Dustin Johnson Stood Tall and Silenced the USGA After Their Ridiculous Penalty at the U.S. Open

The 2016 major championships in golf have been drama filled. We saw the Jordan Spieth collapse at the Masters and yesterday we were treated to a different kind of drama, one brought on by a governing body that doesn’t seem to clearly understand its own rules.

The penalty will be discussed in great detail, as it should, because not only does it bring into question whether or not there was actually a violation, but the USGA basically called Dustin Johnson a liar on national television during their championship.

Jordan Spieth reiterated this on Twitter shortly after the tournament.

Golf is a game of honesty, and as we saw with Shane Lowry when he accidentally touched his ball earlier in the tournament and called a penalty on himself, when a golfer makes a mistake on the course at this level of play and it is in a situation where they realize right off the bat that they may have screwed up, they generally do not hesitate to inform a rules official. Some times a golfer may not realize that they’ve made a mistake, for example when Dustin Johnson grounded his club in some sort of semi-sandtrap deemed to be a hazard during the 2010 PGA Championship.

Johnson, at the time, didn’t realize that what he was hitting from what was considered a hazard, and that’s acceptable. While golfers are on the green it’s a totally different story. The ball is there, the rules official is there, the players are there, the caddies are there and all of them are usually watching every single second of play before and after a putt is struck. Calling Dustin Johnson a liar is a slap in the face, and that’s exactly what the USGA did.

Johnson’s ball moved on the par-4 fifth hole while he was moving his putter behind his ball. He never touched the ball nor did he ground his club behind the ball, and considering the greens were running at somewhere around a 16 on the stimpmeter, a small breeze could have caused the ball to move. The USGA said that because Johnson’s putter was close to the ball during his practice strokes that he caused the action, but the ball moved while his putter was behind the ball, not next to it.

Johnson was adamant that he did not cause the ball to move and every single PGA Tour golfer seems to agree with that and voiced their opinion on social media, so what exactly is the point of having a rules official walking with every single grouping and pairing if what they rule, while as I stated early, watching every single second of the shot, is deemed to be incorrect after the fact?

"“I called him over and told him what happened,” Johnson said of the initial discussion with the official. “Lee (Westwood) was standing right there. He saw it. So we both agreed that I didn’t cause the ball to move. So I just played on from there with no penalty.”"

Johnson’s playing partner, Lee Westwood, was by his side the whole way and he doesn’t believe Johnson caused the ball to move.

"“I was pretty sure he hadn’t caused it to move,” Westwood told Golfweek. “You can see the TV pictures sees the side of the ball and the ball moves and the greens are running at 16 on the Stimpmeter, they put that pin in a stupid place, as it stands, so, occasionally the ball is going to move.”"

The decision to inform Johnson and the rest of the field of his possible penalty is understandable. Johnson needed to know that he could possibly be assessed a penalty after his round. Of course it was a difficult time to inform a player of such a possibility considering he was vying for a major championship on the home-stretch, but had Johnson held a one-stroke lead at the end of the 72nd hole, we’d be watching more golf today. That decision should have been made immediately on the fifth hole by the rules official walking and watching the Johnson-Westwood pairing, and it initially was, but the USGA decided this wasn’t good enough, and that the ruling their own official made at the time was incorrect.

If you’re going to call a PGA Tour golfer a liar and then deem your own official’s ruling made instantly after the issue to be incorrect, what exactly is the point in having a rules official there in the first place?

In the end it didn’t matter because Johnson held a four-stroke lead over Shane Lowry, Jim Furyk, and Scott Piercy, but the issue still stands. Rules need to be clearly defined and rulings need to be made as soon as possible, especially when the whole world is watching, not hours after the fact.

Dustin Johnson is a man of few words, but yesterday he didn’t need any. Johnson, backed by a raucous crowd chanting his name and cheering him on through his final holes after they heard of the possible infraction, silenced both his critics who thought he was incapable of winning the big one and the USGA and slammed the door in their faces on the 72nd hole at Oakmont when he piped his drive down the middle and then hit what he called, “the best shot of my life” into the 18th green.

DJ made a birdie, only the second birdie of the day on the 18th hole, and that birdie was just extra fuel for the crowd who loudly booed when Johnson was asked about the penalty during the trophy ceremony.

After the tournament and ceremony were over, Johnson summed up the infraction as well as any one could, “At the end of the day, it doesn’t [expletive] matter.”

And it doesn’t, at least not until it happens again.

Extra notes:

The Fox broadcast was much improved over last year. There were still hiccups like cutting to players and slow motion replays while balls were still rolling on the greens as well as in studio shots while live major championship golf was taking place.

Oakmont is a beast. The course was spectacular even after the torrential downpour early in the event.

Golf, even without Tiger Woods, Jordan Spieth, Jason Day, and Rory McIlroy at the top of a Sunday leaderboard, is still just as exciting as ever, even though this time some of that excitement was brought on by the ridiculousness of the penalty Johnson was given.

[Quotes via GolfWeek]