Dustin Johnson Penalty Shows Golf Only Sport Playing by the Rules

If there is one thing I appreciate about golf, it is that the game is definitive. Its only lies are what it calls the areas where fallen balls come to rest.

It doesn't reward a player whose ball stops at the edge of the cup by calling it good enough because it is "in the neighborhood." Its officials don't swallow any of the game's integrity in the closing minutes of a match by looking the other way simply because it's, well, the closing minutes of a match. Golf doesn't allow its superstars any leeway on the course because it doesn't allow any players, no matter the brightness of their stardom, any leeway on the course. It grants no different strokes for different folks.

As a result, golf doesn't have to explain itself or apologize to anyone like baseball, basketball and football. Its rules really are rules; they aren't guidelines. That's what the PGA Championship reminded us of as much on Sunday when Dustin Johnson, in contention then for a playoff, was docked strokes on the final hole for violating an obscure rule -- grounding his club in a bunker -- that sounded as if it guarded against little to no advantage for the violator.

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It would be easy for me to dismiss what befell Johnson on Sunday as some sort of tough break had his ball struck an unseen rock and ricocheted away in some odd direction, forcing him to bogey. Or had some dirt beneath his back foot given way making him to tumble and his club to touch the ball before he was ready to strike.

But breaking a rule, as Johnson did, out of ignorance, or misunderstanding, on the final hole of the final day of a four-day tournament, was not a tough break. It was what is missing too often in other sports -- justice, really.

It was what should have prevailed in the third overtime of Game 6 of the 1999 Stanley Cup finals, when Brett Hull won the only Stanley Cup for the Dallas Stars by beating Buffalo goalie Dominik Hasek for the series-clinching goal despite having a skate in the crease, for which the referees didn't sound their whistles.

Golf doesn't allow its superstars any leeway on the course because it doesn't allow any players, no matter the brightness of their stardom, any leeway on the course. It grants no different strokes for different folks.
It was what should've been respected on Michael Jordan's final shot with the Chicago Bulls in Game 6 of the 1998 NBA Finals, when he shoved Utah's Bryon Russell to the floor to get an uncontested jumper that lifted the Bulls to their sixth NBA championship.

Those were violations of the rules far more obvious than what Johnson committed. But it was only Johnson's game that decided to sound the alarm, as well it should have.

Maybe Johnson could've generated a little catharsis in me had he suffered his penalty last Thursday, the opening day of the season's last major. After all, Whistling Straits in Wisconsin, site of last week's PGA Championship, is not a typical North American golf course. It is more reminiscent of those unforgiving courses in Britain that have all the charm of a poorly maintained muni.

What distinguished Whistling Straits were the 900 to 1,200, depending on who you talk to, bunkers that dominated the course. Some looked quite traditional, as if they were purposely carved out. Plenty looked as if they were worn down by nature or human traffic and probably should've been dedicated as waste areas.

The latter was what a number of people thought about the bunker that derailed Johnson. It was difficult to discern as a bunker, especially with the litter in and around it from the human traffic that made a mockery of it. But Sunday was also Johnson's fourth trip through the minefield called Whistling Straits golf course. He should've learned by osmosis then.

Golf officials went out of their way to inform the field before the tournament about the hazards on Whistling Straits and how they were expected to be played. They posted rules for the course. Reporters covering the tournament wrote and commented about the oddities all tournament long. Johnson should've paid closer attention to his surroundings.

"I just thought I was on a piece of dirt that the crowd had trampled down," Johnson said after all but disqualifying himself from victory. "I never thought I was in a sand trap. It never once crossed my mind that I was in a bunker.

"Obviously, I know the Rules of Golf, and I can't ground my club in a bunker, but that was just one situation I guess. Maybe I should have looked to the rule sheet a little harder."

Some observers suggested that officials watching Johnson all but hang himself should have intervened, like a basketball ref who tells a player to tuck in his shirt, least he or she be temporarily ordered from the game.

But pros like Johnson shouldn't need a rules helper, unless they ask for one. Given the moment and the eccentricities of the course, Johnson should have done so. The responsibility was on him. He'd shown as much concern earlier in the tournament as ESPNDallas.com reporter Richard Durrett wrote on Monday after interviewing David Price, the head golf pro at Bent Tree Country Club in Dallas and the rules official who walked with the final group on Sunday. Durrett reported:

"Price had dealt with two other questions from Johnson or his caddie about bunkers the previous few holes. On No. 14, Johnson hit into an area just past a bunker and asked if he could take some practice swings for that shot in the bunker. Since the ball wasn't in the bunker, Price told him he could.

"Then, on No. 16, Johnson's caddie asked if he could remove some stones near the ball. Price told him they were in a bunker and by rule they can move loose impediments as long as the golf ball doesn't move. But there was no doubt to Price that Johnson was in a bunker. 'All he had to do was ask,' Price told Durrett." .

Good for golf that it didn't look the other way like so many other sports. I hope it doesn't change a thing.