A yardage marker on the first tee sits underwater at the Bethpage State Park's Black Course in Farmingdale, N.Y., Thursday, June 18, 2009.Morry Gash
One hundred and eight U.S. Opens have come and gone and who knows, they might yet get the 109th in. It could take until next week, given the amount of rain that's turned the Bethpage State Park's Black course into Bathpage. Whatever happens, one thing is certain: The golfers won't be allowed to play lift, clean and place.
There's nothing new about this when it comes to the U.S. Open. But the PGA Tour allows an exception to the rule when conditions are so soft and soggy that mud kicks up in the fairway and sticks to balls. The PGA Tour prefers, if at all possible, to keep tournaments going rather than suspending play, as happened during yesterday's first round of the U.S. Open.
Lift, clean and place was allowed during last year's RBC Canadian Open at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ont. The Canadian Open is a hybrid in that it's both a PGA Tour event and a national championship. PGA Tour policies apply, and that includes the lift, clean and place exception to Rule 13 of the official rules of golf, which compels golfers to play the ball as it lies.
The PGA Tour conducts none of the majors. The Masters, the British Open and the PGA Championship, in addition to the U.S. Open, don't allow lift, clean and place, or, as sticklers for the rules call it, "lift, clean and cheat."
United States Golf Association officials probably call it something worse in private. Their response is terse when the subject comes up. Jim Hyler, the USGA's chairman of the championship committee, had a sharp answer when asked whether golfers might be allowed to lift, clean and place this week, considering the appalling conditions.
"No," he said.
That was Wednesday, when the USGA still hoped it would be possible to get the first round in yesterday. But play was suspended at 10:16 a.m. (all times EDT) and never resumed. The round was finally called off at 1:55 p.m. Fairways were so waterlogged Tiger Woods could have had his yacht Privacy brought out. Rowboats and canoes would have been useful.
After the initial suspension, Hyler was asked again about lift, clean and place.
"Lift, clean and place is about mud on the ball," Hyler answered. "If you're getting mud on the ball, the tours will play lift, clean and place. Here we're not faced with the issue of necessarily mud on the ball. And we just don't play lift, clean and place. If it gets that bad, we're going to suspend."
But what does that word "necessarily?" mean? Mike Weir hit a shot from the fairway on the 12th hole that went sideways during practice this week. He thought he caught the ball okay, but it veered off like a paper plane drifting on the wind.
"Mud ball," Weir said when he looked up.
So there will surely be mud balls during the U.S. Open. How will officials determine when so much mud is getting on the ball on so many shots that the game is no longer really golf, but, say, mudball?
"It's a judgment call," Hyler said. Well, it is, but that didn't really answer the question.
Still, the USGA's stance is reasonable, assuming you believe that the fundamental rule of golf is that the golfer can't touch the ball between tee and green. Hands-off makes sense in a sport meant to test a player's ability to handle the breaks. Golf's an outdoor sport. They don't play in a dome.
The real truth here is that PGA Tour events are shown up for what they are, as much commercial events as examinations of all aspects of a player's physical and mental and emotional game. A major tournament should insist on the rules of the game in the strictest manner possible.
The U.S. Open is a championship. It restores the proper meaning to the word championship. It also means that all PGA Tour events, including the Canadian Open, aren't true championships. Not as long as they allow lift, clean and place in soggy conditions.
That's a hard line to take, true. But, as a towering British golf writer once said -it was Bernard Darwin, if memory serves - "It's a hard world, and golf is a hard game."
The U.S. Open is meant to represent the apotheosis of that hard world, and to best demonstrate that golf is indeed a hard game. And this soggy, boggy week, the words lift, clean and place are part of the discussion.
But, rightly, they're not part of the championship.
rube@sympatico.ca