Daniel Berger’s ball is circled in black
Another rules incident was reported but not shown on NBC’s broadcast of the Players, this time involving Daniel Berger being openly questioned by playing partners Joel Dahmen and Viktor Hovland.
It would have been tough to go into great depth with the tournament coming down to the last few holes and Berger having fallen out of contention. Still, this uncomfortable one comes on the heal of similar sticky situations at Bay Hill the previous week.
Thanks to PGA Tour Live and a more progressive Tour posting such things, you can view the Berger shot and lengthy discussion between the three, joined too by chief referee Gary Young who ultimately left things up to the players.
Golfweek’s Adam Schupak wrote about the episode.
Both Berger and Dahmen declined to speak to the media after the round, but Hovland answered a few questions on the subject.
“It’s not a fun conversation, but when you strongly believe in something, you kind of have to stand your ground,” Hovland said. “It’s not like we’re trying to dog on Daniel and trying to screw him over. It’s just, that’s what we believe, and he obviously felt strongly the other way. It’s just what it is. I’m not accusing him of anything. The golf ball is in the air for a couple seconds, so it’s tough to exactly pinpoint where it crossed and not. But Joel and I saw it in one way and he saw it differently.”
As with the events at Bay HIll, it’s disconcerting the video evidence was not shown on network on TV or that in the Berger case, it was determined there was no such evidence to influence the discussion.
Maybe a PGA Tour Live sub for the referees?
ShotLink also appeared to capture the trajectory of the ball. Note the dashed line. Whether this would have settled the debate is another matter.
The dashed line captures the approximate point of entry.
Note the dashed line, lower left (ShotLink)
Reviewing the evidence and reporting on it with pictures continues to be desperately needing to be addressed on broadcasts. It’s also just good TV.
At least in this case there were social media postings by the PGA Tour sharing the episode and a close viewing would suggest both sides scored legitimate points. The video evidence supports Berger’s belief and ShotLink may lean a bit toward Dahmen and Hovland’s view. That we got to see it via social media is progress and in a weird way, the transparency seems beneficial to all of the players.
