Rule 13-4 of the Rules of Golf prohibit a player from touching the ground with his club while making a shot inside a bunker. The penalty for breach of this rule is two strokes added to the player’s score. Anyone who was unaware of this essential knowledge a few hours ago is no longer in the dark due to the finish at one of golf’s premier events, the PGA Championship. After finishing the tournament tied for the lead, Dustin Johnson fell prey to Rule 13-4, eliminating him from what would have been a three-way playoff for the championship — and providing an interesting allegory for the American obsession with bureaucracy and regulation.
Johnson’s errant tee shot at the 18th hole — the 72nd overall — went into the crowd, landing in what looked like a random patch of dirt. Johnson recovered on his second shot and finished the hole in five strokes. After completing the hole, Johnson went to sign his official scorecard, when he was informed by PGA officials that the random patch of dirt was in fact a “bunker,” and since video footage clearly showed he grounded his club before making the second shot, he breached Rule 13-4. The two-stroke penalty made his official score on the hole seven and dropped him out of the tie for the 72-hole lead.
The crowd was displeased. While Johnson discussed the situation with PGA officials, the fans in the 18th hole’s grandstands chanted, “Let him play!” to no avail. The CBS announcers were sympathetic, even though they were partially responsible for what was transpiring. As Jason Sobel of ESPN noted, the PGA officials relied on television replays to catch Johnson’s breach after the fact: “If Johnson had the same situation take place on his third hole of the second round, chances are no cameras would have picked it up and/or cared.” The ruling itself was correct, but “[t]he fact that there’s an inconsistency between players all week never having such a ruling reviewed and Dustin Johnson having his reviewed by officials only because he was leading on the final hole is completely bogus.”
The underlying problem was that Johnson simply didn’t know the patch of dirt his ball landed in was defined as a “bunker” by the PGA. It sure didn’t look like a bunker on television, just a patch of ground that the crowd spent the day trampling on. In a statement explaining the Johnson penalty, the PGA said it was an issue of “founders’ intent”:
All areas of the course that were designed and built as sand bunkers will be played as bunkers (hazards), whether or not they have been raked. This will mean that many bunkers positioned outside of the ropes, as well as some areas of bunkers inside the ropes, close to the rope line, will likely include numerous footprints, heel prints and tire tracks during the play of the Championship. Such irregularities of surface are a part of the game and no free relief will be available from these conditions.
So Johnson was just supposed to know it was a bunker. Apparently the PGA rules official walking with Johnson and his partner felt no need to say, “Hey, you know that’s a bunker, right?” Again, the PGA only caught the violation afterwards by watching the CBS-provided replay.
This is one of these stories that will provide media chum for days, along the lines of the recent Armando Galarraga “perfect game” that was lost due to an admitted umpiring error on the 27th batter. People tend to rail against these types of minor injustices without stopping to consider the larger problem that I alluded to above — the American obsession with bureaucracy and regulation.
A primary conceit of modern bureaucracy is the imposition of strict liability upon the regulated but not the regulators. The bureaucrats demand obedience because of their “expertise,” yet they simultaneously demand perfect knowledge on the part of non-expert individuals who must understand and abide by every rule; after all, ignorance of the law is no excuse. It is not the bureaucrat’s duty to explain, but the citizen’s obligation to know.
In Dustin Johnson’s case, he failed to comprehend the rule quoted above, which was a local decree in effect for this tournament. Nick Watney, Johnson’s playing partner today, noted officials issue these rules sheets at every tournament but added, “Honestly, I don’t think anyone reads the sheet.” Johnson’s undoing was trying to exercise some common sense: Bunkers normally don’t include areas where fans are standing. It never occurred to him that he was in a bunker, and absent the PGA’s intervention, nobody would have known. The PGA believed literal enforcement of its rules trumped all other considerations.
This is a common mentality among regulators. They want to dazzle you with their comprehension of even the most arcane procedures. It was comical watching the PGA officials hold up their playoff to explain to Johnson how he really was in a bunker. It’s less comical when the Federal Trade Commission holds up a merger for two years using every procedural roadblock in its arsenal.
And that is an important distinction. The PGA officials weren’t acting with any malice towards Johnson; that is usually not the case with government regulators. Still, there is a similar thought process that elevates rulemaking and rules “enforcement” to a primary virtue. The market — the crowd, if you will — generally doesn’t value the strict enforcement of inherently arbitrary rules to anywhere near the extent that rule enforcers do (hence the chant, “Let him play!”). The bureaucrats view this as a sign of the public’s weakness; the average person somehow lacks the bureaucrat’s integrity in pursuing absolute adherence to any and every commandment issued by those claiming to be authorities.
It’s ludicrous of course, if for no other reason than 100 percent adherence to any regulatory scheme is impossible. Like any manmade endeavor, regulatory schemes are imperfect, even if they are purely voluntary like the Rules of Golf. There is no perfect method for pursuing imperfection.
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The sympathetic bureaucrat with his arm on Dustin Johnson’s shoulder, theatrically consoling him while delivering the “bad” news (all the while being thrilled to have injected himself in a situation that would have only provided exposure to those excelling in a merit based contest) is all too familiar to anyone that has spent years or decades developing a skill set only to have a far less qualified overseer explain how you should have conducted yourself while advising you of the penalty for your inadequacies. This “false authority” does not claim expertise in the field of battle but in the ever changing rules of engagement.
As a lover of the game of Golf, I feel I do have to disagree wholeheartedly with the arguement taken by the author. I am against government regulation and policing of seemlying every single action we take in our lives, but to compare that to how the rules of Golf are enforced is a step too far. Golf, unlike the “Social Contract” is a game played voluntarily, the players enter into a CONTRACT when they join the PGA and play in these tournaments. Their contract as a professional golfer is that they agree to abide by all the rules (called here “regulations”) of the game. So while it is easy for us to rail against the idiocy of State bureaucrats and regulators… what if we changed the language and called the golf official a CONTRACT ENFORCER? Would that change our emotional reaction to the, albeit shocking and dishearting, way Dustin Johnson was denied a chance of winning if we admit he was merely kept to the terms of his freely agreed upon contract? We cannot, as Libertarians, espose the virtue and goodness of vountary contracts in our arguments for a free society, but then also try to compare the enforcement of contracts in todays society as “regulation” and “bureaucracy”. We have to be consistent with our arguments and give in to the emotional pitfalls that befall the less enlightened.
But as a side note – how much worse would this have been if he actually made that putt to “win” it all?
You misunderstand Mr. Oliva’s point. His point was how the strict enforcement of rules often creates stupid situations like this. Furthermore it creates incentives to follow the rules, even off a cliff. It’s a real management problem that occurs whether the management is voluntary or not.
Are you to say that, just because the relationship involved is voluntary, we cannot comment on how well it achieves its purported ends? That’s the real discussion here.
Quote from David Gentile: “But as a side note – how much worse would this have been if he actually made that putt to “win” it all?”
According to you, it would have been no different. He took two strokes when he grounded his club in the rough (I mean bunker) and making the putt was irrelevant.
The point isn’t that he must follow the rules of the game, but that the rules were interpreted arbitrarily and ex-post-facto. No golfer in their right mind would consider a patch of dirt a “bunker”. There was no claim by any other golfer in the tournament that Johnson had cheated, before or after the situation was described. This was a made up violation and had nothing to do with adhering to a contract.
Nice essay by Oliva, but I quibble with the comment, “The PGA officials weren’t acting with any malice towards Johnson; that is usually not the case with government regulators.”
“Usually” based on what statistical analysis? There are two problems with this —
(a) It is a generalization based on anecdotal evidence, therefore it’s as wrong as it is right;
(b) It is antagonistic and seemingly ad hominem.
Now to be sure, I sometimes think that the Town Hall employees are required to go through “How to Stare Down the Taxpayer” training. Jeesh…. you should meet a couple of them — cynical and sour, frowns reeking of the I’m-doing-you-a-favor attitude. Makes me happy that I can pay my excise taxes through the mail now, and not face their rancid style.
But for every one of them is a bureaucrat who is trying to do his job and is simply trying to walk a citizen through the mire of red tape. The head of the Planning Board is a by-the-book kind of guy and is quite thorough, oftentimes innovative and fair, working his butt off to find ways that a property owner can construct something while keeping within the EPA guidelines that were mandated and forced upon him, as well.
So while they earn a living off of the red tape, many of these “regulators” are sympathetic to the citizen’s frustration. ‘course it’s like tax breaks among the citizenry, the red tape for which they are accountable is okay, whereas the red tape down the hallway is silly….
Anyway, “malice” is a heavy-handed term. It’s this us-against-them extreme configuration that we often conjure. Does nothing to help the libertarian argument and stay focused on the root problem. Nor is it “usually” accurate.
At the end of the day, regulators know what they’re doing. They’re going out and intentionally ruining peoples lives. Regulations don’t work if the regulators refuse to uphold them. Since people with integrity wouldn’t turn into regulators (doing the right thing and upholding regulations creates an ethical conflict of interest), that only brings out those who lack it purely for the paycheck. Regulators can’t be sympathetic because they’re required to bring down every last little piece of regulatory tripe on a person. Any little mistake, any small rule overlooked, any differing reading on the subject, the reglator doesn’t care. It’s the law, they say, deal with it.
It is malice. The inspector knows he can just hand the homeowner a clean sheet, but will cite violations, causing the owner countless thousands of dollars to repair problems only the regulator seems to care about, and even condemning property over some silly tiff like the brand of lumber used (yes, regulations in many states specify who you are required to buy the materials from). It’s all in the regulator’s power to not report the individual. However, reporting is clearly a sign of malice as it’s well known that the individual will suffer for the report.
“At the end of the day, regulators know what they’re doing. They’re going out and intentionally ruining people’s lives. … It is malice.”
It is this hyperbole which is why you will continue to lose the political argument and continue to lose ground in supporting the cause. You exemplify “regulator’s intent” as mandating which type of lumnber is appropriate. You immediately close down the discussion by making an accusation against people, ostensibly (malice defined) that they have the desire to cause pain, injury and distress to another; the extension is that the citizens who vote for these regulators ( in some towns, they are elected positions) are deliberately seeking to cause pain and harm, and that this is their aim. It is precisely this kind of generalization to which I obejct. (By the way, I don’t vote either, but that does’t mean I see my neighbor’s voting exercise as his intention of malice.)
There are even Libertarians who held public office and who were in “regulatory” positions, such as NH Liquor Commissioner Miriam Luce. She wasn’t my pure-Lib choice, but she was at least headed in the right direction.
In the land owning space, part of the regulatory mandate for Planning and Zoning is to provide oversight among property owners such that one is not overstepping another’s limits. (I don’t agree with Planning and Zoning charters, since they are proactive limits rather than post facto monitoring agencies; heh, not to mention that I am taxed to fund them!) In my ancap sate of nirvana, private agencies monitoring the boundaries of my properties would be legitimate roles. Difference being is that I’m not required to pay for someone else’s agency.
1. Libertarians do not accept regulation. There is no exception.
2. You have to desire to cause pain in others to even accept the “job”. The entire job description is forcing people to do things they otherwise would not willingly do. Every regulator at some point in his or her career ruins a person, and almost none of them resign their job in protest of the system. This is pure malice. It’s like trying to tell me the Gulag guards were just doing their job. Nobody in the regulatory system is a kind, honest person. Not a single one of them. Engaging in that kind of operation means you have to knowingly think of your fellow human being as a thing to push around because 50% + 1 of the people decided to vote on it. There is no other way a person in the regulatory system can be anything but evil scum.
Of course libertarians accept regulation. All the time.
I regulate my garden, my business transactions, my company tools, the pest controller around my property is regulating his treatments around my water well and near the border which abuts another property owner. He damn well better.
This isn’t splitting hairs, J. It’s the crux of the matter. Generalizations are not terribly useful. If qualified as mandated regulation via democratic majority (and by the way, I love the “50% + 1″ phrase) then that is certainly regulatory monopoly of which I oppose.
“There is no other way a person in the regulatory system can be anything but evil scum.”
A number of presently-operated-government roles, in an ancap environment would not disappear, but would be replaced by private lawyers, private auditors, private monitors in a private legal system. And they had better be regulating my business affairs, and the supply chain to which I’m connected. so that I can make the ethical/moral decisions related to business partners and association.
When characterized as “evil scum,” the first thing most folks interpret (I surmise) is that we espouse anarchy as practiced by the mobs who were smashing Starbucks windows in Greece this past year, because we accept no regulation of any kind.
I believe it more useful to start with the evils of taxation. It all flows from there.
Most people do not think through the meaning of their actions. For example, when I vote for a tax, the money will be taken at gun point from my neighbor; if he resists he will be shot. The regulator generally does not grasp the fact that he is actively destroying lives. There is a general absence of malice perhaps, but I am of the opinion that the attendant rationalizations ( I was just following orders, if I don’t do it someone else will, people voted for it, etc.) do not absolve the regulator from moral culpability. In any case, I have to judge by what people do to me, not how people feel, and the regulator is in fact harming my life and livelihood under the threat of violence. It’s malice to me.
“There is a general absence of malice perhaps but…. It’s malice to me.”
You identify the heart of the matter nicely. Different paradigms and viewpoints; the challenge is to show that the act of taxation is an unintentional malicious act. We fail to obtain support if we just say, “The local dog catcher has malice toward me.” In fact, the mission of the dog catcher, for all propertarians, is to keep these mangy creatures from roaming on public and private property, and from yelping all night long when I want to sleep. Does that regulator also have malice toward me?
I lost many arguments, a long time ago, serving as Budget Committee leader, decrying the increases in local taxes. Why do I say I lost the arguments? Because taxes went up on my watch, little to my avail. Was quite frustrating.
I distinctly remember my dismay in decrying additional funds for the Recreation department. This one was close to my heart, sine my wife served on a volunteer group that created a park in our town, all with private donations, including funds to maintain it, and sustain it long into the future. No taxpayer funding. Yet this didn’t stop the Town committees from approving other taxpayer funded parks.
I was known to say, often, “Ladies and gentlemen, every time this Budget Committee approves of a tax-funded expenditure, we are telling every resident homeowner, ‘Hey, if you don’t ante up, then we’re coming with the cops to take your house.’ ”
My dramatics (implication of malice, I suppose) didn’t seem to sway many board members. Conversely, they saw malice in the citizen who didn’t want to pay his “fair” share for the extra park…..
By the way, I pay the taxes of which I’m assigned. The dollars I earn go to dropping bombs on name-your-enemy-of-the-day, propping up rules that hurt upstart business-oriented immigrants from being self-sufficient, arresting kids that tried smoking a joint, among innumerable others. I could easily say that my (and every other taxpayer’s) actions are malicious, since I serve Leviathan and I don’t forcibly defend my property. I have malice against my neighbor; if I were Thoreau, or Cassius Clay, or the numerous tax protestors who are marched to jail, then I’d refuse to file each April.
Keep characterizing the dog catcher or regulator of choice as a “malicious” individual and see how quickly the conversation with an opponent ends. Sure, we can say, “So what. I don’t want to talk to them anyway.” To me, we need every debate we can find.
Why? The entire argument for regulation boils down to “because we said so”. What makes the regulator the only one allowed to use such tautology?
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of PGA officials? Or FTC lawyers? I don’t think you can say. But positions of greater power certainly provide opportunity for greater abuse of power.
While malicious intent may be in the mind’s eye of the beholder, there are certain instances where malice seems a given. Prosecutors are sometimes known to unjustly pursue cases solely to get a notch on the belt, and some regulators are prone to the same mentality. If one views his job as a duty to score points by finding and punishing arcane or even non-existent infractions, rather than to serve the public, the desire to “do a good job” can easily push the boundaries.
It would be easy to understate the role denial and rationalization play when a regulator convinces himself he’s doing a good job, and acting in good faith, when he himself is not fully aware of the pressure influences of peers, bosses, promotions, social status, etc.
I often wonder: is our Regulator-In-Chief acting with malice? Any denial and rationalization there?
“I often wonder: is our Regulator-In-Chief acting with malice? Any denial and rationalization there?”
Answer depends on whether you’re a Democrat or Republican.
: )
I understand where you are coming from with regard to regulation, but I don’t know if I’d call what happened to Johnson an “injustice.”
When he came to play the ball, I (watching on TV) said to myself that he was going to get penalized for grounding the club in the bunker. I was surprised the announcing team didn’t pick up on it. Yes, there is a rules official walking with each group, and considering they were the final pairing, there were probably gobs of them in the area. But the rules official will only intervene if asked. He (or more importantly his caddy) should have recognized the questionable position of the ball and got clarification from an official as to whether it was a bunker.
No one forced Johnson to play in the tournament (as I am forced to comply with regulation against my will). He voluntarily agreed to follow the rules set by the PGA in order to participate.
Sucks to be him, but the officials made the right call here.
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