It's not a criticism, it's an observation.
The rules of golf
Mike Cox

Michael Thompson is a golfer on this year's University of Alabama golf team. His play got him invited to the Masters. During his second round, he was blindsided by the Golf Gods.

While standing over a birdie putt that would have nearly guaranteed his position as top amateur, his ball moved a fraction of an inch. According to the rules of golf, he had to call a penalty on himself, re- mark his ball, and putt again.

He bogied that hole and never recovered. He lost four more strokes before he finished the round, missed the cut, and became an example of the honor of the game rather than low amateur.

Announcers trumpeted the young student athlete's integrity, pointed out how this honorable game is filled with people like Thompson, and waxed poetic about the purity of golf. What no one talked about was how stupid the rule is.

Most sports began with a few basic guidelines. Additional rules were added as participants learned to take advantage of situations to win. The infield fly rule was instituted in baseball many years ago to keep players from intentionally dropping pop flies in order to get double and triple plays.

The NFLprohibits fumbling forward late in a game. This was put in the rules because Ken Stabler won a game once by doing it. The college football rule book is filled with ordinances influenced by things Bear Bryant did.

But golf, the so- called honorable game, has things in the rules so bizarre no one can explain them. It appears the guys who invented this game were so mistrustful of each other, every situation was taken into consideration. Doesn't sound too honorable to me.

Michael Thompson found out that a golf ball moving a fraction of an inch on the green is a penalty. No one explained how this creates an advantage for the player involved and why the rule was implemented in the first place.

If you hit a nice drive into the middle of the fairway, and it lands in someone else's divit, you can't move it, as the eventual winner of this year's Masters found out. It would appear the guy who was too lazy to repair his divit should be penalized, nor the guy unlucky enough to hit there.

I understand rules against improving your sight line to the hole or something designed to prevent disagreements. But penalizing a player because his caddy forgot to remove the flag from the hole before a player putts? A recent PGA player got disqualified because his caddy raked a sand trap before he hit from a second one. What does that accomplish?

The confusion for me is the insistence the game is steeped in honesty. If this is so, then each player could honestly state if his actions are giving him an undue and unfair advantage. There should be no need for a rule book the size of

War and Peace. Or keeping a high level attorney on retainer to give opinions.

Golf is without question an addictive and demanding game. But I'm not too sure about honor.