It certainly has been an interesting start of the 2011 golf season. Two top golfers in the world were disqualified from the tournaments they were in for rules violations in the first month.

Doug Ferguson, who writes for the Associated Press and occasionally sends out a Tweet with his thoughts on current events, made this observation:

“Interesting to me is that for the 2nd time in 3 weeks, there's an outrage over rules violation by everyone except the victim."

He’s right. Both Camilo Villegas, at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions, and Padraig Harrington, at the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship, were very gracious in accepting their punishment.

They were disqualified from their respective tournaments for signing an incorrect scorecard. Both Villegas and Harrington, in separate tournaments, were disqualified because they signed their scorecards, found out they had violated the rules after the fact, and couldn’t take their two-stroke penalties after fact.

The kicker, if you hadn’t heard, is that it was someone watching on television that spotted the violation and contacted the rules officials. In the case of Villegas, it was a golf writer/fan/author saw Villegas move a loose impediment while his ball was in motion and then sent out a tweet asking how he could get in touch with the officials at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions to report the obvious rule infraction.

That was a tweet heard around the world.

In Padraig Harrington’s case, the viewer saw the ball move as Harrington was moving his ball marker while the fan was watching on television.

Both men said, upon reviewing the video, they had indeed violated the rules and had to accept their punishment.

Harrington said his reputation, “my integrity”, is more important to him than winning a tournament. That is as it should be.

Villegas said “after viewing the tape with Slugger White this morning it was clear what happened. While it is obviously a disappointing way to start the season, the rules are the rules, and when something like this happens, it’s important to me that you’re respectful of the game and the people involved.”

And the conversation would have stopped there with people just shaking their heads asking how top golfers in the world continue to be so ignorant about the rules of golf.

Villegas removal of a loose impediment with the ball in motion and possibly improving his lie was a serious infraction.

Harrington’s ball moved three dimples of the golf ball forward and then moved one, maybe one and a half dimples back – but you could only see that on TV and in slow motion. Harrington didn’t think he had violated the rule until he saw the slow motion playback.

As Harrington put it during the post DQ news conference, and amazing that he was gracious enough to have one, he is quoted to have said: “After looking at the video, the ball moved 3 dimples forward and a dimple, a dimple and a half, back.” Harrington thought the ball oscillated but after seeing the slow motion, said, “it definitely moved forward and not back enough.”

Not only did Harrington show up for the news conference, he stayed in Abu Dhabi the entire tournament, appeared on Golf Channel to comment on the final round and held a clinic for junior golfers on the proper way to mark your ball.

GOLF…INSTANT REPLAY IN SLOW MOTION

This isn’t the first time slow motion was been used. It happened last year, in Spain. Peter Hanson incurred a penalty he couldn’t see. He double hit a chip shot. The TV commentators in the booth saw the rule violation but they weren’t positive because it happened so fast. Using super slow motion playback technology, the European Tour officials immediately reviewed the tape, told Hanson about the violation, and gave him a two-stroke penalty. Hanson still had four holes to play. He went on to win the event in a playoff.

The first question is:

Since TV viewers, and commentators, have the power to phone in, tweet in, or review their broadcast and report a rule violation, have it acted upon by the tournament officials, should the players be disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard. To the best of the players’ knowledge, and on course rules officials, it wasn’t incorrect when it was signed.

I got a chance to ask Ernie Els this question at the Hyundai Tournament of Champions at Kapalua.

Mr. Els, what do you think of fans watching on television calling in rules violations?

“Obviously golf fans, golfers who are fans, they know the rules. A lot of them know the rules. You know, I would love for them to do it before we sign our cards. You know, sometimes we do - I guess – we do things and you may not know the rule or something.

"For the most part, I think we abide by the rules. I think it was an unfortunately incident with Camilo. I guess they did the right thing, because if he shot 63, and say he wins the tournament, and they go back to the tape and look at it, there will be a big story.

"So if they could do it before we sign our card, that would be great.”

GET THE SNITCHES OUT OF THE GAME

Golf Digest senior writer and Golf World executive editor Ron Sirak spoke for those against any kind of TV viewer participation. But he does offer some compromises.

First to Sirak’s argument against TV viewers calling in rule violations and those violations then acted upon after the player has signed the scorecard. As he put it in a tweet back in January, during the Hyundai Tournament of Champions when asked his opinion:

“Unfair. Holds those on TV to stricter rules standard. Not all of the players are held to the same scrutiny”, because not all of the players are on television.

Sirak was on “The Golf Club”, calling in from Abu Dhabi, after Padraig Harrington was DQ’d instead of being assessed a two-stroke penalty because he signed an incorrect scorecard.

“It holds a certain segment of the field to a higher standard, or to a different standard, than anybody else because not everybody is on TV. It’s only going to be the top players on TV.  They are going to be held to a different standard than anybody else. To me that makes no sense.”

He offered two solutions. One you’ve probably heard, or thought of yourself and that is to have a rules official from the event sit in front of the television and monitor what the players are doing.

But, as Sirak put it, “once that round is over, once that official says we are done, then at that point somebody can’t come in and try to overrule the rules official.”

Another doesn’t require a person to spend the days watching TV.

“Tours can impose a local rule. 'Lift, clean and place' does not exist in the rules of golf. That is a local rule imposed by the tournament if it is too wet to play. They’ve never played 'lift, clean and place' in U.S. Open and they never will. But they (tournaments) could impose a local rule saying that in a situation when a player signs an incorrect scorecard for something that was inadvertent, as with Padraig Harrington, and it’s discovered after the round is over, it is not a disqualification, it is a two stroke penalty.”

CAN’T WE ALL GET ALONG?

My next question to Mr. Sirak was one that has confounded me for some time now and irritates me to no end. I can’t understand why the holders of golf events around the world make it so difficult for the top players, the marquee players, to play in them.

If golf is going to be a global game, and they all came together to get golf into the Olympics, what can be done to make it easier for the popular performers to be on the main stage?

His answer:

“On this one, I think all the stake holders in golf, all of the Tours, PGA Tour, European Tour; the PGA of America, the USGA have to coordinate their schedules and try to keep important events away from each other. That’s the first thing.

"The second thing is, I think all the Tours need to drop the minimum tournament requirements that you need to play to keep membership and just let players play where they want to play.

"That would be the best thing for the game of golf and the best thing for the fans because the best players would be together more often.”

Golf Digest senior writer Ron Sirak pointed out how great the field was in Abu Dhabi. The winners of last years Major’s didn’t pick the Hyundai Tournament of Champions to play in. The top players picked the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship. That was in part because three of them are European Tour players and the fourth, Phil Mickelson, doesn’t like to play the Plantation course at Kapalua and they paid him a handsome fee to appear in Abu Dhabi.

Sirak: “We need to have that happen more often, and not just in the United States. We need to have it happen all around the world. That will grow the game. It will sell the game in a way that it has never been sold before because there is so much talent out there from so many different parts of the world.”

You don’t have to have a Lee Westwood, Tiger Woods, Graeme McDowell or Phil Mickelson in the field for the tournament to be entertaining.

A good example is the outcome of the Bob Hope Classic in Palm Springs where several rookies battled it out for the win and a Venezuelan came out on top.

These “unknown” kids, from around the world, are going to start winning a lot more tournaments on the PGA Tour. That is how it should be since the press for golf to go global is beginning to bear fruit.

But, for golf to get back on top, Sirak said: “The point we should be getting to is, we want the best players in the world to get together more than just at the major championships or the WGC’s events; get together 12, 16, 18 times a year, and the only way we are going to make it happen by coordinating schedules.”

GOLF CHANGING THE WORLD DEPARTMENT

Despite previous threats to seize the few remaining golf courses in his country and convert them into houses for the poor, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is now cheering the sport after compatriot Jhonattan Vegas won the Bob Hope Classic.

"A young Venezuelan won a golf tournament in the U.S., we congratulate him," Chavez said Tuesday on state television.

"I'm not an enemy of golf. I'm not an enemy of any sport. I've simply criticized that a group of rich people in Caracas have a bunch of golf courses next to slums falling off of hills."

Vegas, who learned to play golf on a nine-hole course in a Venezuelan oil camp in Maturin, hitting rocks with a broomstick, is a rising star in the U.S. after becoming the first Venezuelan to win on the PGA Tour.

The 26-year-old also became the first rookie to win the Bob Hope Classic in La Quinta, Calif., when on Sunday he bested fellow rookie Gary Woodland on the second hole of sudden-death.

The victory was worth $900,000, a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour and an invitation to the 2011 Masters in April. Afterward, Vegas said he hoped his success would help change the perception of the sport in his country.

"He beat all of the gringos," Chavez said during his speech. "Let's go, buddy." The president added that in the coming days he plans to call Vegas to congratulate him.

THE FUTURE OF THE RULES OF GOLF

In what I consider to be an amazingly quick response to the two disqualifications last month, PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem says he has reached out to the United States Golf Association and the European PGA Tour to eliminate the disqualification penalty for players who unknowingly sign a wrong scorecard.

Finchem pointed out that in Padraig Harrington’s rule violation case, you needed to watch on HD to actually see that the ball didn’t move back to its original position. “Is there a better way to do this from a rules standpoint, especially in light of the new technology?”

Taking the RULES of GOLF CHANGE one step further, I think you’ll enjoy this quote from Jack Nicklaus. It was captured in an article written by Yahoo! Sports columnist Jay Busbee. It’s about the rules of golf and what to do about the problems they seem to pose the professional golfers. As he put it:

It’s still the players responsibility to know the rules and it’s pretty amazing how many “professional” golfers don’t know the rules but take a look at what Jack Nicklaus said about the rules:

"Probably the whole book of the rules of golf should be changed. If you try to figure it out, it should be common sense, yet common sense never seems to prevail. A USGA rules official said that it was much more difficult to pass the test to be a rules official than it was to pass the bar exam. There's no reason for that. The game should be simple. People should be able to understand the rules and the rules should be common sense."

Yep, that's Jack Nicklaus, the guy who's embodied the best that golf has to offer for half a century, saying that the rules of golf are flat-out ridiculous. What say you now, purists?

Nicklaus was speaking to the Golf Channel's new "Morning Drive” show when he took his shot at the rules. Obviously, he wasn't being critical for the sake of being critical; the man just wants more people to play golf. Is that so wrong?

Written by Jay Busbee

THE HYUNDAI TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS

I thoroughly enjoyed my stay on Maui for the Hyundai Tournament of Champions but probably my favorite moment was in the media room listening to Ernie Els respond to the reporters.

Every professional golfer is expected to recite what clubs were used on which holes and for what reason if asked to by the reporters in the media room. From what I have learned from a number of different golf mental game coaches over the past 13 years, this goes completely against what is considered “good” for a golfers mental game. Granted, these are the top golfers in the world and aren’t as prone to mental errors but I couldn’t help but ask Mr. Els:

Does it benefit you going over what you’ve done in the round with the media afterwards, how you played the round? Does this whole process benefit your mental game? Does it help you?

Here’s his answer, after much laughter from those in the room and from Els:

“That’s a new one. But in a way, it’s kind of – when you’ve had a good round like this, it’s nice to reflect on it and thinking about mostly positives. I must say, it is very difficult; I’m quite hard on myself and my game. You guys don’t see me when I don’t want to talk after the tournament.

"It was actually a good question you ask. You try and take the positive out of a lot of things and just try and be honest. But to be honest with you, I’m not going to think about it too much, what I’m saying to you right now. Tomorrow is another round, and then I’ve got to be ready for Sunday.”

Jonathan Bryd was the guy who pulled off the win Sunday on the Plantation course.

A great win for the man who managed to keep his PGA Tour card with the win in the Fall Series at the Justin Timberlake Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. Remember it was almost dark when he pulled off a hole in one in the three way playoff, something that has never happened before in PGA Tour history, as was pointed out by one of my guests, Sirius XM Radio “The Grill Room” co-host Bob Bubka.

Byrd’s win at Kapalua was also in a playoff but not nearly as amazing. He was playing against Robert Garrigus. Garrigus missed a 3-foot par putt on the second extra hole. It cost Garrigus the win.

"I can't sit here and not think about where I was toward the end of the season last year, fighting for my card," he said. "I'm just thankful, I'm overwhelmed, I'm grateful, all of the above."

With the win at Kapalua, Byrd earned an automatic invitation to the Masters, and he is exempt for the U.S Open because it was his second win in the last two months.

What is he doing to make his game so consistent?

The views from the Plantation course, with the wave action, were breathtaking the entire week of the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. And then the rain came!

More than 10 million viewers watching the 2011 Hyundai Tournament of Champions over the four days of coverage on Golf Channel. This 2011 tournament at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course delivered the highest ratings and viewers since 2008. Nearly 600,000 thousand viewers per round and that is a 38 percent increase over the year before.

The success in the ratings a fitting end for Kapalua Resort’s run with the game of golf now that the two courses left have been sold and will be run under Troon management.

The PGA Tour has entered into another 3 year agreement with the State of Hawaii, which means the PGA Tour will begin its season in Hawaii until 2014. I believe that is the same extension given the Sony Open in Hawaii by the Sony Corporation.

ALOHA, GARY PLANOS

Aloha. Most people think it means hello and goodbye. But it also can be used to express compassion, sympathy, regret and love.

For many reasons I won’t even begin to go into, all of these meanings apply to Gary Planos. After 27 years, the first week in January of 2011 was Gary’s last at Kapalua. Back in 1991 he was made tournament director of the Kapalua International. In 1999 Planos took over as chairman of the Mercedes Championships, now the Hyundai Tournament of Champions. Because Kapalua Resort has sold, or closed, its golf courses, his job was eliminated. "I have had many titles," Planos said. "I think I counted and I have had 10 titles here. My last one was senior vice president of resort operations since 2004." Planos started at Kapalua as a bag boy back in 1975.  He was not enjoying a marketing correspondence class he was taking at the time and told he could make money using his golf clubs. He took the job.

SONY OPEN IN HAWAII

Mark Wilson is also going to the Masters after his win. Nervous?

Making it to the final round at the Sony Open in Hawaii took patience.

For the first time in the tournament’s history, the Pro Am had to be cancelled.  Four inches of rain fell on the Waialae Country Club in the days leading up to the first round of the Sony Open in Hawaii that was played on Friday.

I have to hand it to Waialae Country Club course superintendent Dave Nakama and his crew. With vacuums roaring, sucking up the water ponding on the course and over a hundred volunteers working to clean up the “grass snakes” on the greens, the course conditions were amazing. As one golfer put it, there was even some roll on the fairway.

I want to thank Mr. Bill Bachran for running a smooth operation year after year.

And the Harry & Jeannette Weinberg Foundation for matching all the money raised to provide relief to thousands of people in Hawaii who count on the many charitable organizations benefiting from the money raised.

MY FUTURE MEANS OF TRANSPORTATION

After filing my column, the Kaanapali Champions Skins got underway at the Kaanapali Kings course and Tiger Woods went back to work at Torrey Pines in the Farmers Insurance Open. He held a long press conference, answering questions about being on twitter (he’s having fun with it), the DQ’s (he says it’s the players responsibility to know the rules) and the state of his game. He seemed more relaxed, according to those on hand.

It’ll be interesting to see how his game is coming along after spending, what Woods says, was a lot of time on the putting green practicing in the off season. And how quickly people turn on him if Woods doesn’t live up to their expectations.

See you on the radio.

Thank you for your Mana and may you hit the sweet spot every time,

Danielle

PS You can hear “The Golf Club” radio show online at http://www.radiogolfclub.com/ or on one of these fine radio stations: It’s “The Golf Club” show every Saturday morning at 7 AM on KHUI 99.5 FM on Oahu, KONI FM 104.7 on Maui , KTOH 99.9 FM on Kauai and on KPUA AM 670 in Hilo.