Oh, what a rollercoaster of a week it was at Oakmont! Not only did players witness some of the toughest conditions ever played, but we also saw some of the world’s best players faltering. While J.J. Spaun stood the test of time and emerged as the winner, several players were in the spotlight on the final day. One of them was Adam Scott, who too was in contention entering the final round; his playing partner, Sam Burns, missed an opportunity to get anywhere close to the victory. While Burns’ overall round was a disappointment, it was his casual water ruling on the 15th hole that had the golfing community in stitches.
Sam Burns stated that he could see water splashing every time he took a practice swing for his second shot and consulted two officials just to be sure. While Burns wished that he could have gotten free relief, he knew that he could not make the call alone. “So at the end of the day, I mean, you know it’s not up to me. It’s up to the rules official,” Burns confessed after his final round of 8-over that cost him the title. While many players, including Adam Scott, felt that he should have been given relief, Brandel Chamblee felt differently.
Chamblee called Burns’s decision to take the ruling and move on with the play ‘mature.’ He also came out in support of the USGA rules officials, stating that they know their jobs the best. In his recent podcast with Sky Sports, Chamblee mentioned watching the action in real time, as opposed to people who posted the video, which led to him taking the stand with the officials and implied that Sam Burns’s call might have been terrible at the time—“It felt like a terrible call at the time, but you know, I saw the post, uh, and look, I’m not trying to discredit the post or who posted it, but if the lie had been as bad as what was posted on social media, he would have persisted more, uh, that the shot was unplayable. I was watching it in real time.”
And Chamblee expressed that it is ultimately the rules officials who take the call, who are refereeing at the U.S. Open, because they are the best of the lot—”These referees, you don’t get to just—you don’t just get to referee the US Open if you are a part-time rules official. They are the best of the best rules officials.” And while he believes that players like Burns would not have been in the leader group had it not been for his extraordinary play—”And you don’t get that last tee time unless you’re extraordinary at what you’re doing“—he also credited the officials for giving the ruling without bias: “So these are incredibly competent, hard-working people who know the rules with no biases.”
The USGA rules officials missing a basic ruling, such as casual water, simply did not make sense to Chamblee—“So you know it’s difficult for me to believe that they would have missed something as pedestrian as casual water.” So I’m not in the camp that thinks that this was a bad call.” While the course was rain-soaked on the final day, everyone played in similar conditions, and the officials could not have gone around giving drops to everybody simply to maintain the pace of play.
Regardless of what went down and everyone’s differing opinions on the ruling, Chamblee felt that Burns handled the situation incredibly well. “The fact that he didn’t persist demonstrably tells me that one, he’s incredibly mature. Uh, but also that he was willing to accept it and carry on.” But what else could he do? His day did not start the way he wanted it to, and regardless of the ruling he received, he might not have won the title, but he would have managed a better finish.
A rain-soaked Sunday for Sam Burns
Burns entered the final day with a one-shot lead over Adam Scott and was looking to claim his first major win. But an eight-over round on the final day ended those dreams. With the rain-soaked course and the delay in play, Burns started the day slowly.
He started the first half with three bogeys, and a birdie on the tenth could have changed things. But a double bogey on the 11th set his momentum for a disastrous round. While it wasn’t too bad, it was on the 15th hole when things turned around for him, where he found his ball resting in a casual water area and was denied the ruling. He eventually had to play as it lay and ended up scoring a double-bogey on that hole.
Burns eventually lost his composure and finished with two bogeys and a birdie on the last three holes. But it was not just Burns who experienced waterlogged conditions on the course. While everyone witnessed the same playing conditions, and they just had to deal with it, Sam Burns felt that it was his luck on the final day and the waterlogged course that led to his defeat. “Ultimately, it felt like the water just kind of got in the way, and I went left. It is what it is.”
What do you think of the USGA ruling? Was it the right way to go?
The post Brandel Chamblee Blames Sam Burns for His Own Fall As He Ends on Wrong Side of USGA Ruling appeared first on EssentiallySports.
