Did Wyndham Clark Cheat At API?

Matt and Dom discuss the apparent illegal movement of the ball during Wyndham Clark’s 3rd Round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational, and how can we tell if someone improves their lie intentionally?

The first thing that that’s bothersome about this situation is and and answer this answer this honestly folks when everybody was jumping all over Patrick Reed for everything right and there are many many people again I’ll call this kind of the social media world where you’re tried and convicted there are many people that

Are convinced that anything that Patrick Reed did in those l of things that he went through but of his own making or otherwise I’m not making a judgment I’m just saying there are people that convinced that he cheated and they won’t be convinced otherwise he cheated that’s

It okay so let me ask you this question here’s the question if what you saw was done by Patrick Reed would you have declared it as cheating and the reason I’m asking you that question that way is does it matter who does it because do you remember when John

Rah was assessed to penalty for doing what essentially was the exact same thing however with far less severity I wonder how many people remember that so now you now now comes in an objective measurement to a certain extent was on the PJ tour but there was an objective

Measurement made a rules official said no that’s a violation of the rules so to me there’s a couple things going on here and that’s what’s reflected in the the question of the day is breaking a rule in golf the same as cheating no they are two distinct things one has

Intent so I saw two things with with this with Windam Clark that were troubling and still are troubling one is to me it’s 100% certain that his ball moved it’s clear that’s one two is was there an effort made deliberately to improve his lie did he use that club to pat down the

Grass behind the ball we’ have clear or better access to the back of the ball right now what I would say there is if there was not intent in what he was doing then there definitely is a systemic issue that we’re talking about here meaning that and it’s not just him

Incidentally meaning that players are engaged in such a behavior often that they don’t even view it as something that is something that shouldn’t be done a violation of the rules knowingly intending to move the grass away from the back of their ball to give them better

Access I’ve heard from a lot of people are saying that was a bad very bad look etc etc it was bad it was bad all around and Windham Clark’s a good dude he’s a good guy and in these situations as you know I always give the players the benefit of the

Doubt but when it comes to that ball moving I don’t think there’s any doubt the ball moved was there some effort being made to to protect a player or protect the field or is it harder to get called for penalty that was the thing that that

Brand sh ble went off on he said nowadays what do you got to do to get a penalty the same kind of criticis me here for example on the NBA what are you got to do get a penalty what is traveling nowadays right so that was it that was the part

That brandle went off on the second part is the much more delicate one the much more concerning one which is deliberately improving your lie so yeah those are the two areas that I had a big big issue with everything that took place what are you hearing Dom from

People today I know we don’t get to it very much when we’re on Golf Channel because of our time constraints now but today we don’t have the time constraint what are you hearing yeah I mean it’s it now that we’re on Golf Channel which is incredible and we appreciate all the

Support everyone has has given us it’s been it’s been awesome but yes we only have in producer speak content time right we only have like 40 something minutes of content time it’s already 8:40 if you’re watching us live on YouTube right now so we’re 40 minutes

Into the show and this would have been the end of the show Tak one yeah we’ve to this point we’ only taking one break we haven’t played any sound from from Scotty Sheffer or Abraham anybody that’s he’s becoming a producer he’s becoming a roundass producer complain we haven’t

Had time to do anything so it’s very difficult for me to cram everything into the show and the time constraints so every now and again we’re still going to have shows like this where don’t have time constraints Dom anything that we don’t get to we will post on the on the

YouTube channel does that make you any happier that is true all right no all right uh it does not I’m gonna read I’m just gonna read some stuff coming in this is all focused for the most part on Windam Clark’s situation the crazy thing is he did it

Twice on the same shot with two different clubs in the video it clearly changed position the ball can move so long as it doesn’t change position he was bending the grass you can’t do that the circle is not in the same location compare the Andrew put that picture back up uh

Compare the blades of grass locations on the circle I don’t think he was David writes I don’t think he was trying to improve his lie he was matting down the grass and the rules official at NBC had blamed the matting of the grass due to the weight of the club Windam was

Pressing down on the grass it was obvious if it was Patrick Reed he definitely would have been penalized he was bouncing his Club up and down that is not the natural weight of the club you cannot improve a lie nope we all know that he was applying downward pressure with his

Club that this is kind of universal they’re they’re feeling what what I would describe as what you’re feeling Matt which is an uneasiness it didn’t it didn’t seem quite right the question of the day again is there a difference between cheating and breaking rule yes

Or no 83 I don’t think it’s quite right not quite it wasn’t one of these situations that wasn’t quite right it was flat out wrong I don’t think there’s a gray area with this well there’s two issues I have with that comment the first is if it

Was if it was flat out wrong then there should have been a a penalty should have been something nothing happened that’s that’s weird if if that’s where you’re standing the second thing is which is the problem that I have that no one seems to be talking about the way the USGA has

Altered the rules with regard to HD television is essentially paraphrasing whatever rule Dash D Dash it is is that if you can’t see it with the naked eye it didn’t happen seems fair to me right if the ball moves 2 millim that we see in HD closeup that doesn’t really count as

Moving 2 millimeters because nobody can see that I agree with that I think that’s fair the ball moving or not moving in this situation with Windham Clark does not bother me very much I think it moved minimally and I think you could argue that it wasn’t really something you

Would be able to see with the naked eye I do not have an issue with the with the penalty not being assessed for the ball moving what dri me nuts is the fact that the improving of the LIE is not something that anyone really focused on it when they were when they were

Rehashing it on golf Central Brando shamble and the team they didn’t really focus too much on it on the broadcast they also didn’t really focus too much on it at all it barely mentioned it to me that was the weird part was the matting down of the LIE now again we

Cannot show you footage we’re not allowed to show footage of coverage but he literally had Andrew put me back on this thing so we had so you have the grass right the grass is up like this he had his Club he wasn’t he wasn’t going like this he was

Going and he did it like four or five times and smashed it down so to me it was really obviously him improving his lie now the other thing that no one is mentioning Matt is the last thing I’ll say and then you can comment these days it’s very rare at a

PGA Tour level for a player to hack out right to hack out sideways of the rough that is rare that happens essentially at us opens and that’s it right so he took out the highest lofted wedge he had and matted it down and then he switched to a

A much a much better bigger iron I don’t know what it was a seven iron whatever and he hacked it down on you know that you know the the water goes around the edge there on 18 and he hacked it down just short of the green so he had a

Pitch shot right so he was always going to hack it down there as far as he could he was never going to hit sideways 10 yards so to me the argument that well he’s you know he was testing well he wanted to see if he wanted to hit his

Sand Wedge sideways 10 yards come on nobody was going to do that he was never going to do that no but he had another choice is to me he took out that CL just to mat the LIE right or no well he was 142 away he he could have it’s probably

For him would have been like a 50° wedge or a gap wedge if you please is probably that distance if he could get at it but to to your point and I found the quote from from sham B talking about the penalties he said no longer is it a

Penalty to tap down Spike markers you can ground a club in the penalty area you can inadvertently touch the sand your ball could move when you address it it’s almost impossible to get a penalty these days but when a rule violation at least to me is as obvious as this and I

Don’t need video to see it you would think that a penalty would be assessed close quote so to your point and as I’ve been illustrating here there are two different and distinct and separate issues at play one is and I mentioned to you that John ROM got a penalty for the same

Thing far less severe incidentally but got penalty for the same thing and they interviewed afterwards and said were you aware of that he wasn’t aware of it he said he didn’t even know it moved but he said if if they if they view it that a penalty occurred and I was responsible

For moving that ball I get it assess the penalty okay so that comes down to breaking a rule of golf is it possible to break a rule of gulf and you didn’t know it of course it’s possible either because you didn’t know the rule either because it was a rule

That was dependent upon circumstance or because you didn’t see it whatever those reasons are you could break a rule of golf and be assessed to penalty and you broke a rule different than when you do something with intent and that’s the part Dom that everybody is staying away from because that’s the ugly

Part that’s the reason why all I’m telling you in the history of because you’re you’re more of a historian than anyone I’ve ever met and I don’t know the answer to this question in the history of the PGA Tour has there or even professional golf do you can you think

Of anyone on record admitting to knowingly cheating saying yeah yeah yeah you’re you’re C me I did let let go back to let me go back to the circumstance because it applies directly to what we’re talking about relative to a ball in the rough uh it was at the 1925 Us open at

The Worcester Country Club the 11th hole Bobby Jones hit his drive into the left rough he happened to be playing that day alongside of his arch rival Walter Hagen Jones went up to address the ball in the thick rough it was Ry said Kentucky blue Ry mix he went up to

Address his ball and as he put it down he pulled the club away and he said the ball moved he said the ball moved rules official came over the rules official begged Bobby Jones not to assess the penalty they interviewed Walter Hagen and said did you see it move Walter was

Like no I didn’t see it move Bobby you’re fine they interviewed people in the valer nobody saw it move no one everyone said it didn’t happen Bobby Jones said it happened penalty was assessed because he called himself on it he ended up going into a playoff against Willie

McFarland memory serves me I believe willly McFarland kind of this veteran campaigner Pro you know back in the day I think think Willie was from Scotland if memory serves me and went into a playoff against Willie and he lost that one stroke mattered a lot so yes there is precedence that was

When afterwards he was he was asked by the media why he did what he did and and you know everyone was was giving him accolades Etc and he saidou might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank it’s part of why Bobby Jones is and I’m calling him Bobby Jones

Because that’s a popular name he preferred Bob but that’s part of why he’s the legend that he is so yes there is there is multiple instance instances of Precedence in the game of golf that’s just one of them is the most famous uh anything else Dom coming in from the

People you want to share before we go to a break here I mean we can do this all day I don’t there’s a lot of comments coming in there are some people saying which I where was it uh David says you guys are making Clark a devious cheat I

Don’t think so I I’m not sure that I I don’t think that’s fair I’m not I I didn’t did I say that I didn’t say that no what we’re saying is is that there is a pattern of behavior and if that pattern of behavior is not called out as

Violating the rules that’s why I called it a systemic incident he is not the only one doing this there are lots of players that do that same thing in my mind it is a absolute breaking of the rule in my mind it is absolutely intended to improve the lie

And access to the back of the golf ball with the club right if players saying so your opinion is it needs to be policed heavier yeah and it needs to be very very clear you cannot do this so to to the points and the quotes that I’m reading

From from shamb B quoting again it’s almost impossible to get a penalty these days dot dot dot close quote well like to what you were saying about uh you know stories from back in the day right it’s hard today with the cameras and it’s also complicated because the cameras don’t follow everybody

Especially down the stretch of a big event when the cameras are focused on the last three groups whatever it is and you’re you’re showing an insane amount of close-ups of their wedge shots of their shots out of the rough etc etc and the other the other side of this right

That I think is complex is it’s it’s different if you’re playing with your buddies than you are playing in a tournament I think it’s rare for an individual to to be comfortable screaming across the Fairway that someone’s cheating that that’s an uncomfortable thing for for a a competitor sometimes

To do isn’t doesn’t that mean it’s more on the officials than it is on the playing Partners oh yeah because it’s on the player and you’re on the opposite side of the Fairway and you’re like yeah you’re fluffing your lie over there you’re you’re you’re cheating no it’s

Unlikely someone’s going to bark that out in a tournament conditions that’s got to come from from the officials right% I mean this you know the whole thing about people that are high up on the leader board or on television more so they face they face more scrutiny and is

That fair compared to the rest of the field that’s the heat of beating in the kitchen you’re that good that your that your shots are being televised and close-ups are being made of what you’re doing Etc ET if you’re that good then you better make sure that everything you’re doing

Is to the letter of the law because that’s part of what goes along with it you get more TV time because people presumably want to see what you’re doing I don’t have any issue with that there’s no victimization that take takes place there if there’s an issue with that if

You seriously have an issue with that and going well it’s unfair that you watch me so closely um aren’t we talking about something different here then