Golf is silly

 Jordan Spieth was DQed from a golf tournament the other day for signing an incorrect scorecard, and now there are people on the interwhatsis saying, well, that's just silly, why should that even be a rule in an era when machines can do all the counting for us?

Those people are missing the point.

The point is, of course it's silly. It's golf.

Which is to say, there's a lot of silly to be had out there in this world, and golf has never been shy about claiming its share. Spieth getting kicked out of a tournament for signing an incorrect scorecard only scratches the surface.

(Although the Blob halfway understands this particular bit of silly. I mean, how hard can it be to keep track of your score? You make a 3, you write down 3. You make a 4, you write down 4. A third grader could do it.)

(Also, it was only some Velveeta/Hedge Fund/Whatsamajigger Open. How about the late Roberto de Vincenzo costing himself a spot in the playoff at the 1968 Masters because he signed an incorrect scorecard? I can see de Vincenzo shaking his head in the Great Beyond already: "Yeah, gee, tough break there, Jordan. You wanna talk about signing an incorrect scorecard? Lemme tell you about signing an incorrect scorecard.")

Where were we again?

Oh, yeah. Golf, and silly.

It's a game whose very foundation is etiquette, and the etiquette, like the game, goes back centuries. That's why so many of its rules and unwritten rules seem so antiquated, which is just another way of saying "silly." That this may reflect more about us and our times than it does about the royal and ancient game itself is hardly complimentary. 

And yet ...

And yet, the very propriety and antiquity of golf makes it a funny game sometimes. If not out-and-out bizarre.

Some years back, for instance, Dustin Johnson was docked a couple of strokes for grounding his club in a bunker at the U.S. Open. Now, I don't know why you can't touch your clubhead to the sand in a bunker. I can't think of any conceivable way it would give you an advantage over someone who didn't touch the sand with his club.  And isn't that the primary objective of any rule?

Thing is, this particular course was loaded with bunker-like sand. And so this bunker didn't even look like a bunker. It just looked like a weedy patch with a bunch of sand in it. Maybe that's why spectators, before Johnson's ball arrived on the premises, were actually standing in it.

So Johnson didn't play his ball as if it were in a bunker. And the course marshals on site didn't say. "Hey, DJ, that's a bunker, you know." They just waited until he grounded his club and said "That's a two-stroke penalty."

Silly, right?

But, hey. At least, at the end of the day, DJ's addition was right when he signed his card. Small victories are still victories.