A Major Marking Issue

I was fascinated by the marking issue with the lass Lexi Thomson when she eventually got a four-shot penalty, after someone on TV seemingly phoned in to highlight her waywardness. She eventually lost in a playoff and basically throw away a major over the marking of a 2-foot putt

Lexi Thompson walks off the 18th green, as Korean So Yeon Ryu celebrates

Now this is interesting. Spotting a ball is not rocket science and especially so on a short putt. You put the marker down behind the ball in line with the hole. Now for a two foot putt this is a very basic and straightforward procedure. OK it doesn’t help the situation now that markers resemble 50 buck pieces from downtown LA casinos, but the principle and simple procedure is still there. The room for error in this is very small.

So, for there to be ambiguity and such a resulting incident over this operation leaves me dumbfounded and then highly suspicious. It’s not as if this is a novel thing for a golfer of this calibre. I mean these guys mark balls hundreds of times each week. You are going to get good and accurate at it. Just like a surgeon gets better at incisions I would think. The eye is a pretty amazing and accurate piece of optical kit.

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Written by The Kilted Caddie

Photography by AFP

Click here to see the published article.

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