay of the shot. Yes, that's the replay of the shot. There's a drop zone associated with the yellow hazard, and then the far back on the line that it crossed with the flag and where it went in. I'm realizing where I made a mistake earlier. You can take that drop, but it has to be within two club links with a yellow line. You can go as far back as you want with the red line. That's what I was – Zola, you were so proud of me. Eager's probably calling me before we got to this part of the pod. In my tournament in January, I sprayed one right, and I went like 150 yards back on the same line. It's sick. Because it was red. Yeah. Yeah, because that's the value of the red is that you get that flexibility. Whereas yellow, he should have dropped, if he was going to play that rule, he should have dropped where it rolled back into the water. Correct. Two club lengths on the fairway side of the pond. Correct. Okay. You're right. Apologies. Yeah, please phone that in. if I have so many comments. Before I pass it over to you, Neil, I want to give a shout-out to this little subtle dog logo up here in the top left corner, deep, deep, deep, deep into the layering season, SEN as the kids are calling it. I don't even know if they call it that anymore. And for the NL community, that means Roback is in full rotation. I want to give a shout-out to a few pieces, two of which I have on right now. You know I got the Hezzy hoodie, but the important part for this cool Florida weather, pairing it with the Fulton vest. I just love this look. It's a nice piece. I love the feel. I love the combo. Like, it's super warm. I feel way cooler than I actually am with this look. I don't know. I just love the hoodie outside the vest with the long sleeves. It's my favorite winter look. And if I can also, I want to give a shout-out to the Summit Fleece shirt jacket. It is one of the best pieces in my entire closet. It's trendy. I feel, like, about as fashionable as I possibly could. I'm not a fashionable person, but I feel like it's kind of like the stuff the cool influencer guys are wearing on Instagram. For sure. It feels like I'm probably three years behind that trend. Everybody wants to look like a lumberjack. Right, a little bit. Even if you're trying to get your portfolio right with the full vest. They've got some of those jackets. You're stuck in between right now. Sometimes you want the vesting option. Sometimes you want the lumberjack look. I get it. Exactly, exactly. But it looks trendy, but it's approachable in the same way. So I encourage you to go to Roback.com. Check them out. R-H-O-B-A-C-K.com. Use code NLU at checkout for 20% off your first order through the end of the week. Again, Roback.com, code NLU for 20% off. All right. I talked for a long time. I'm ready for someone else to take the reins. It's a perfect setup for me. So I was digging into the research. I thought we'd be focusing on TC, like Wedge in the sand in the Bahamas maybe. Pete. Or kind of a road grounding at the club at the open. Potentially some embedded ball situations at Torrey Pines. Not. We are going to Torrey Pines. Okay. Before I do, though, because it's related to Collins, just think about it in any other sport. Like this this isn't part of the rules of golf anymore. But imagine like in the NFL, if after a game was over, it's going to be like, no, he didn't he didn't get the first down there. Like the fact that first golf, you play from the stands or from the gallery. And then also like somebody can just call in. And I was thinking about it. I was like, do you have to. was there a number or an email where where they like a submission box for this stuff can you google then i want to call in a pga tour rules uh like because it's just so i don't know where people call yeah like what i realized is like a lot of these rules issues that are scandals that we're talking about they all had this in common until they did away with this uh in what was that uh january 1st 2019 so the nail in the coffin before i get to the one i'm going to talk about the nail in the coffin was Lexi Thompson, the situation at the 2018 ANA Inspiration. She was winning, and then a viewer emailed a rules official, and I don't know, it's like, was there like a rules at, you know, LPGA.com? Like, I don't know who emailed in, but that she marked her ball improperly in her Saturday round. So then in the middle, I think on the front nine of Sunday, they come out and tell her, you're getting a two-stroke penalty because we reviewed the footage from yesterday oh like red-handed yeah but we're getting a two-stroke penalty and then you're getting another two-stroke penalty for signing the incorrect scorecard so and then that's the part where it it like because in the in the one i'm actually going to do it's a it's a dq so she at this point she just gets a second two-stroke penalty so she was two strokes up and then she goes what's what happened so then she goes down which and she was tiger didn't get like tiger didn't get an extra two shot penalty for the you know signing the incorrect card get dq'd because of the rule that you brought up 26 but he also didn't get the extra two strokes for signing the incorrect card which is why it's that's the part that is um because ridley doesn't know the rules yeah that wasn't consistent so anyway the let's see thompson situation she goes from two up to then she's down to and she battles into a playoff and loses in a playoff and like oh waterworks tears it was like a big you know scandal i remember that was so tough that was just like they all say like clearly well but well but it was it wasn't like closer it was like off to the side wasn't it and it was just like she was like like so jittery for that too yeah but like the punishment of four shots for that didn't fit like maybe maybe maybe fudged like .05 of a shot moving the ball a little bit was... I know. If we don't think it was intentional. You think about that being a four-stroke penalty by the time it gets reported to her. But the act of doing that in the middle of the tournament, same thing with Dustin Johnson at the U.S. Open. His ball moved on the fifth green while he's putting. They come up to him, I think, on the 11th or 12th hole. They're like, hey, man, we're reviewing this thing that happened on the front nine. So then the whole back nine, nobody knows if he's getting that penalty stroke assessed. So nobody knows what the lead is. It's crazy. Throughout the whole Pack 9 of Sunday at the U.S. Open. So for viewers to be able to call in and impact a tournament in real time, it's just like I just want to call that out as like what a – shout out to Kyle Porter, like normal sport. Like what are we doing, right? So they do away with this finally. Which if you do want to call in, I can't find a number for the rules department. Just call TC. But 904-285-3700 is the number. Just PGA Tour HQ. I'm sure you can get an operator there that will connect you to the rules department. And if not, try 281-330-8004. So they do away with this rule in January 1, 2018, which was almost preempting the modernization of the rules when they did the big facelift to the rules of golf in 2019. And they've done away with the two-stroke penalty of signing the incorrect scorecard in the DQ. They just, like, assess the penalty after the fact if there's an issue, which, I don't know, What do you guys think? Does that make sense? I'm watching this Lexi replay again, and it's so bizarre. Sorry. Continue. I know. Well, that's not the one I'm doing. So the one I'm doing, I want to take you guys to Torrey Pines, 1987. TC, are you familiar with Craig Stadler's Towelgate? I am a little bit, actually. So it was during the 1987 Shearshan Lehman Brothers Andy Williams San Diego Open. Shut up. I was trying to say that five times fast. That's the name of the tournament. We are going to do a segment at some point. I got a few good ones here. So this is back in the day. Shout out to RIP Lehman Brothers first off. Shout out to Andy Williams, kind of into Bing Crosby. He used to have tournament hosts, especially out on the West Coast, Bob Hope. Andy Williams is just gassing up the Pro-Am out there in 87. What was the guy's name that punched Dick Fold? He was the Lehman Brothers guy who punched somebody out. on the treadmill or whatever. I don't know. Or somebody punched him out when he was, like, when they were melting down in 2007. I just can't get over the name of this event. Do you want to hear my Lehman Brothers story quickly? I'm sorry. It was 2008. You want to know how I know why? September 15, 2008 was the first day of my career, and that was the day at KPMG, and that was the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. And we're supposed to come into the office for training, and we go in, and it's just like chaos from the jump. They were supposed to have this whole training organization thing for us, and they just put us in a room while the partners were meeting about other stuff as Lehman Brothers was collapsing. Somebody came in and said, like, we're like, hey, what's going on? And, again, I was so clueless about the world, and somebody came in and was like, yeah, Lehman Brothers collapsed. And I said out loud, both of them? I didn't know what the Lehman Brothers were. The whole family? Both of them? God, the Carter Brothers collapsed. Oh, my God, really? How did that happen? I mean, but just Shearshan Lehman Brothers, Andy Williams, San Diego Open. It's just like, what a different time in golf. So anyway, Stadler's having a week. He's tied for the lead with George Burns after 36 holes at Torrey at 1,300 par. So on Saturday on the south course, he drove it under a tree. He drove it under a literal Torrey pine. And if you guys don't know, Torrey pines are very rare trees. They only exist in that state park where the golf course is. It's there and on, I think, Santa Rosa Island, like off the coast. So very specific tree. Obviously, it's the logo and the name for Torrey Pines. But he drives down to Torrey Pines on 14. So to play his next shot, he needed to get down on his knees, and the walrus wanted to keep his pants clean. So he lays a towel down to kneel on before he plays the shot. Plays it successfully. He finishes tied for the lead after the third round and would play with Burns again on Sunday. And then the Walrus ended up finishing fourth. Sorry, he finished fourth round Sunday, 18 under par, tied for second place. He's four back of the winner, who's George Burns. Sam's dad. George Burns set the then tournament scoring record at 22 under par. Who has a tournament scoring record now at Torrey Pines? Justin Rose. Justin Rose, 23 under. So that stood since 1987. That was a pretty long scoring record. So I thought that was interesting. Quick aside here, though, I love this lead-in from the LA Times, Chris Cobbs and his gamer after the tourney. Quote, George Burns, the golfer, is easily distinguishable from George Burns, the comedian. Burns, the golfer, is the one who often wears long faces and has a tendency to get really down on himself. His idea of a good time is riding an exercise bike and lifting weights. It's just like, whoa, what a detonation of the winner. To lead off that article. Salty-ass golfer. I don't know much about George Burns, so that one just stuck out to me. Another very stupid fact from the Shearshan Lehman Brothers, Andy Williams, San Diego. Open, under the provisions, this is from Chris Cobb's article as well. Under the provisions of a special arrangement, the tournament sponsor was to award a $10,000 treasury certificate to the golfer who posted the low round each day. So if you had the low round of the day, you got a $10,000 treasury certificate. I should absolutely bring that back. Burns. The fastest lap thing we were saying. Burns collected all four certificates, which will be worth $200,000 upon maturity in 20 years. Posting a 63 on Thursday, he had the low score in both the first and final rounds. Because there were ties to the low score for the other two days, the bonus certificates were carried over to the final. Hell yeah, skin style. And he became the sole property of Burns. God, I love stuff like that. When asked if he understood the complexities of the treasury coupons, he quipped, yeah, I mean, my kids will be going to college. End quote. So I thought that – I was like, man, what a nice little wrinkle of, like, Lehman Brothers trying to activate. What an incredible – What an incredible – Treasury certificate. What an incredible week for the guy to win all four. Well, and this article goes over. He had a really bad – he won more winning this event than he made the year prior. I think it was, like, a 500K purse. I think he won 90K. He had a bunch of health issues. So he had battled back. That's why he was, like, an exercise freak because he had, like – and he had some energy issues. I don't know. George Burns, I was kind of like – Write that down. Maybe we'll go look him up later. So anyway, they come off 18, finishing the round. Stadler's like he's supposed to be T2, and he went to sign his card. He was informed that someone had called in to report a rules infraction from his round on Saturday. Stadler was told he violated rule 13-3 at the time. This is now rule 8.1A. I think the rules, once the rules are in place, they should keep that number. I know. It got really confusing when I started looking them up. you know, you add new rules or whatever, that takes on a new number, and there's certain rules that, like, there's no more rule 11. There's no more 10-4-5, yeah. Well, it's like, so 13-3 was a, quote, a player is entitled to place his feet firmly in taking a stance, but he must not build a stance. And laying a towel down on the ground was considered building a stance. We might have to do, like, just a rules pod later this year, because it's just, like, I don't know. I actually think it's kind of interesting. Solly, I wanted to do a rules questionnaire to you. We had one ready for the live show at Pebble, just like put you on the spot. I'm like, all right, Solly out there, this happens. What are you going to do? Well, dude, like I said, I feel like I know the rules pretty well. Like I would be quick to call in an official because I wouldn't want to cost my guy anything. But like from our Atlanta Junior Golf Days, like we did those rules seminars. Like I try to have a good knowledge of the rules. Remind me what else we know from your Atlanta Junior Golf Days from you and the rules. Oh, that soliciting club advice is a two-shot penalty. I think that's why – that was such a defining and traumatic experience to be called out in the second hole at the country club of Roswell. I was like, I need to know the rules because that sucks. Stay tuned. Okay, so he was – so then he was – he was then disqualified – the Walrus. We're back to the Walrus. The Walrus was then disqualified from the event for signing an incorrect scorecard on Saturday after finishing his round on Sunday. Now, today, rule 3.B, and then parentheses 3, they call it the exception, prevents disqualification if a player returns a score for a hole lower than the actual due to excluding penalty strokes they were unaware of before signing the card. Instead of disqualification, the committee will correct the score by adding the necessary penalty strokes provided the mistake is identified before the competition closes. That is the now current rule. But this is where you were talking about Tiger. I'm like, man, the walrus got disqualified, right? And then Lexi, she gets the two-stroke penalty for signing the incorrect scorecard. So I'm thinking they updated that rule. I don't know this. I forget when the TV call-in rule came in to say like somebody. It's like 2017, I think. No, but that was their prior to Tiger. So this is where it gets interesting as I did some more digging. The penalty and disqualification cost Stadler $37,333.33 for his T2 finish. So let's start digging in deeper on some sourcing. We got Pete Trenum's golf blog. Anytime you see blogspot.trenumgolfhistory.org, you know, just like an old school blog that is from the 1990s, you know you're in for something good. But he's got it that someone had telephoned the PGA Tour office while Stadler was playing the 17th hole on Sunday, stating that a golf rule had been broken after checking a TV replay. The PGA Tour had to disqualify Stadler. So basically they ran a replay of what Stadler had done on Saturday because they were like, oh, like check out what happened yesterday. Like how cool is this shot? He's on his knees playing under a Torrey pie. Nobody had caught it until then. Nobody caught it. So this guy calls in. And this caller, he wasn't just anyone. He was a Philly. He was Fred Ridley. That's why I was laughing about the eager thing. It was a Philly golf pro named Robert Ski Regal. Do you guys know anything about this guy? No. Absolute menace. So I look him up. So Regal's born in 1914 in New Bloomfield, Pennsylvania. Went to West Point in Lafayette, played baseball and football. Took up golf in college or after college at age 23. Won the U.S. Amateur in 1947 over Johnny Dawson at Pebble Beach, 2-1. He played in the Walker Cup, 1947-1949, for Captain Francis Weimay. Ever heard of him? Went undefeated in his four Walker Cup matches. He was a low amateur at the Masters in 1948, E-13. He then turned pro in 1950 at 35. Plays in 11 straight Masters. In 1951, he was tied with Sam Snead after three rounds for the lead. He finished second to Ben Hogan by two strokes. Then he stopped playing full-time in 53, was a head pro at Radnor Valley Country Club, and then he was the pro emeritus at Cape May National Golf Club late in life. So I was like, man, this guy's a legend. So he dies at age 94 in 2007, and he had this awesome obituary on USGA.com written by this guy, Ken Clavon, on the USGA website. I just want to read this quote because it's sweet. Quote, golf lost an irreplaceable link to its past over the weekend. Someone who bridged generations of golfers from Francis We May to Tiger Woods. Robert Ski Regal could count We May, Bob Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, his friends on the course. Off it, he mingled with the late Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby, and to some degree, Bob Hope. Those were just a few of the many souls Regal touched in what he termed in 2007 a full life. End quote. So like one of these, just kind of a ledge. So back to the scandal. So he calls in. Also a guy that calls in rules violation. Well, no, it was similar to this. So Ski later – and he got his nickname Ski because when he was a kid, he strapped just wood like two by fours to his feet to just ski down a hill with his childhood town. He got called Ski forever. So Ski – this is from Pete Tranum's blog post. Ski later said that the interesting part of this is he had turned on his TV late Sunday afternoon and saw Stadler playing the shot while kneeling on the towel, which he later figured out was a replay. So he thought that it was during the round, like he just turned it on. Same thing with the Tiger story. Because he was a pro, he's like, I was trying to call it in so that he wouldn't sign an incorrect scorecard, but he ends up calling in something that happened on Saturday. So not realizing he's looking at a replay from Saturday, he grabs the telephone and calls the PGA Tour, thinking what he had saw had happened in the fourth round. He wanted to make sure Stadler wasn't penalized before he signed for the wrong score, which would have been two strokes lower than his score with the penalty. Ski was only trying to save Stadler from being disqualified. Same thing. I was just trying to help. Ski said that if he had known what he was seeing had taken place the day before, he never would have made the telephone call. If the tournament officials had not been notified until after Stadler and all the other players and completed the last round, the results of the final, the result would have been final with no penalty. So if the tournament ends, then it's like you're good. But within the four days of the tournament, that's the crazy part. It's not the round. It's like the four days of the tournament, and then you close the books. So the ending of this whole story is poetic. When Ski called, he ended up getting in touch with the media PR guy. His name is Rick Schloss for the, at the time, Shearshan Lehman Brothers, Andy Williams, San Diego. Open. He's the guy that answered the phone call from Ski in a Golf Digest article from John Stregge. Sorry if I'm pronouncing your name wrong. Stregge. Stregge, thank you. In 2017, he says, this is a quote from Rick Schloss. I got a call from a guy on that Sunday that said a player had broken a rule. I thought, okay, whatever. You get crazy people calling in all the time about certain things. He goes on to write, eight years later in 1995, that Torrey Pine, that specific tree on 14, died. Stadler cut it down. Yeah, Schloss and his publicity chops taking over noted that Stadler would be in L.A. for the PGA Championship at Riviera Country Club, the one that Elk won at Riv. So this is a quote from Schloss. I said to Tom Wilson, the tournament director of what by then was the Buick Invitational of California, let's invite Craig. Maybe he come back and cut the tree down Schloss said Stadler said yeah I come down So we meet in front of the Torrey Pines and have 15 to 20 golf carts to take us out to the 14th fairway. Torrey Pines ground crew people had gotten the tree ready to go. Stadler whipped out the steel chainsaw and cut the tree down. I've got some pictures that we can layer in. Absolutely epic visuals of Craig the Walrus Stadler chopping this tree down with the steel chainsaw. So a couple other funny old school call-ins I found in the research I wanted to call out because we had the Tiger one, Lexi Thompson. But these are both from a 1987 Chicago Tribune piece about the Stadler situation. This opinion piece was just clowning golf of like, this is so stupid. You guys just disqualified this guy for something that happened. Yeah. I mean, it is. It's really dumb. That's a tough interpretation of the rule, too. I don't think it is. You're building a stance. No, you're protecting yourself from the elements. you know, no, but the way they go about, like the golf goes about having people be able to call in like this. I'm not going to read this whole opinion piece, but it shouted out to two that I didn't know about. So a couple of years ago, and I looked this up, I think it was the 1984 Doral open. So Andy beam, one, the Doral open by a shot with a shot that TV viewers insisted should have come with a penalty. Bean had knocked some leaves off a limb during a practice backswing. I went and looked it up. He ended up going back. to like switch clubs and then came back. And the telephone calls flooded the clubhouse. There was no rules violation they deemed. But Bean was so distressed that anyone would think he cheated that he offered to give back the trophy and the money. Jeez. And then I didn't know this one, but at Pebble Beach in the early 70s, Arnold Palmer, when he was at the top of his popularity, TV viewers saw him on the 18th tee looking down the fairway with binoculars. Callers demanded he be penalized for using artificial assistance. It turns out he was just looking at some protesters on the beach. It's like installing looking at birds. I thought he was going to be looking at birds. I think it was like climate protesters or environmental protesters on the beach. So they approached Palmer. He's like, no, I was just looking down at the beach. I think he took some binoculars from some spectators to check out somebody holding a sign on the beach. I couldn't find any more intel on that. We know what he was gawking at on the beach. Come on. Anyway, I didn't know about Talgate from the Walrus. Your neighbor saw it. I know. That's what I was thinking. Like, that's over $100K in today's dollars. And, I mean, our HOA is not nothing back there. Like, I'm sure he would have loved to have. It's just crazy. You can buy them a marg at $1810. Yeah. That they took. That happened in 87. And all the rule stuff that, as I was, like, looking this up, it all kind of comes from just, like, people calling in to make it a, you know. And I guess it's still. It's such a. They don't – you don't call it in, but I feel like they have a referee or whoever inside the moat looking up rules issues, right? But those guys are probably paying attention to social media of like, oh, my God, everybody's going nuts about something they saw on PGA Tour Live. Somebody – Yeah, they got several guys watching. So viewers are still impacting it in a way, but I guess it's a little more controlled now. It's so funny how it works too with golf with the rules of like the rules are sacred. You know, you've got to police yourself. And, you know, and then as soon as somebody, like, calls in something, it's like, are you a fucking narc, man? Like, what are you doing here? You're trying to screw my guy over here? It complicates things. It's such an interesting conundrum. Oh, he's got the lawn, the lawn, the squads here. It looks like, oh, this is good stuff, TC. Never fails. Never fails. Every time. I think we'll be okay here. Is that all for yours? That's it. That's it. Hopefully that was more intel on TowGate than you had previously. All right. Well, we've talked a lot about fitting, right? To start off the show, we talk a ton about how much we obsess over our gear, getting fit for shafts, tweaking the lie angles, making sure it fits our game perfectly. And then most of us will go home and sleep on a completely generic pillow we bought five years ago. That makes absolutely no sense. We partnered with Lagoon because the idea is simple. If you custom fit your clubs, why wouldn't you custom fit your pillow? You go to lagoon sleep.com slash NLU. You take a two minute quiz about how you sleep and they match you to the pillow that actually fits your body type. It's adjustable. You can dial it in exactly like you want. Well, as soon as we tried these things, TC was just like what you said. You said you slept better than you had in four years. Yeah, I'm a big I'm a very finicky sleeper. I have a one of the long Lagoon pillows. It was immediate relief for me. Are you team otter? I'm otter. Yeah, I'm a big I'm a very finicky sleeper. I'm also an auto man. My neck, just generally speaking. Like I see a chiropractor about once a month. Four times a week. Once a month. And then I also have the Lagoon travel pillow as well, which I've been using on airplanes and just to beef up pillows in hotel rooms and in an Airbnbs as well, which can be very, very inconsistent. I did not take one to Pebble, and I regretted it because I was not sleeping nearly as well as I do at home. So if you're serious about marginal gains, start with the eight hours before the round. Go to lagoon sleep dot com slash NLU and use code NLU for 15 percent off. It's a serious it's a difference maker. It really is. I cannot recommend it. So so they're just all over the place. They're just all over the place. Some some take pride in it. Some don't. But yeah, it's really, you know, I need I need some I need some stuff. Well, that that was the crazy thing. The Lagoon pillow, it comes with extra foam and extra stuff that you can dose it up or dose it down. It's crazy. Invest in your experience. I think it's money extremely well spent. Yeah, and they're not very expensive either. So lagoonleep.com slash NLU. TC, you're up next. Oh, my gosh. All right, guys, this was kind of a journey as far as getting to – I will say also I totally stole one of TC's ideas, the main one he had. And so I've sent him on a little bit of a journey to find what he was going to deep dive. But the next one I'm going to do, I totally stole from TC. All good. Disclaimer. All good. Yeah, I was going to, you know, I think about rules stuff. I think about Ted Purdy and Stuart Sink at the Heritage back in the day when. Some people might not know exactly what you're talking about. Tell me more. Some unfinished business. He thinks that's the same level as the Tiger Drop. He talks about it so much. I think it's ten times worse than the Tiger Drop. So Stu Sink just basically cleaning out the back of his, you know, lye there in one of the native areas, kind of the sandy native area. I thought he hit it on his backswing, and that was kind of more of what happened. Anyway, that's not what we're doing. Future deep diving. And then I thought, all right, Gary Player, 1983 skins game. You guys know anything about it? We did a dive on it. Watson got super pissed. Yeah, Watson Gough hits. They, you know, very contentious. Gary Anderson, the great man from The New York Times, wrote a piece. Joe Day begged him not to run it. Gary Player pulled out a leaf from – Allegedly. Allegedly pulled out a leaf, and it popped back up. So, like, it wasn't a – It was in the ground. It was part of a weed. So, but we're not doing that either. and then I looked, all right, Gary Player at the 1974 Open Championship at Lytham. Should we be doing that? You know, his caddy rabbit allegedly dropped the ball on the 17th hole after he couldn't find it in some high grass, and somebody has it in a vault somewhere at some point. Like, God, if that breaks down the line at some point, I would love it. Listen, we can't verify it, okay? All right, what about Gary Player next to the 18th green on the 72nd hole at Lytham where he's hitting a bunch of sand away on his backswing after he played it backwards. We're not going to do that one either. I also thought there was some interesting stuff from that one on the subtext of that tournament. Should we order some dinner, you think? I don't know. This is from the Glasgow Herald. Come on, hold on. This is from the Glasgow Herald. The Royal and Ancient Golf Club's decision to make the larger size 1.68-inch golf ball compulsory for the Open Championship at Royal Livingston, from July 10th to 13th has brought sharp reaction from the golf ball manufacturers conference. Quote, the dangers and disadvantages of this decision are frankly almost incalculable. In my members view, it was surprise and anxiety, said Sandy Spink, the secretary, in a letter to the RNA. The letter also states it would seem a most undesirable precedent and highly dangerous in every way that the championship committee should set aside the rules of golf for the purpose of one event. It has always been our understanding that the RNA rules of golf permit the use of a 1.62 ball unless and until general meeting of the RNA decides otherwise. Restricting the open to the American sized ball may well in many people's eyes become simply one more major championship instead of retaining the distinctive character imparted by playing the British ball under British conditions. So, but we're not going out doing that. We're not doing that one either. We're not. We're going to talk about Monty. Okay. Okay. Okay. And are either of you familiar with the Jakarta incident? I'm not. I cannot say I am. Okay. This was – In Indonesia. In Indonesia. Okay. This is the Indonesian Open. Okay. This is in March. Monty, Mr. Worldwide. March of 2005. It's in the spice trade or what? As I was digging into this, we have – like this might have been the peak for like, you know, internet, golf journalism. Like everything you can like you can find everything. It's still up on the original websites. It's not an archives or anything like that. No way back machine. Yeah. So James Corrigan, Lawrence Donegan, John Hopkins, three guys like all of the three. Yeah. Corrigan wrote some of the follow ups on it. But Donegan was at the center of this. I was texting with Donegan this morning about it. He was like, oh, we should just hop on for a phone call because there's there's so much here. But basically, Monty was in a bunker, and there was a lightning scare or like a big storm was rolling in, and he couldn't get his stance in the bunker correctly. So instead of marking his ball in the bunker for the rain delay or for the weather delay, he just leaves his ball there. Okay. He goes back out. I can't remember if it was – I'll read the articles and stuff, but he goes back out, and the ball's not there. Okay. So allegedly, which I don't even think it's alleged at this point, this is what happened, and he admitted to it. He places the ball about 18 inches different from where it was prior, totally different stance, ends up getting it up and down. And all of this is very much in question because he's jockeying to get inside the world top 50 to get into the players, the U.S. Open, all of that stuff. I was going to ask, was he on holiday in Indonesia and decided to play a national open? This was a big, big national open back in the day on the European tour. I hate that it's not anymore, TC. Yeah, yeah. So this is Lawrence Don. And so this doesn't break for like months afterwards. Okay. either. This is kind of swept under the rug. So he was going to have an awkward stance in the bunker. It was super awkward. But the delay comes, he comes out, and all of a sudden he's got a conveniently easy stance. That's not great. And it's all on film. I guess there was a YouTube video of it that it was up for a while. It's no longer up. This is Lawrence Donig on Wednesday, May 11, 2005. In a rebuke unheard of for a generation on the European circuit. Colin Montgomery was yesterday criticized by his fellow professionals over an incident at a tournament in Indonesia earlier this year during which he replaced his ball incorrectly after a rain delay. Montgomery has apologized since and donated his 24,000 pounds in prize money to charity. Notably, he did not donate his OWGR points to charity. I'll gladly pay my way into the majors. Scott was reportedly questioned for half an hour on Tuesday night at a meeting of the TOR's Tournament Players Committee, of which Montgomery is a member, along with 12 other senior European pros, like not seniors, but like, you know, highly regarded guys, after which a statement was circulated of the 156 players competing in the British Masters at Forest of Arden. The committee considered the circumstances concerning Colin Montgomery at the Indonesian Open and his attempt to replace the ball in the correct position after a weather delay. They considered thoroughly and at length all the facts. The committee expressed dissatisfaction to Colin over his attempt to replace the ball in the correct position. George O'Grady was seeking to calm and put to rest a lot of the disquiet amongst the guys. One European tour source described its criticism of the Scott as unusual. It is believed to be the first such to be issued in two decades. Two people at the meeting described it as, quote, perfectly amicable. It was a good opportunity to put questions to Colin and a good chance for him to give answers. He explained what had happened, and the committee was happy to accept his explanation. Now, it sounds like – What is the explanation? I cannot find a good explanation. In one of Lawrence's pieces after, he said that Scott was mortified after watching video footage. So you've got Monty returning the following day. The ball's been stolen. Under the rules, Montgomery, after consulting his playing partners, was then required to estimate the spot where it had been. This he did, although two poor officials were then contacted by the Danish golfer Soren Kelbson and Jerry Norquist, a member of the Asian PGA Tour Board. Both had been watching TV pictures and expressed concerns that Scott had played his second ball from a different place. In this event, Montgomery was able to take a stance outside the bunker with his replacement ball and shift to 18 inches where he made Marr. such a like obvious yeah man you're gonna stand because i was wondering for a lightning delay i thought he was coming back like a couple hours later but you're saying it was overnight yeah and the ball somebody just took it the tournament referee jose zamora subsequently cleared montgomery of any breach of the rules although he contacted the european tours chief referee great man the late great man john paramore later reviewed the television footage with the scott if i had been there at the tournament i would have penalized him two shots paramore said yesterday in my opinion you've not replaced the ball close enough to the original spot as the bunker was there to help him as a visual reference as soon as colin saw the footage he was mortified uh under european tour rules once an event has been completed and the results filed the result stands unless evidence subsequently emerges their player deliberately broke the rules there's no suggestion Montgomery's error was anything other than inadvertent. Scott, competing at Forest of Arden, said yesterday before the statement that he hoped the issue had been put to bed and added, we are a big family out on the tour and I'm glad that the issue was raised at the committee meeting. As soon as you don't mark your ball and you come back the next morning and it's not there, there's a guesstimate to be made about where your ball was. I guesstimated it too far off the realms of where it should have been. Montgomery said he had not marked his ball because he was concerned about being struck by lightning. I always wondered, though, about when you mark your ball overnight, they'd have to re-drag the bunker, right? Somebody's got to pick the tee up and then put it back in an estimated spot anyways. Or in grass, if you're in deep rough, how do they see where your tee markers are? I've always wondered how that actually works. I mean, I feel like you could, like, if they saw the tee or the tournament organizer, whomever, could talk to the superintendent and say, hey, you've got to watch out for this. here uh so this this prop so basically monty gets absolutely vilified in the in that meeting like he gets crushed by some of these you know guys his senior and monty is like the tour at this point i know like i want to give monty the benefit of the doubt i'm not aware of any of this reputationally for him but it's also like did he just think he could kind of get away with one and nobody would i mean it's hard to it's hard to go to bed knowing like hey i've got a really awkward I can't even take a stance in this bunker. It's like, oh, now I can hit it to 18 inches the next day. You kind of know. That's kind of why I was looking for some sort of like – When I was doing the research on what I was going to present, I was – it's hard to find other than like P, allegedly, intent-based like – or Mr. Player, as you've been saying, where it's like, yo, this guy is clearly trying to pull one over. Like the intent, there's malice in his intent. The overnight stuff is interesting too. Like, what if the ball was plugged in the bunker, and then, like, they go and drag the bunker? Like, do you have to plug it back in the bunker yourself the next day? I don't know the answer. But also, like, you know what your stance was. Totally. That's the part. He's standing outside the bunker now. And I guess there's just, like, Zaprooter film there, like, you know, one versus the other. And Gary, I think there was another guy, Gary Evans, he was watching it on TV from his hotel room. He spoke up and stuff. But this is from Lawrence. He said, here's a beautiful detail for you. Fast forward a few weeks after I'd written the story and things were bubbling. The European tour is at Forest of Arden for an event. There's a player meeting on the Monday night. Monty's there. Next day I hear about the blow up, but no details. No one is talking. And then I see John Paramore and I ask him and he whispers to me, go over to the tournament office and take a look at the player notice board. What a legend JP was. the tournament office is off-limit to hacks like me, but I go in anyway and nobody stops me. And there on the notice board is a letter to members. And it's a statement about the previous night's meeting telling members Monty had been officially reprimanded for his conduct in Jakarta, the first time that that had ever happened on the tour. You've got to remember, Monty was as big as the tour back then. So this pops back up in 2009 at Turnberry. Sandy Lyle just gets up and, like, just rips the scab right back off. What about when you're cheating in Jakarta, basically? What about the Indonesian Open? Basically. What about the files? So Sandy Lyle was frustrated about being overlooked for the captaincy of the Ryder Cup team. So he accused his fellow Scott of a form of cheating. This is per Ewan Murray and the Guardian. when playing in the 2005 Indonesian Open in Jakarta. Despite an attempt at an apology yesterday, the two-time major winner did little to retract those words, a matter which drew a furious reaction from Monty. Giorgio Grady, the European tour head, was similarly unimpressed. The European tour wishes to state that the tournament committee debated the Jakarta situation extensively and made a full statement at the time. We put that to bed. Yeah. Fonty said, I had time to digest what Sandy said yesterday, and I've decided to say nothing. I don't think his comments warrant comment. I've come here to play golf, and I've been hit with this. Just because he's disappointed not to be made captain, please don't take it out on me. I know he's disappointed. That's obvious. That's fine. Please don't take it out on me. And it sounds like Sandy is just kind of incapable of telling a lie or putting a good spin on things. He was going to get back up, apologize, and he just doubled right back down, which is sick. So Monty at this point was hovering around 53, 54, 55 in the AWGR. He plays really well end of the year, gets up into the top 10, so the rankings aren't really an issue anymore. And then 2006, obviously, almost wins the U.S. Open at Wingfoot and stuff. but the Jakarta incident. And I just love this. I love the European tour in that they're just like, they're just, it's like men dealing with these things. Right. And it's not like they, they will use the press to their advantage or they will, they will play politics with the press. It's so different over there. Yeah. Yeah. And, but also the press has different libel laws over there too, which are much stricter and more, you know, more, much more enforceable too. So John Hopkins wrote something about basically like creating a tribunal, like an independent inquiry into this specific incident. Like that's how seriously they took stuff. Jesus. There you have it. Monty, you just want another crack at those majors. All right. Well, I've got a couple more here. It will be a little shorter than my first one of Augusta-related incidents. So how much do you guys actually know about the 1958 Masters? Is this the Ken Venturi-Arnie year? This is the Ken Venturi-Arnie year. I believe Arnie played two balls. You are right. I remember the – On 12? On 12. Everything I know about this is because the men in green, when Michael Bamberger kind of profiles Ken Venturi and his crusade to win a major as an amateur and stay a lifelong amateur and all that, and then how he never, ever let go of this incident. That's stuff I learned in this as well. That's more than I knew of this. I knew that Arnie plugged a ball in 12 and controversially played a second ball, and it made the difference in the Masters, and we will get there. Sources here, a Golf Channel article from Mercer Bags. Sick name. Yeah, a 2013 ESPN article from Bob Herrig and a bunch of 1958 newspapers, including the Kansas City Star and various other articles at the time. We just don't name people like that anymore. Everyone's going to Mercer Bags. That's like 2004 or 2005, I think it was. I wasn't familiar with that name. But going into the final round of the 1958 Masters, Arnold Palmer's tied for the lead with Sam Snead at 5-under par. Kerry Middlecoff is at 4-under. Billy Maxwell, Al Mingert, Art Wall Jr., and Bo Winninger are all at minus three. Fred Hawkins, Billy Joe Patton, who is an amateur, and Ken Venturi are all at minus two. Okay? And Ken Venturi is an amateur? Ken Venturi is not an amateur. Not an amateur anymore. Okay. Again. Billy Maxwell, you know his affiliation, correct? I do not. He used to own Hyde Park Golf Club. I did. Oh. How about that? I did not know that. What a dump. So, again. Don't you dare. Arnold Palmer tied to lead with Sam Snead at minus five. Kevin McCurry minus two. Okay. They're playing together in the final round on Sunday. They are out well in front of the leaders. Television was a newish thing at this time period. I couldn't find the actual tee times, but Arnie in the lead goes out like an hour before the final group to get into the television window, I believe, in some capacity. I don't know. So we've lobbied for that at times where they should be able to just do whatever they want with the groups. Pretty much. Yes. More so when it's like a guy finishes, if they're tied, if they're tied, if they're tied, instead of being like first guy in, it's like we want to put speed in the final round or the final group. The masters should be able to do that. They absolutely should. They should. They've done it before for the drama. That's when they should say, we're going to handle this one guys. So, so again, they're out well in front of the leader. So there's, but there's, and this is also a gust at this time. and this is written in the newspapers at the time, is viewed as one of the only tournaments you would ever go to or attend or play in and know what is going on around the course because they have leaderboards on the back nine. That was not a thing back then. So it is like they're a pioneer in that regard because it used to kind of not matter what order you played in because you had no idea what was going on the golf course and you couldn't really scoreboard watch anyways. And fast forward to today and it's still analog. So they get to 12. Palmer's leading Venturi by one shot at this point. Again, it's kind of hard to tell what the actual leaderboard says at this point, but it's 155 yards. What do you think Arnie hits on the 12th hole? Seven. I was going to say seven. He hits a four iron. Okay. Okay. I only saw that in one place. I don't know if it's accurate, but I found it in a 1958 newspaper. A shot link. Four iron? He hit four iron. It might have been into the wind. It's swirling down there. So it's worth noting it was too much club, one, and it's worth noting this is a super wet Masters. There's been all kinds of rain. And they both, so both Palmer and Venturi hit it long of the back right hole location. But Venturi's ball kicks onto the green, and he has an easy two-putt par. Palmer's ball embeds. It sticks in the mud. He calls in a rules official. Yes, yes. And at this time, important distinction, there is rough. There is no second cut. Second cut. You're right. It's not called rough. It's not called rough. Banned. You want that credential ripped right off your chest? Come on. No intent there. Calls in a rules official. Palmer would say later, the golf course was very, very wet, and that day we were playing wet weather rules. I saw an official there, and I said, I'm going to lift, clean, and place this ball. And he said, oh, no, you're not. He says, you can't do that. Who was the official? Fred Ridley. Well, of course, I knew better, and so I begged to differ with the official. That's the end of Palmer's quote. The rules official was Arthur Lacey, a former president of – Yes, yeah. Well, no, you know what continent this guy's from. He denied him relief. Former president of the British PGA and a member of the 1933 and 1937 Great Britain and Ireland Ryder Cup teams. Venturi would say in an interview it could never happen today There were only five of us there and there were no cameras I told Arnold that he should get a drop and that when Arthur Lacey said it was half embedded Well, that's like being half pregnant. It either is embedded or it isn't. And Arnie would say, I said I'll play two balls, and I did. And this is where accounts vary. Playing two balls rules, which isn't allowed. Yeah. if you declare it before you do it. Okay. This is where we see some accounts are going to vary, and where Ken Venturi, I think, gets really raw into the deal here. So Ken would later write in a book, I agreed with Palmer on the original call. The ball was absolutely embedded, but he didn't declare he was playing a provisional until after he made the double bogey. So he's forced to play on by Arthur Lacey. He chops it like a foot and a half, chips it on the green, misses the putt, makes double bogey. Okay. So at that point, playing a provisional, would you have to play the – not only declare that you're playing the provisional, but also go back and play it and then play both? I would have thought that if you were going to play the two-ball rule, you would play the ball as it lies and then immediately drop it. Or are you supposed to play out the first ball and then play the second? I think you declare I'm going to play two. Yeah. You play out the first one, and I'm not sure if it matters, but you play out the first one. So the key here is you can't go make double and then say I want to do over. Because the key is also if the committee rules that the provisional ball is the correct rule, that's a score you have to take. So if, in theory, Arnie, from this half-pregnant lie, if he holds it, he wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to go play my provisional now. He would have said, I'll take my birdie. So in theory, if you're going to try it, if you want to play the provisional and the committee is going to rule that the provisional ball is the right rule and the other score is lower, you can't take that. That's an important distinction with this. So it's a he said thing with regard to whether on the action. Which is important. Yes. Because at first I was like, oh, that's ticky-tack. But then you're like, no, because he made the double and it was like, It doesn't sound like at the time, and Arnie later would say, I said I'll play two balls, but Ken Venturi did not hear that. And, again, Ken agrees with Arnie that it was embedded, and we'll get to there to say eventually Augustus says that the rules official didn't know what he was doing. He did not apply the rule correctly. So, again, he plays the ball out. So after he holds out, he says, I'm going to go back and play another ball, and he chips it stone dead and makes a three. So we walk off the 12th. And at this point, it's like 1958. Is Arnie the dude? He is like – so a lot of the major winners, a lot of the Masters winners are like between the ages of 33 and 40. The guys are older, so he's a young guy. He's written in this time as being built like a blacksmith. He's from Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His dad is not able to attend the final round of this Masters because his other son is joining the Lutheran Church in Pennsylvania. He's not going to be there this day. So, like, Arnie was popular and on his way to being popular, but it's not complete Arnie mania. This ends up being his first major win. Yes, this is his first master's win. I don't recall that's his first major. He's building his army. First major. Okay. Yeah, he had finished T10 in 55, T7 in 57, and then he finished seventh at the U.S. Open the year prior. So, I mean, I think he was orchestrated to be in the TV window, though, because I think Augusta. So that's where it's like he's going to get a favorable ruling here, and it's from like, sounds like it's from Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts. We'll get there. And it's like, is this Augusta putting his thumb on the scale to say, sorry, excuse me, Mr. Jones. So he walks off 12th, and he has either made a five or a three. Obviously, that's going to make a massive difference in this tournament, especially as Venturi is trying to pace off of him. he goes on steps up to the 13th hole hits a three wood and makes eagle uh and on the 15th hole he gets word from bobby jones there's a there's a photo of him bobby jones clippard roberts and kevin chury talking about it that the three would stand and palmer would say i knew the rule and believed i was within my rights to do what i had done so this is where again it's hard palmer was right the ball was embedded and should have gotten relief yeah so it's if he gets a bad ruling but he likely didn't apply the provisional rule properly. But why were we in this spot? I got a bad ruling. And so it seems kind of like Augusta, you know, whether or not he played the provisional properly says like, well, you got a bad ruling. You played the second ball anyways. Like you made a three. Let's, let's move on. So Venturi again, also believe Palmer should have been playing both balls simultaneously. So it was to not gain a competitive advantage by getting a feel for green conditions, playing one. and then the other. USGA rules at the time under which the tournament was being contested stated that even if a player did not announce his attentions ahead of time, the score he made with the second ball would count, which in Palmer's case was the par. Venturi's argument, which he made in his book, was what if he had chipped in for birdie with the first ball? He wouldn't play a second ball, would he? Says Palmer, now about the accusations, again, this is some 50 years later, well, that bothered me a little, yeah, because we talked about that and that's a dead issue. We've moved on. Sounds like Mr. Venturi has not moved on. He didn't move on until – he never moved on. So on the eve, about a couple weeks before Arnie's getting ready to play in his 50th Masters, Venturi releases this book where he writes about it. And I don't disagree with anything Venturi wrote, but Arnold Palmer, friend of everyone in the press, like people start to pile on Venturi for like stealing his moment of 50th Masters. That's some pretty shitty timing, right? Well, I mean, his publisher is probably like, this is books about the mask. You know, it's my – Ken, he's got an army. Yeah. He's got an army. He's got an army. But, like, per the USGA rules, I mean, yes, if Palmer would have chipped in with the first one, yeah, of course he's not, like, he's not going to play the second one. Like, I get that, but he didn't chip in with the first one, and per the USGA rules, he was entitled to play a second one, correct? Right, but what if he got that one up and down, the first one up and down? Well, it seems like more of a hole in the rules, not necessarily. Well, I guess the point is you have to do it simultaneously so you can't figure out what your score is. The KC stand from what you just read. They changed that afterwards. The rule didn't state, the USGA rule at the time didn't state that you had to. If a player did not announce his attendance, the score he made with the second ball would count. But, yeah, that goes back to if he makes par. I agree with you that it would be the rule, which sounds like they changed. You should have to state, I'm playing a second ball. I'm putting that in place. I disagree with the ruling, and I want to play both. What's interesting is the common denominator here is when these rule scandals happen is the rules compound. It's like one rule leads to the improper application of the next rule. So it's like, oh, God, you get a chain reaction where, like, oh, you messed this up? So now you're DQ because you signed the wrong store card. It's like you just went down a decision tree. The cover-up is worse than the crime. Which is, again, like what a stupid game. Some irony in Palmer's book, quote, playing by the rules. He wrote that he told Lacey he was going to play a second ball and appeal to the rules committee. But Palmer said Lacey wouldn't allow that either. And the rules do allow for playing a second ball. Lacey really didn't know the rules. Yeah. Tough look for my – Lacey wanted proper golf. He's like, this – wet weather conditions? What are those? We're not doing that. Maybe Ridley just came from the Lacey rules tree. He said it is possible that Venturi did not hear this conversation as he elected to play out. So that might be some of the gray area there. Lacey's probably stewing. Nobody asked him. John Morissette, a former director of rules of golf for the United States Golf Association, said he believed Palmer originally got a poor ruling, and perhaps the committee was trying to make up for that when it allowed the second ball to stand. According to Morris, it did not appear that Palmer played the second ball correctly. How many guys are we talking about on this committee? Any idea? I have a feeling it's Bob Jones and Clifford Robertson. It's a two-man committee. One newspaper wrote, Arnold Palmer, a mighty young man with a golf club or a rule book, made the best use of both today and won the 22nd Masters in a cavalry-charged finish. Kevin Venturi's book, it says, Not nobody, not even Palmer, is bigger than the game. I firmly believe that he did wrong, and he knows that I know he did wrong. Venturi were going to finish fourth, not second. But both Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins had chances on the 18th green to tie Palmer, but both missed, and Palmer ends up winning Masters by one single shot. So it wouldn't have even been in a playoff if the ruling had stand. ruling gets flipped and he wins it by one um and palmer and palmer is is henceforth known as a great man i would say though it is good at least the ruling it got finalized on the 15th hole yes it happened pretty quick i thought it all got finalized when they were trying to sign their cards but that that clears some of it up and it does sound like a fuck-up of just truly the guy that didn't yeah like properly apply the apply the embedded ball rule so again it's kind of like That's that gray area. Like, do they get it right? I think so. Like, he shouldn't have had to play the embedded ball. But did they follow the proper procedure to get there? No. We don't know if they followed the proper procedure. Because Arnie could have said to the rules official, hey, I'm playing a second ball. And Venturi just didn't hear it. Could have. It does not sound like that at the time. The later writing from Arnie makes it sound that way. but it does sound like he makes the double, he's fuming, and then goes back and plays the second ball is how it played out. In Arnie's book, A Golfer's Life, he wrote, Ken Venturi, who was continuing that afternoon, was among those who felt he'd been cheated by my actions on the whole, but I knew the rule and I believed I was well within my rights to do what I'd done. This is from that same Masters, 1958. I'll hold the name back for a second here. The 1958 Masters was a memorable one. It hinged on how Arnold Palmer, paired with Kim and Cherry, played the 12th and 13th hole in the final day. Since the course had been thoroughly soaked by rains, a local rule had been invoked for an embedded ball. On the 12th, 155-yard par 3 across Ray's Creek, Palmer's iron carried over the green and embedded itself in the steep bank of rough behind it. The official evidently was not aware of the local rule as he instructed Palmer to play the ball as it lay. When Palmer did this, he holed out in five after missing a short putt. Then politely but pertinacuously, Palmer went back to the pitch mark of his tee shot. He obviously felt that the official's ruling was not correct and elected to play an alternate ball. With that ball, he made three. At this point, no one knew whether Palmer's score was three or five. Palmer Eagle, 13. And while playing 15, he was informed that his official score on 12 was three. That, in effect, won him the tournament in his first major championship, professional championship. I felt that I should try to come up with some appropriate name for the far corner of the course where the critical action had taken place. The only phrase with the word corner I could think of was the title of a song on an old Bluebird record that I'd first heard back in my college days, shouting an amen corner. The more I thought about it, the more suitable I thought the amen corner was for that bend of the golf course where the decisive action in the Masters had taken place. That is from Herbert Warren Wind, the first mention of Amen Corner at Augusta National. How about that? How about Augusta? I'm saying rough in there. Within three holes. Yeah. Definitively making the ruling. Also note the 1958 Masters. I've never heard this story, and it's only on the Wikipedia page. There's no articles written about this anywhere, and I don't even know if it's true. A gentleman by the name of Alan Perkins got on the grounds of Augusta by asking Cary Middlecoff to share a round from the hotel they were staying. Club staff assumed he was a player. Yeah, share a round. Club staff assumed he was a player, and he helped himself to a spot in the locker room, practiced on the putting green, and began playing on hole one when Perkins was forced by security to buy a ticket and remove his belongings from the clubhouse. Not forced to leave, forced to buy a ticket after playing hole one on Sunday of the Masters. Paul, please, now driving. Alan Perkins. Who the hell is Alan Perkins? I'll tell you what a weird thing for me is on this whole thing. Ken Venturi finished T4. Yeah. He finished six shots back of Arnie. Yeah, I don't think it's like, yeah, this ruling robbed me of it. It was just like, he's my guy here. That's kind of seemingly how it's always come across from Venturi. It was like he got so wrapped up in it and felt so personally. Well, he's kind of responsible for it, though, as the playing partner. Yeah, but I think he felt so personally shortchanged by it when really Doug Ford and Fred Hawkins were the guys that finished second. I think he's protecting the field. I'm kind of Team Ken on that regard. Doug Ford and they weren't there. They didn't hear any of this. They didn't see it play out. No, I know. I'm just saying I think Venturi's – like if you read Men in Green and a lot of his comments after the fact, he's pissed. Venturi always – like it always felt like he stole the masters from me. Yeah. No, man. Like you shot 72 in the final round. Yeah. After Saturday's round, Ken Venturi was also upset. He had to putt over six divot holes. And the way this is getting – this is written in the newspapers. He said, with the rules that were in effect, ball marks on the greens cannot be repaired until after the players hole out. Love that. So, but it's also written, it's, it, it, he's saying he shouldn't have to pay for other players' mistakes, as in, like, nobody fix their divots after they hole out. Right, and I couldn't quite tell if that meant, like, you can't fix your own divot mark before you hole out. And then you just don't go back and fix it. It sounds like it's, like, breaking a bunker. Like you couldn't – what I'm understanding is the rule used to be you had to play out, finish the hole, and then almost like after you hit a bunker shot, you raked the bunker for the next group. But what if like your own pitch mark was in your way? Could you repair it? I couldn't – if anybody knows about this rule from this part of history, please let me know because I couldn't figure this out. But he had put over six divot holes on Saturday. But, again, he kind of blames it on other players' mistakes, like leaving them there. but I'm also wondering, could you only repair your own marks? I was confused by that, but that was in the newspapers as well. Also of note, Arnie played an 18-hole Monday playoff that week at the Azalea at Cape Fear in North Carolina. He shot either 78 or 79. The newspapers have it in two different ways, but that week began with him playing an 18-hole playoff for a non-major, 18-hole Monday playoff for a non-major event during the actual Masters week. The Masters wasn't yet really the Masters. the 22nd one? Yeah, but it was still written at the time as being the best tournament. This was the clear best tournament. He's built like a blacksmith. And I think with Palmer, looking at the scorecards and everything, Palmer, if he makes double on 12, he would have gone to minus 2. I'm sure he would have been 1 ahead of him. Minus 3. I mean, yeah. I could see him getting jaded, looking back, being like, oh, I would have had him then if I was out in front. And then Arnie, which it's pretty sick that Arnie... 13. It is pretty sick. And it took like a three. Again, back then it took a three-wood. Okay. I prepared one more short one. Please. Come on. For the road. Let's go. This is for the road. A big source for this one was 2023 article in Golf Digest by Joel Beal. This is from the 2023 Masters. It says, For those who missed what happened Thursday at Augusta National, cameras caught Brooks Koepka's caddie Ricky Elliott mouthing five to Gary Woodland and Woodland's caddie Brennan Little after his second shot into the par 515. Koepka also appears to be flashing five digits with his fingers before taking off his glove. And photos show, screenshots show that Koepka did hit five iron into the green. As outlined under Rule 10.2A, golfers aren't allowed to give or ask other golfers for advice. We feel this. The penalty for both parties calls for two strokes. This was absolutely, like, smoking gun. I still am willing to die on this hill. Like this is absurd. And people that we don't talk about this in the same level that we talk about, like the Monty thing is absurd. And the arrogance with which it was. For sure. Carried out. For sure. Of course, no penalty was called. An official statement from Augusta National confirmed. All involved were adamant that no advice was given or requested. Like we saw the video. Like Ricky Elliott, Mal's five. and I have the images right here of Koepka after he wins his fifth major. The next one, he mockingly gives the five. I remember the live show. Harry Higgs came on. He was like, oh, you guys being – Everybody does this. Everybody does this. I was like – It's still illegal. I know. I was like, but they got caught. That's bullshit, man. It was kind of like lighting up. You can look in a player's bag. The rule is pretty specific. Like, you can look in a player's bag, but you can't, like, touch other clubs in somebody's bag to see what information is out there. That is legal. If a caddy happens to flash to a television camera, you know, that it's five iron and you see that, that is legal. Like, that is fine. But you cannot. And, like, their heads are turned looking up the fairway, like, either asking. We can't see them ask. But, like, very clearly looking for the information. And both Ricky and Brooks give it to them. And it's as clear as day. This is another kind of Tiger situation where the more they've talked about it, the more it sounds like, well, that just implicated you even more. Kepka said, we looked at it when we got back in. You know, Gary and Brennan had no idea what we were hitting. They didn't even know. I know that fact because Woodland asked me what we were hitting walking off when we were walking down. That's, of course, a lie. Ricky says five. Kepka motions five. You can zoom in on the club. And it was clearly five. when asked about his weird way of taking the glove off. I don't know if you're supposed to take your glove off with your fist closed or what now. Yet there's a bunch of videos going around of Brooks clearly taking his glove off in a very normal fashion instead of this with the five fingers wide. Brooks would say, the last thing I'm going to do is give it to Gary, the U.S. Open champ. The funny part about it is I think if he would have known we were hitting five, he would have hit six because I don't think Gary is that short, and he's 10 yards in front of me, which, again, just didn't make any sense. Like, they're different distances. You weren't telling him to hit five. He's going to make the adjustment. Woodland was 22 yards ahead of Koepka on that hole. Woodland confirmed that he would have hit six iron, not five, had he known about Koepka's club choice, which wouldn't make sense. Like, 22 yards is more than a club distance between the two, and Woodland's likely longer than Koepka. Again, they're just, like, explaining lies upon lies because he said that likely would have put him in the middle of the pond, which again doesn't even make sense so mcpaul mcgillie said this is common practice on tour whether you like it or not happens in every professional event around the world this is not considered a serious breach among the players as long as i've been on tour this is what it is which i and i get that too where it's like it's just not that big of a deal like you still got to execute the shot but it's a rule and it's it's it's a rule and you got it's a rule yeah it's a rule and when they asked you did you do this they lied and augusta accepted the lie and if we're We're going to disqualify the walrus for building a stance and protecting his pants and hit the teenager with a low play penalty. We're just asking for some consistency. I was very glad Brooks did not win this Masters because I think it would have been a very serious asterisk on it. Like, extremely serious asterisk. He broke the rule and lied about it. The piece of it that's interesting to me, so the rule states that both players would be penalized two strokes? Correct. I thought it was only the instigator. So now I go back to my junior golf incident. Well, there's fifth grade, and it was actually the guy. Well, if he gave you the number, he gave you the answer. Plus, that event's complete. You can't go back to it. You'll ask him so that he gets penalized, even though he doesn't give him the answer? Well, yeah, you still get penalized if I ask you, dog. Just to catch people up, first competitive event I've ever played, second hole. Par three, this kid, you know, I just made double at the first. This kid tees off. And just very naively, I was like, oh, great shot, man. What did you hit there? And the other kid in the group was like, soliciting club advice is a two-stroke penalty. I was like, oh, cool, man. Cool, I hate this sport. Thank you. I make bogey. I'm a football player. Cool, I'm going to start playing tennis. And then I remember thinking like, so is that like, is that it or was that like a warning? We didn't say anything else. So I finish out. It's like I make four, you know, I dump in a bunker, chip on, and I'm like, okay, man, what I thought was a good four. I was like, what did you have? I was like, four. He goes, you mean six. It's bodied me. I went on to shoot like 64 on ninefolds. I got detonated. Thanks, guys. Love this game. I was like, whoa. But you know what you didn't do? In cups, man. You didn't deny that you did it. No, of course. I was like, I didn't know you couldn't do that, which isn't an excuse. Nobody told me. No, which I, since then, I've always been like, that doesn't matter. Like, you break the rules, you know, even if you didn't mean to. But these guys get away with so much with intent, like, oh, no, I didn't mean to do it, or we didn't do that. And then they're just – they kind of take their word for it. It's like some guys where they see TV evidence, it's like, well, no, you did it. Even if you didn't intend to, we're going to penalize you for it. And it's one – I don't know. It's one thing that happens at, like, Thursday at the Zurich, you know, of like, look, I can go out of my way to look in your bag to do it. and you're like, I'll just save you the walkover. That's where I'm like, it's the fucking Masters, man. It rubs you the wrong way at the Masters of just straight up colluding. Yes. This is one of the few rules where it's like you, you know, it's a protecting the field thing. I don't know. It does feel gross because it's not against the course, because golf is against you and the course. This is where it's like colluding with another player. It's just like something. I remember that. I'm with you. It rubbed me the wrong way at the time. And I remember being like, are we being too old-fashioned? But it's like, no, it was kind of bullshit. You can't selectively enforce the rules. The same thing with McGinley saying that. It was like, all right, well, McGinley, you probably also don't have a problem with backstopping. I think there is a line with backstopping. That's technically not against the rules. There isn't even a rule written for that, which is a good point. It's just like, this is specific. You can't ask for that, right? the way the rules work with backstopping is you can't ask for someone to leave it there. But is that true? I think so. I think he's right. I think you can play, like, you can say, I'm going to play my shot, but if a guy – I think it's if the other person has declared their intent to mark, you cannot play. I think that's what it is. I think you're right. Which guys need to intend to mark more. Correct. Your intention must be to mark. But again, that's, like, grayish. This is point blank, man. This is a rule of golf, and it's hard because it's not like Brooks gained an advantage there, but who knows how much of an advantage he got throughout the course of that round. I know. That's when you get to it. You're like, oh, man. That's why the rule exists. It's so stupid, though. What do you think about getting rid of this rule? No. Where it's like guys can just – No. No. No. It's a rule. You can't ask for advice. You can't give advice. You want a meal? Yeah. I'm just – I'm spitballing here now. You want that 64 to be a 62? So, anyways, I think we left a lot on the table. We could do a lot more rules episodes in the future. These are weirdly fun, of course, very fun. Well, you know about the macro. You remember it. Like, even the Lexi Thompson thing, I remember that. But then you go back, it's like, God, that was only 2018. That feels like it was 20 years ago. The details of the Tiger thing, I'm kind of embarrassed I didn't remember it in that level of detail. It was a little before our time. I need to get Lawrence on. Is that Zach Johnson, 2013? No, that's Adam Scott. Adam Scott. Okay. Yeah. And you get Lawrence on to just give us the blow-by-blow because there's so many fun characters. We should just do a dive back into what European tour golf was like back then. Yeah. I mean, I watched a ton of that growing up. Oh, it was the best. I mean, it was the best because, like, all the golf courses were terrible. It was like Renton Laidlaw in the most minimalistic broadcast. Yes. And they wouldn't talk a whole lot. Guys were just back spinning at 50 feet at a time. That's all it was. Yeah, they're playing in Jakarta, Indonesia. It's awesome. Yeah. So, all right, that's going to do it. Thanks to Titleist. Thank you to Roback. Thanks to Lagoon. Greatly appreciate everyone watching and listening. We're going to do an in-person pod on Sunday night as well. Hell yeah. Right from the studio, I think. So thanks everyone for listening and joining. We'll see you here later this week. Cheers.