Aside from Jim Herman's incredible weekend, one of the big talking of the Wyndham was how Rafa Cabrera Bello managed to talk himself out of a penalty for waiting too long for his ball to drop into the hole.
The official rule Rule 13.3a, says players have a reasonable time to walk up to the ball and then 10 more seconds to wait for it to fall. If it falls in after that time, the golfer receives one penalty stroke.
The question is what is a “reasonable time?”
Here's the video
Wait for it … ?#QuickHits pic.twitter.com/VscpNLOMJC
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 14, 2020
In the end Rafa had to channel in inner Seve to talk rules official out of giving him the penalty.
“So what they wanted to speak to me about is they felt that I took too long to approach the hole,” Cabrera-Bello said . “We reviewed the footage and the referee said that it was so, so close and so tight, but they wanted to know if I have deliberately to slow down my walk to the hole and I told them that I didn’t, I slowed down because I saw my playing partners walking in.”
In the end Rafa finished T37. He ended 129th in the FedEx Cup rankings.
But does the “reasonable time” language which is in fairness very subjective need updating in the rules? Let me know what you think.
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By: GolfCentralDailyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07701580566077478087noreply@blogger.com
Title: Rafa Successfully Argues “Reasonable Time” In Putt Rule. Does It Need Changing?
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Published Date: Mon, 17 Aug 2020 11:56:00 +0000
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