Harrington's grief

suffering golfer

Why do Harrington get so much grief from golf viewers? A lot of people have heard now of the unfounded claim that he drove from in front of the tee marker recently. This of course is the 2nd recent claim (1st claim was a tv viewer rang in to complain that he moved the ball with his finger when removing a marker from a green).

I don't understand why any viewer make these kind of claims, I mean it is fair enough if the claim come from the match official or playing partner as they have a stake in it, but I think a viewer making these claims is a prat out to make himself a glory hunter so to give himself bragging rights to his mates...

Should these kind of claims be the reserve of golf officials/referees and viewers claims be ignored completely?

Trampas

It is impossible to have an official to watch every shot for every player.

It is not just PH been done this year and he wont be the last.

People might have bets on at home and it is in their interest to have him dq.

I couldn't understand how they couldn't come up with a 100% answer to say if PH was across the line or not.

All they needed to do was get a line between the two markers and bring in ph shot into the picture and should resolve the issue. if still can't be decided then he is ok.

Jul3s

suffering golfer wrote: »

Why do Harrington get so much grief from golf viewers? A lot of people have heard now of the unfounded claim that he drove from in front of the tee marker recently. This of course is the 2nd recent claim (1st claim was a tv viewer rang in to complain that he moved the ball with his finger when removing a marker from a green).

I don't understand why any viewer make these kind of claims, I mean it is fair enough if the claim come from the match official or playing partner as they have a stake in it, but I think a viewer making these claims is a prat out to make himself a glory hunter so to give himself bragging rights to his mates...

Should these kind of claims be the reserve of golf officials/referees and viewers claims be ignored completely?

Do try and keep up this has already been addressed by the European tour.

rednik

It's Sergio again.:D

Keano

Jul3s wrote: »

Do try and keep up this has already been addressed by the European tour.

Gotta link to save me searching?

suffering golfer

Jul3s wrote: »

Do try and keep up this has already been addressed by the European tour.

I'm aware it has addressed but I don't think they went far enough. They put in a rule along the lines of a time period for filing of claims. I'm just saying only officials and other players should only make claims and not general public.

I think the claim is nit picking as there was no significant gain that PH could have gotten from being within the lines or maginally inside...

Aidric

suffering golfer wrote: »

there was no significant gain that PH could have gotten from being within the lines or maginally inside...

Precisely, which is why he should have been wise enough to remove even the doubt.

Spazzy Magee

As far as I'm concerned, only potential rules breaches reported by a competitor, a competitor's caddy or a tournament official should be entertained. So if you're sitting on your arse in front of the telly with the tour hotline on speed dial or if you're some clown in the gallery with a skin full of pints and a hankering for a bit of divilment, the good old boys in the officials office should tell you exactly where to go. End of story!!

thegen

Aidric wrote: »

Precisely, which is why he should have been wise enough to remove even the doubt.

Harrington is innocent of any wrong doing, get over it.

poteen

I think that the PGA Tour have come out of this looking well. They took a common sense approach and gave the benifit to the player. They also did something similar to this for mcIlroy in the Masters before in relation to the bunker incident. I think that the European tour would have made the wrong decision and disqualified him. They seem to get things like this wrong regularly.

LostPassword

Trampas wrote: »

I couldn't understand how they couldn't come up with a 100% answer to say if PH was across the line or not.

All they needed to do was get a line between the two markers and bring in ph shot into the picture and should resolve the issue. if still can't be decided then he is ok.

From the video that I saw it looked like it was across the line by a few inches, unless he hit it really fat, which I doubt. I'd guess that they really didn't want to DQ paddy for such a trivial infraction and hence chose to keep the ambiguity so that they could give him the benefit of the doubt.

It's may be a silly mistake to make, but people make silly mistakes in tournaments all the time.

Adiaga 2

LostPassword wrote: »

From the video that I saw it looked like it was across the line by a few inches, unless he hit it really fat, which I doubt.

If he hit it fat then the divot mark would more likely be further back than forward of the line. I couldn't tell much from the video tbh.

spurscormac

I thought it looked like the two markers on the tee box weren't square, so he came out in what he thought was a straight line from the one he was looking at, but was probably infront of a direct line between the two.
Also, wasn't there a comment on the video that the camera man had accidentally kicked the other marker and so they couldn't be 100% sure.

The markers were down like this:-

---

/

---

*

---

/

when they should have been like this:-

---

|

---

*

---

|

k.p.h

I was watching tv a few weeks ago and 90k Real Madrid spectators were trying to tell the referee that Barcelona were cheating and he wouldn't listen so I'm not sure what gives the spectators in golf the opportunity to question players.

If the referee, playing partners, caddies and the player him or herself dose not spot the infraction their is none. Golf dose not need video referees etc.. In the spirit the game is played in IT IS NOT FAIR FOR PLAYERS TO BE SECOND GUESSED BY SPECTATORS .

GreeBo

LostPassword wrote: »

From the video that I saw it looked like it was across the line by a few inches, unless he hit it really fat, which I doubt. I'd guess that they really didn't want to DQ paddy for such a trivial infraction and hence chose to keep the ambiguity so that they could give him the benefit of the doubt.

It's may be a silly mistake to make, but people make silly mistakes in tournaments all the time.

+1
It was silly of him to leave himself open to this type of speculation. Just tee it up a foot back from them and forget about it.

L.O.F.T

GreeBo wrote: »

+1
It was silly of him to leave himself open to this type of speculation. Just tee it up a foot back from them and forget about it.

He was on the limit of a 6 iron as discussed on the coverage Sunday evening hence why he teed up so close to the allowed line between the markers. He felt that he needed every foot / inch to hit that six iron rather than a five iron.


http://www.pgatour.com/2011/tournaments/r480/05/08/harrington-transcript/index.html

PADRAIG HARRINGTON:
''But yeah, you know back out there, you look at the TV, and there's no doubt it is inconclusive. You know, I'm one to tee way back, but I was pushing it up there, was trying to get my 6 iron up there. Next time I'll make sure I give it a good yard instead of trying to such is life, as I said. It is inconclusive, and there's not much we can do about it. There's no penalty.''

GreeBo

L.O.F.T wrote: »

He was on the limit of a 6 iron as discussed on the coverage Sunday evening hence why he teed up so close to the allowed line between the markers. He felt that he needed every foot / inch to hit that six iron rather than a five iron.


http://www.pgatour.com/2011/tournaments/r480/05/08/harrington-transcript/index.html

PADRAIG HARRINGTON:
''But yeah, you know back out there, you look at the TV, and there's no doubt it is inconclusive. You know, I'm one to tee way back, but I was pushing it up there, was trying to get my 6 iron up there. Next time I'll make sure I give it a good yard instead of trying to such is life, as I said. It is inconclusive, and there's not much we can do about it. There's no penalty.''

Thanks for that, but I reckon if I knew I was going to be that close to the markers I would get a ref or at least make a show of displaying that I'm behind the markers.

PhilipMarlowe

He did tee it up, then checked, then moved it back according to what I saw/read.
Part of what they were looking at on the video is where there was a hole from a tee and they can be heard to speak of the 'original one'...

From Irish Golf Desk - "Harrington never thought he was in front of the marker, especially when he had already moved the ball back once because he thought it was too close to the line."

Fore Iron

Have you ever seen those people who think knocking your ball off the tee when you address it and then picking it up and re-teeing it it is a penalty?

I'd say it was one of those eejits that saw Harrington tee it up in front of the markers and then pick it up and re-tee it somewhere else and thought "My buddies gave me a two shot penalty for that last Sunday!"

Trampas

Fore Iron wrote: »

Have you ever seen those people who think knocking your ball off the tee when you address it and then picking it up and re-teeing it it is a penalty?

I'd say it was one of those eejits that saw Harrington tee it up in front of the markers and then pick it up and re-tee it somewhere else and thought "My buddies gave me a two shot penalty for that last Sunday!"

The old joke of 1 is normally used here