If you watched it on TV, you actually saw the climactic outcome of the first hole of the sudden death playoff. Jim Furyk was playing Brian Davis for the title on the 18th hole at Harbour Town. If you didn't watch the tournament on TV, you've probably already seen replays of it on newscasts and have a good idea of what happened.
To summarize, on the first hole of the sudden death, Brian Davis hit his shot and pulled it on the second shot to 18. As you know, left of 18 is a hazard. There are rocks guarding the whole side of the green, shoring it up against erosion. His ball hit inside the golf course and bounced onto the rocks, hit twice on the rocks, and kicked it out into the marsh.
Fortunately, it was low tide, so the ball was playable. The ball was in an area where there is a little bit of grass growing up and had a lot of small reeds hanging around it. But basically, it was a clean hit to get at the ball.
After Jim Furyk hit his second shot to the back fringe and putted down to about four feet from the hole for par, Brian Davis studied it really closely. You could hear him and his caddie talking that the ball landed in play and they could take a drop and have a pitch that could go in the hole for four, after taking the penalty.
But they decided, because the ball was pretty clean, to go ahead and hit it. Mr. Davis hit the shot over really well, made a pretty good swing. I actually heard his caddie say, “This is kind of compact and really hard, so you're going to have to swing at it pretty good.” He made a good shot and knocked it out about 30 feet.
As soon as he hit the ball, it wasn't a matter of two or three seconds, he immediately called for Slugger White, who is the head rules official. The camera tried zooming in and you could see that Brian Davis was concerned because he believed touched one of the reeds in the backswing.
They talked about it and Brian asked for the TV people to look at it. The next thing you know, they're showing it over and over on TV. He, in fact, did clip it a little bit, you could see it vibrate.
They talked about whether it was a loose impediment or was it really attached, because that makes a difference. Eventually, Slugger While bent over, picked it up. It was a loose impediment and a two shot penalty.
The impressive thing about it was that Brian immediately knew there was an issue. I guarantee you he was dead certain that he knew it was a two stroke penalty.
Slugger was far enough away. He couldn't see it. Jim Furyk was over on the green. He never would have seen it.
I think the greatest winner in the whole episode, for the title was Jim Furyk. But the bigger winner was Brian Davis and what it shows about his personality and his honesty as a true, honest competitor, and a true, honest golfer.
Even bigger than him, what stands out is that golf is THE most honest game in the world where the players watch themselves. They'll call the rules on themselves and penalties on themselves in the appropriate cases.
If there's any one reason to play golf and be proud about being a golfer is the simple fact that this is the cleanest, most honest sport. For that, I just want to raise the flag up the pole as far as I can raise it up and shine the lights on it and give Brian Davis all the respect that he's due. It doesn't get much more difficult than calling it on yourself in a playoff, with a chance to win a PGA Tour event, which he has not won yet.
I'm proud to be a golfer today as I hope you are all proud to be golfers. I'm really proud of Brian Davis. Next time I see him, I'm going to walk up to him and congratulate him on such a fine thing that he did.
Congratulations to Jim Furyk, and congratulations to Brian Davis and to all golfers who play golf the way he plays. By the rules.
The Surge!