Tense times at the Solheim Cup after rules controversy

It just wouldn’t be a US–EU team competition, be it Ryder Cup or Solheim Cup, without a rules controversy. This stems in part from the heightened level of tension at these events—representing your country (or continent?) and all—and in part, I believe, from the participating players’ unfamiliarity with the rules of match play, which most of them rarely play.

The incident I am referring to occurred at the 13th hole of the Inverness Golf Club, during the afternoon four-ball match pitting Nelly Korda and Ally Ewing of the USA against Nanna Koerstz-Madsen and Madelene Sagström of the EU squad. Korda had an eagle putt to win the hole which curled up and stalled right at the edge of the hole. The American player sagged to her knees in disbelief, and before she even had time to get to her feet, Sagström rushed in and scooped up the ball, effectively conceding the tap-in birdie. Sounds straightforward, right? A no-brainer concession of a kick-in putt, right?

Wrong…

In accordance with a pre-match agreement between the two captains and rules officials, the official following each match has the right—and the responsibility—to step in and make a ruling even if not called in by a player, and that is exactly what happened. The official with the match felt that the ball was overhanging the lip of the hole, and invoked Rule 13.3a, which states that “…if any part of a player’s ball overhangs the lip of the hole, the player is allowed a reasonable time to reach the hole and ten more seconds to wait and see whether the ball will fall into the hole.”

The two Euro players contended that the ball was not overhanging the hole, and was obviously in a position such that it would not have fallen. Sagström was adamant that she would “…never pick up a putt that had a chance to go in.”

The problem is that whether or not it seemed obvious that the ball would not drop, since it was overhanging—which was confirmed by video review—Korda was entitled to the chance to get to the ball and wait 10 seconds just in case it did drop. Sagström deprived her of that chance, and in accordance with one of the quirkier rules of match play, the putt was considered holed for eagle. The win on the hole gave Korda and Ewing the lead in the match, which they never relinquished, going on to win 1-up over Sagström and Koerstz-Madsen.

Reactions to the controversy on social media, which broke mostly—but not exclusively—along lines of U.S. / European Union allegiance, included accusations of cheating; outrage that the American duo called in the official; and declarations that, in the interest of “fair play” and sportsmanship the Americans should have given back the point by conceding the next hole.

Let’s go through those reactions one by one:

Cheating

Who cheated?

The Americans? No—all Nelly did was to play her ball, and watch it narrowly miss dropping in for an eagle. Neither she nor her playing partner, Ally Ewing, called in the official—indeed, both of them were equal parts mystified and upset at the ruling.

The officials? No—the official with the match invoked a rule which, though perhaps somewhat obscure, is perfectly valid, and two other officials agreed that the ball had indeed been overhanging the lip of the hole, confirming the first official’s call.

The Europeans? Well… on the face of it, all that can be said of Madelene Sagström’s actions is that she unknowingly broke a rule by being so quick to pick up the ball in conceding the putt. Though Sagström contends that she picked the ball up in the certainty that it wasn’t going to fall, the glass-half-full crowd might say that she rushed in and picked up the ball so quickly because she was afraid that it would fall in for an eagle—whether in ignorance of the rule, or in the hope that no one else would recall the rule and apply it. That line of thinking is a little too conspiratorial for my taste; I think that she acted innocently, if in ignorance.

Outrage

This one is quickly put to bed, and would never have even been brought up by anyone who paid attention to the broadcast of the events. The match official acted on her own, in full accord with the pre-match agreement between the two team captains and the rules officials. The complainants who claim that this ruling would mean that you have to wait for any ball, anywhere on the green, to drop are both ignorant of the text of the rule and ridiculous. Those who claim that the ball clearly wasn’t overhanging are guilty of, at best, wishful thinking, and at worst, willful ignorance. The officials reviewed it, they ruled that the ball was overhanging the lip of the hole, and that therefore Sagström had broken Rule 13.3b when she picked up the ball—the result of which, in match play, is that the ball is treated as holed with the previous stroke, with no penalty to her opponent.

Concession

This is the most ingenuous reaction of them all—the contention, widely ballyhooed about, that Nelly Korda and Ally Ewing should have conceded the 14th hole in protest, or something, of the ruling on the 13th green.

Folks, the Solheim Cup is a competition—not a tea party, not a friendly weekend match among friends, but a serious competition between professional athletes, people whose raison d’être is winning. That is not to say that winning cannot be accomplished in a gracious, civilized manner—it can, and indeed should be—but there is no basis, even within the bounds of sportsmanship and fair play, to give a point back to your opponent which they lost through precipitate action in ignorance of the rules.

Pressing this point in social media discussions in the immediate aftermath of the ruling resulted in my being accused of being unsportsmanlike and having no sense of fair play. I was also told that I will never have another putt conceded to me for the rest of my life.

My response to all that is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I don’t know if conceding the next hole would have been against the rules, but I am pretty sure that it would have earned Nelly Korda and Ally Ewing a stern talking-to from Captain Pat Hurst, and possibly from some of the co-captains, and the rest of the team. The ruling was odd, and unexpected, and possibly outside of the experience of the players involved, but it was correct.

To sum up…

The point of the rules of golf, even the complex, obtuse, or seemingly unnecessary ones, is to remove uncertainty. Many of the people who weighed in on this situation in the online discussions that I was witness to were adamant that Nelly Korda’s ball would never, never, have fallen in to the hole, and they are probably right. In the absence of a sudden wind gust, an earthquake, or an explosion nearby à la the closing scenes of Caddyshack, that ball would not have fallen into the hole for eagle.

But you can’t be absolutely, 100%, certain that it would not have fallen—and that’s where Rule 13.3a comes in. Nelly was allowed to take a reasonable time to get to the hole, wait ten seconds, and tap the ball in for birdie if it hadn’t fallen. Whether out of ignorance or malice, Madelene Sagström took that possibility, remote as it might have been, away from Nelly—and paid the price.

And I’ll bet she keeps her hands in her pockets, and away from her competitors’ golf balls, from now on…