Add Dustin Johnson's Dustup to Year of Officiating Hell

Oh, that was a bunker? Looked like a dusty back road to a Wisconsin dairy farm, actually. And when was the last time a player hitting from a "sand trap" was surrounded by dozens of fans lined up on both sides of him -- on the 72nd hole of a major championship, no less -- as he was positioned to win the event, validate himself as an emerging standout on the PGA Tour and, above all, purge the awful memories of choking away his final-round lead at the U.S. Open?

Sure, Dustin Johnson could have read the fine print that was posted in the locker room at Whistling Straits. Maybe his caddy could have, too. But just the same, the dummies who wrote up the rules for the 92nd PGA Championship should have made a clearer distinction between what professional golfers know as a traditional bunker -- you know, a dug-out hollow filled with sand -- and the 1,000 or so bizarre "bunkers" as designated by the Whistling Straits designers.

Preferably, rather than go new wave in the most old school of sports, the tournament's rules committee simply would have let a bunker be a bunker instead of turning so many odd places into bunkers that didn't look like bunkers and, in some cases, weren't even in play.

Because what we have now is the latest controversy in a long, maddening year of officiating hell in sports. Whether it's Major League Baseball umpire Jim Joyce blowing a perfect game for Armando Galarraga with two out in the ninth inning, NFL official Bill Leavy admitting he made two bad calls that may have cost the Seattle Seahawks a Super Bowl four years ago or the litany of human errors that happen every week, our games are being engulfed by overofficious, meddling dopes who are interrupting our entertainment and interfering with athletic performances.