Whoever said The Rules of Golf made sense?

Usually this far into the PGA Tour season, we’ve had several interesting situations involving The Rules of Golf, but this year has been remarkably quiet … until Stuart Cink’s snafu in last weekend’s Zurich Classic of New Orleans. What happened to Cink is why so many people hate The Rules of Golf (and/or the people who write them).

Cink, as you have read or seen, was disqualified during the final round for signing an incorrect scorecard (kudos to NBC Commentator Roger Maltbie for explaining the reason correctly). Why he signed the incorrect story was quite a story.

During the third round, Cink’s drive came to rest on a mound next to, but not in, a bunker. Cink had to stand in the bunker to play the shot, which subsequently landed in a greenside bunker about 180 yards away. As Cink went up to play his third shot, his caddie raked the bunker where Cink had stood. Cink went on to make bogey on the hole and signed for a scorecard with that number on it.

The next day, Cink related the story to Zach Johnson, who suggested he consult a Rules official. According to Johnny Miller on the telecast, it took quite a while to figure out that Cink’s caddie had violated Rule 13-4a, which prohibits a player from “testing the condition of the hazard, or any similar hazard.” (The same prohibition applies to the player’s caddie).

The words “or any similar hazard” raised a big series of questions on the NBC telecast and on The Golf Channel afterwards. As TGC’s Brandel Chamblee pointed out, the ruling puts the player between a rock and a hard place. The PGA Tour fines players when a caddie doesn’t rake a bunker but it also fines them for slow play; the latter certainly could have come into play if the caddie had gone forward with Cink and then had to come back to rake the bunker. Moreover, as Chamblee pointed out, what happens if another player hits a ball into the unraked bunker? How fair is that? (Of course, to quote a famous adage, whoever said golf was fair?)

Then there’s the whole issue of how does a player gain an advantage if it’s the caddie that does the raking? In this case, the player had already, in effect, tested the surface of the first bunker when he took a stance in it, so what else could he have learned?

Finally, suppose Cink had hit his ball into a bunker on the next or a subsequent hole. Shouldn’t the rule apply to that situation, as well? What’s the difference?

Oh, yes, the incorrect scorecard. Once it was determined that Cink should have assessed himself a two-shot penalty, that means he signed for a scorer lower than what his actual score should have been. That, as we often say, is trunk-slamming time. In this case, it may have been the correct ruling but there's a big difference between "correct" and "right."

— Robert D. Thomas