I have a couple of comments about this year's PGA Championship at Whistling Straits.
1. Most exciting major of the year by far.
2. Congratulations to Martin Kaymer. Very solid playing. You earned it.
3. The Wannamaker Trophy must be the biggest in all of golf.
4. Dustin Johnson . . . that was a shame to watch, unfortunately there is no one to blame but yourself. I'm glad you handled the fallout with class - exactly as you should have.
5. To the PGA . . . dumbest local rule ever.
I'll elaborate on the above item 5. As everyone pretty much knows the PGA implemented a local rule that all bunkers at Whistling Straits were to play as hazards. This means that standard rules of golf apply when players balls are in the hazard. No grounding the club and no removal of loose impediments, etc.
It's second part of that statement where I have the problem. If you are going to have 40,000 people walking through and standing in bunkers for a week they really should be played through the green and not as hazards.
What happened to Dustin Johnson was a shame, but it was nobody's fault but his own. What would have been a true tragedy is if his ball had nestled up to/inside an empty cup, underneath discarded trash or onto an article of clothing dropped by a member of the gallery. There is no telling what people will drop when they think a ball is headed towards them. Because these bunkers are playing as hazards DJ would not have been allowed to remove the loose impediments or take a drop and would have had to play the ball as it lay.
Granted this is a big "what if", but had something like this happened it surely would have been a major scandal. As a cautionary measure it seems to make a lot more sense if the bunkers outside the ropes that the galleries have contact with are played through the green. This would make removing loose impediments allowable. Thats my two cents on the whole thing.
With all that said, congratulations to Martin Kaymer on a solid win at a very difficult course.
