/https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.pijper.io%2Fsource%2Fgolfers-magazine%2Fgolfersmagazine%2Fuploads%2F2018%2Fdecember%2Freferee030118support.jpg "Referee")
In de aanloop van het toernooi op het Hawaiiaanse eiland Maui (lees hier de preview en bekijk de tv-tijden) werd een aantal spelers vriendelijk aan de tand gevoeld – ook over de nieuwe Regels.
De transcripts die de PGA Tour aan de media verstrekte, maakten duidelijk dat een aantal spelers er alles van wist en dat een paar nog niet veel wisten of eigenlijk niet veel interesse toonden.
Cameron Champ is een jonge speler die voor veel Nederlandse liefhebbers nog een onbekende is. Dat gaat waarschijnlijk wel veranderen, want hij won al in zijn negende start op het hoogste niveau. Bovendien slaat de 23-jarige Champ de bal ontstellend ver. Je zou verwachten dat juist hij zich als nieuweling al flink in de nieuwe Regels had verdiept. Niet dus…
‘I've briefly looked over it. I'm going to start looking over it more, just to be more aware of things. I just think some of it will help speed up play, kind of that have out-of-bounds in play, stuff like that. You can only look for the ball for three minutes or spike marks has always been a huge ordeal, even though for me personally it might happen once or twice a year where it's right in the middle of your line, but definitely in the afternoons it will help out with things. But if I ever have a discrepancy or something, I always ask, that's how I've always been. So even though I might not be aware of every rule I'm still going to ask if I'm kind of uncertain.’
Rory McIlroy deed in zijn gesprekjes vooraf nogal onvriendelijk over de Europese Tour en de spelers die niet goed genoeg zijn om op de PGA Tour te spelen. En met de Regels heeft hij ook al niet veel. Zijn opmerking over het droppen op kniehoogte was er wel een die interessant en aardig was.
Can you just give us your thoughts of the rules meetings and things that you've had and what you think may or may not happen over the next few days that could be different?
That rules meeting was voluntary and I voluntarily didn't go.
Just your thoughts in general and how the changes may affect the game.
It might help pace of play a little bit. I think it's going to be very strange for guys to tap down spike marks, to tap in with the pin in. There's going to be a few things that are, practicing your drops from your knees. We're saying that Brian Harman has got a big advantage, he can basically place it. Where you got someone like Tony Finau who is dropping it probably from like waist high for me. But I think that they're trying to simplify the rules which I think is a great thing for the game. I've always said that the rules of golf are way too complicated, especially after the debacles and farces we have had at U.S. Opens and all sorts of stuff over the last few years. So I'm happy that they made the decision to try and simplify them and just try to make everything a little bit easier to understand.
Tja, Dustin Johnson. Een Regelprobleem kostte hem in 2016 bijna de U.S. Open-titel en zes jaar daarvoor wist hij op Whistling Straits niet dat elk plekje zand een bunker was. DJ miste de play-off. Dan denk je: die is gewaarschuwd. Maar als je onderstaande conversatie met het journaille leest…
I know you joked about it there at the start but have you paid any attention to the rules changes or how much effort have you put into looking at what the changes will be?
I actually just looked at it for like a minute upstairs before I came down. They've got a big poster in the locker room. Yeah.
[Caddie en broer] Austin? Has he had instruction?
I had one of the Tour-officials do a printout that I'm going to give to him to study later on today.
How is that going to go?
Probably not very well. But I'm going to have to look at it a little bit.
So you're not expecting there to be too much?
No, I mean I looked over all of them. It's not, it's really not much different. Probably the biggest thing I think is being able to leave the flag in, the new and then the drop heights. But which, yeah, I'm sure there's going to be a few guys getting penalties. I don't know if it's a penalty if it's on the first drop or if like if you play it. I need to ask somebody. No, if you dropped it like normal.
Apparently it is. Well you can re-drop if you do it before you hit.
Okay. So if you dropped it and then hit it would be the penalty.
Yes.
Okay.
It could be a two-stroke penalty if it rolls outside of that range.
You did mention the flag stick though I'm assuming you're going to keep taking it out?
Yeah, I'm going to take it out.
Patrick Reed heeft zich daarentegen wel goed in de materie verdiept.
How up to speed are you on the new rules and can you imagine any scenario with you leaving the flag in with a two, three foot putt?
A two or three or four foot putt? No. Never. I won't on that short of a putt because I don't know how many times I've putted on the putting green and I have the flag in and it's like there's an, it's like a shield around the hole, it never goes in. But if I pull it I mean I'm all of a sudden the ball goes in the heart.
So I particularly don't like putting with the flag in. Where I think it will help is you get those 70, 80, 90 footers, those really long one where your caddie is over there tending, if he can't stand in the right spot because other guys' balls on the green and now he's having to not only have the flag at such an angle where he's tending but also he's standing pretty far off of the actual pin high, I mean it's going to throw off your depth perception because you're going to see a flag angling and see a caddie standing two or three feet past or two or three feet short.
So I think that would be the only time that I would keep the flag in is if I feel like you can't stand kind of close to the hole.
Justin Thomas heeft het een en ander gelezen, maar hij neemt geen enkel risico. De referees zijn gewaarschuwd
How aware are you of the new rule changes this year, and have you spent any amount of time kind of looking over them?
Yeah, I've tried to spend a lot of time looking over them. Especially a handful of them are quite a bit different and I think you'll see it across the field especially these first couple months. Everybody's going to be calling a rules official in as much possible. So unfortunately play is probably not going to be too fast. But it's tough, with anything, with change it's always going to be different. But I've tried to study up, I told [ caddie ] Jimmy to look at them as much as he can. You would hate to get penalized just for making a mistake for something you've done your whole life, so it will be different.
Although I have a pretty good idea of the rules, most of the time I still call official 95 percent of the time just because it's, with TV now pretty much every drop or everything that you have, at least when you're in contention, is televised and that's all you need is to do something that someone thinks is wrong and then next thing you know you get penalized for something you didn't know that you were doing. I call an official most times but this time, or I guess the beginning of this year it might be needed.
- Golfsupport.nl