Rules played outsized role in Open conversation
On DeChambeau's carelessness and Scheffler break; 'Trump card' actually considered
Bryson DeChambeau has only himself to blame for his Open mess (Oisin Keniry/R&A via Getty Images)
SOUTHPORT, England — Golf’s rules are admittedly maddening. Even those who play the game for a living routinely get them wrong, and the amount of nuance that can go into understanding them or even applying them can be frustrating.
The rules violation committed by Bryson DeChambeau on Friday at the Open Championship understandably had the golf world ablaze. The controversy seemed to go down the battle lines of support for and against the two-time major champion, with many suggesting that he was singled out.
That latter notion is preposterous and a mockery of the game and its institutions. The R&A and its rules staff — manned, in part, by DP World Tour officials — have no reason to pick on DeChambeau for some sort of perceived abuse. Having a player as popular as DeChambeau in contention is a blessing, not a curse. The entire fiasco arguably distracted and detracted from the event. It certainly didn’t help it.
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At the very least, DeChambeau was guilty of what has become a common trend — a lack of carefulness around the ball, especially in the rough or in and around penalty areas.
He is far from alone in this regard and it is due in part to a growing trend of catering to players and allowing them to get away with pushing the boundaries of one of golf’s most basic tenants — you play the ball as it lies.
“Avoid the appearance of evil,” said one long-time rules official who was not working at Royal Birkdale.
“When Bryson went in there … you’ve got to be more gentle,” the rules official added. “He was careless. You have to be careful. He was high-stepping around in there, like a bull in a China shop.”
The actual infraction was for improving his line under Rule 8.1. The stepping on tall fescue was deemed to be clearing a path for his swing. Intent doesn’t matter.
Despite internet conspiracy sleuths who believe someone called in the possible infraction — no longer allowed via the Rules of Golf — the R&A had a rules official monitoring the broadcast. From most accounts, it appears that DeChambeau’s actions around the ball were viewed immediately as a red flag by rules experts and peers.
The rules official praised the bona-fides of Grant Moir, the head of governance for the R&A who was essentially the chief referee who made the final call. He also noted that DeChambeau is not used to playing out of the kind of tall fescue that he faced well off the fairway on the fifth hole Friday, giving him some bit of a pass for how it all went down.
“When you’re in the high fescue, you can’t step on anything or lay anything down,” said Patrick Reed, who has had his own rules issues over the years, when asked about the DeChambeau situation. “It’s hard to figure out, right? I’m not there, I’m not in that group. I can only go off of where the camera guys are.”
One theme that emerged was the inequity of players who get a lot of airtime. Tiger Woods would like a word about that. That, however, is simply the nature of golf. The idea is not to get away with a rules infraction because nobody sees you; it is to get all of the information possible to get it right, whether it be walking scorers, players, caddies, spectators or rules experts who can monitor a broadcast.
Nobody was out to get DeChambeau here. Typically, rules officials defer to a player’s judgment. For those in charge not to do so in this case suggests their view of the situation was clear cut, particularly in a situation where a player’s intent does not matter.
Perhaps a bit more transparency in the aftermath would have served all parties better. Moir gave a statement to the media on the two-shot penalty but didn’t take questions. It was only learned later via a TV interview that R&A CEO Mark Darbon disclosed that the infraction was discovered by a rules official who was monitoring the broadcast.
In the end, it’s all a shame. DeChambeau needed to tread lightly, and he paid a heavy price for not doing so. The drama may have cost him a better shot to win his third major title.
“When you’re watching him there from that camera angle, maybe he was a touch careless around his ball, but I don’t think he did anything intentionally,” said Scottie Scheffler, who played the first two rounds with DeChambeau.
“We’ve seen penalties happen with — like you remember Jon Rahm a couple years ago at the Memorial when his ball moved in the rough, and it’s like to the naked eye, can you really tell that? I think sometimes it’s just a difficult position in the game of golf.
“When I was growing up, if this was the line, here are the rules and this was the right side of it and this is when you’re doing things against the rule, you always tried to stray really far that way (on the right side). I feel like at times, sometimes you see players maybe push it a little bit further than they should.
“I think we need to kind of get back to the traditions of the game and maybe we do need to police things a little bit more stricter in the game.”
DeChambeau wanted to call Trump over rules row
Two other news outlets confirmed what Geoff Shackelford’s “The Quadrilateral” Substack originally reported, that during his tantrum over being assessed a two-shot penalty that Bryson DeChambeau asked R&A officials to call U.S. President Donald Trump to get him involved.
The Telegraph’s James Corrigan and the Daily Mail’s Raith Al-Samarrai confirmed with sources that DeChambeau did threaten to call his friend Trump during his long plea with the R&A that held up third-round tee times for hours until DeChambeau finally was forced to accept the R&A’s ruling that he had violated Rule 8.1 by improving his line when he stomped through tall fescue behind his ball in a penalty area on the fifth hole Friday.
“In a remarkable new twist to the episode, which saw the American docked two strokes in wild scenes on Friday, well-placed sources confirmed to Daily Mail Sport that the double US Open champion warned he might seek a presidential intervention
