Kevin NA – Dustin Johnson: A Lesson in Match Play
On Friday at the Dell Technologies Match Play there was an incident between competitors Kevin Na and Dustin Johnson regarding the conceding of a putt.
Johnson missed a birdie putt from about eight feet and had a leave of about six inches. Instead of waiting for Na to verbally say “that’s good,” which he surely would have, Johnson just picked his ball up.
“I had about a two and a half, just inside three feet for a par uphill; it’s straight putt, and his lipped out and everybody was like Ah, and he had six inches and obviously it’s good, but I hadn’t said anything and he whacked it. And I was like — and I froze there and looked at Kenny and I wasn’t going to say that’s a penalty, you’re going to lose the hole. I was going to say, you know what, that was good anyway. I didn’t want to be over that putt and be thinking about that,” said Na in his post match press conference.
Na added, “So I called him over and said, Hey, I’m not going to take the hole from you but I just want to let you know before I said something you whacked the ball. But I’m going to give that putt to you so we’ll call it a halve and go to the next hole.”
Technically, under the rules, Na could have claimed the hole from Johnson, but he wanted to be a good sport about it, and neither player was moving on to the elimination rounds so it did not really matter that much.
However, this is a lesson for everybody as we enter golf season here in Rhode Island.
In match play, unless your opponent tells you that the putt is good, assume it is not.
No matter how close the putt is.
Just because Na did DJ a favor by not taking the hole from him, doesn’t mean someone won’t take the hole from you.
And who knows, it could be a hole you need.