Real Reality
Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Location: Seoul
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 Posted: Mon Oct 17, 2005 3:50 am Post subject: Wie Disqualification? Do you agree? |
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Michael Bamberger, a reporter for Sports Illustrated, told tour officials Sunday afternoon that he was concerned about the drop. Rules officials Jim Haley and Robert O. Smith reviewed tape from NBC Sports before taking Wie and caddie Greg Johnston to the seventh green after the tournament ended Sunday.
"If I had to make the ruling based on the videotape, to me it was inconclusive," Smith said.
He had Johnston and Wie show him where the ball was in the bushes, then where they dropped. They paced it off, then used string to measure the distance and determined it to be slightly closer.
"The Rules of Golf are based on facts," Smith said. "They had to tell us where it was. The fact was, the ball was closer to the hole by 12 to 15 inches." Bamberger was on the seventh hole Saturday when Wie took her drop, then paced off the distance from the hole after Wie, in the final group that day, went to the eighth tee. He asked her after the third round how she determined where to drop the ball, and Wie said she used ``the triangle thing to make sure that you're not closer.''
Even after her disqualification, she felt she did nothing wrong.
"I was honest out there," she said. "I did what I thought was right. I was pretty confident. If I did it again, I'd still do that. It looked right to me. But I learned my lesson." Johnston, who has spent the last 12 years caddying for Juli Inkster, got into a heated discussion with Bamberger as Wie and her family left Bighorn in a steady rain.
Johnston was bothered that Bamberger, who was at the seventh green when Wie took the drop, waited a day before raising it with tour officials. Had she been notified Saturday before signing her card, she wouldn't have been disqualified. Bamberger said he paced it off after Wie, playing in the final group Saturday, finished the hole.
"I did it in crude way -- 'Let's see what she has to say.' I was hopeful she could convince me,'' in the Saturday interview, Bamberger said. "I thought about it more and was just uncomfortable that I knew something. Integrity is at the heart of the game. I don't think she cheated. I think she was just hasty." Asked why he didn't bring it up before the third round ended, Bamberger said, "That didn't occur to me. I was still in my reporter's mode. I wanted to talk to her first."
http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/news;_ylt=Ah1rugoFoLLoDTafbgtyZA4ogsUF?slug=ap-samsungchampionship&prov=ap&type=lgns |
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