Irate Johnson Wagner Refuses To Sign Scorecard In Penalty Protest
Johnson Wagner was livid after completing his third round. So much so that he refused to sign playing partner Hideki Matsuyama’s scorecard for several minutes.
So what happened?
Wagner was left dumbfounded after the R&A imposed a one shot slow penalty on playing partner Hideki Matsuyama, who at the time was near the top of the leaderboard.
The young Japanese, according to Wagner, was trying to extricate himself from an incredibly tough position. Since they had been already warned, the R&A deemed the 2 minutes and 12 seconds spent by Matsuyama assessing up his options prior to playing the shot, was worthy of a one stroke penalty.
Follow @golfcentraldoc
Afterwards Wagner refused to sign Matsuyama’s scorecard in protest until the Japanese player convinced him he had accepted the one stroke penalty. "I don't think he took too long under the situation. I think it's tragic, and the R&A should use better judgment in the penalizing of it," he said.
However the question remains; why did the R&A do nothing to penalize the group behind, who had lost a hole on Matsuyama and Wagner? Several other players including Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez were also warned for slow play and subsequently took more than 40 seconds to play several shots, but were not penalized.
The R&A said after:
Hideki Matsuyama’s group was put on the clock on the 15th hole as they were 15 minutes over the scheduled time and were out of position on the group ahead. His first bad time was recorded on his first putt on the 15th at 1 minute 12 seconds. The group was still out of position. His second bad time was on his second shot to the 17th hole which was 2 minutes 12 seconds. That resulted in a one shot penalty being applied to his score on the 17th hole which became 6. As a result, his even-par 71 became a 72, and he dropped to 3-over for the championship.
What a crock!
Comments
Post a Comment