Golf: Changes on the cards

Roberto de Vicenzo celebrates his 45th birthday in style by shooting a final round of 65 in the 1968 US Masters at Augusta to force a playoff with Bob Goalby.

But wait, the scorers have a problem. The popular Argentine's playing partner has marked him down for a four on the 17th instead of the birdie three television viewers across America had seen. And de Vicenzo has signed for a 66 instead of a 65.

Fair play would suggest an easy adjustment. But the rules of golf can be cruel and de Vicenzo accepted the mistake had to stand. He shrugged his shoulders as he lost the chance to add the Masters to the British Open he had won at Hoylake the previous year.

It was a sad ending for a round which had begun sensationally when the Argentine holed a nine-iron for an eagle at the first and birdied the next two holes to be four under par after three holes.

But whereas in cricket a batsman can stand his ground even though he knows he snicked the ball, and in soccer players will writhe in agony to try to con the ref into awarding a penalty, golf has an honour code that would try the resolve of a saint.

As Bobby Jones, the founder of the Masters, said: "Golf is a game where only the player can tell exactly what goes on. His word must be the final one."

So it is a major break with a very old tradition that the Royal and Ancient Club and the United States Golf Association have decided on a change to the scorecard rules.

De Vicenzo's fate would have been the same, as a wrong score must still stand. But Englishman Mark Roe would have been spared the disqualification that dashed his hopes in the 2003 British Open at Sandwich.

Roe, who had shot a third-round 67 to be in fourth place level with Tiger Woods and eventual winner Ben Curtis, discovered he and playing partner Jesper Parnevik had failed to exchange scorecards and had signed the wrong ones. Both were disqualified under the rules then in force.

But from January 1 next year, a player who has signed for the correct score, but on the wrong scorecard, can be saved. The governing bodies have decided such an "administrative error" can be corrected without penalty.

The change is among no fewer than 111 amendments to the book Decisions on the Rules of Golf. It is published every two years and comes into effect for all golfers from the start of next year. The 2006-2007 book contains 37 new and 66 revised decisions, while eight have been withdrawn.

Another change is the sanctioning of the use of distance measuring devices. This applies to devices that measure distance only, not any other conditions that might affect a player's play - which would seem to rule out breathalysers!

Golfers at the highest level are among the most scrupulous of sporting figures. In 1997, New Zealander Michael Long called a penalty on himself at a crucial stage of a tournament for a ball movement that only he could have detected. He finished second, one shot behind Ernie Els.

Grant Waite won the Kemper Open in the US in 1993, thanks to a quiet word from runner-up Tom Kite, which helped him avoid inadvertently breaking a rule.

On the other side of the coin, world number two Vijay Singh will always have the stigma of a disqualification involving a scorecard early in his career and Scot Colin Montgomerie has come under fire for his conduct at the Indonesian Open in March.

Montgomerie failed to mark his ball when play was interrupted by a storm. The ball disappeared and Montgomerie replaced it in a more favourable position. He was not penalised but gave the prize-money to charity when his fellow pros complained.

Perhaps the most unusual problem has arisen because of the youth of some of the women players competing in New Zealand. At a recent national tournament difficulties arose over a scorecard not from any skulduggery but because the primary-age youngster hadn't yet learned to add up.