GOLF:The game must tackle the issue of allowing common sense to live with the rules, writes PHILIP REID

WHO WAS it said that the law was an ass? You suspect Pádraig Harrington – deep down – might feel that way after his latest disqualification, but he’d be too polite and politically correct to ever say it. In fact, it was Mr Bumble in the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist who uttered such an observation and there is an ironic twist that the very rule which led to Harrington’s untimely exit from the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship is Dickensian in every way.

In golf, the rules are the rules and there is no grey area. The rules are black and white, written in stone, so to speak. And there is an outdated feeling to this latest disqualification, which follows on Camilo Villegas’s disqualification in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago for moving a divot out of the way of his rolling ball.

Golf prides itself on its equity and sense of justice, which is all fine and well. But what happened to Harrington – even if he put his hands up and accepted his medicine – was patently unjust. He was not the perpetrator of a crime or seeking to gain any unlawful advantage, he was the victim of a set of circumstances which should have at the most resulted in him getting a two-stroke penalty and being told to go on about his business.

Harrington was disqualified for incorrectly signing his first-round scorecard without adding a two-shot penalty for brushing the ball with his hand as he replaced it on the green and removed his marker (even though he didn’t know he had incurred such a penalty). In signing for a wrong score, a 65 instead of a 67, he was in breach of Rule 6-6d. The rulebook doesn’t allow for common sense in such situations, only for the full rigor of the law to be applied.

What makes this whole thing worse is that some viewer sitting at home watching on television provided the catalyst for the disqualification. We’re all for fairness and equity but is it fair that someone not remotely involved in the tournament can initiate a trial because he has the benefit of High Definition or, as the Tour subsequently used, slow motion replays to actually determine there had been the most minute movement?

These couch potato vigilantes are peculiar to golf. You can look back at the Thierry Henry handball in the France-Ireland World Cup qualifier where commentators were aware of a blatant indiscretion within seconds of it occurring and yet are powerless to influence matters, or even the Leinster football final of last year where the illegality of Joe Sheridan’s “goal” was apparent immediately and highlighted but again didn’t affect any change.

Golf needs to wake up to the issue of allowing common sense to live with the rules. In Harrington’s case, he moved the ball on the green (on the seventh hole of his first round) but didn’t mean to do so and wasn’t even aware that he had done so. He didn’t gain any advantage – and, even if the rule had been applied, it would have led to a two-shot penalty. If so, so be it. But the greater penalty of being disqualified for signing for a wrong score he couldn’t have been aware of shows how outdated at the times the Rules of Golf can be.

Golf is about fairness, which is to its credit. But what’s fair about disqualifying someone for a violation which wasn’t obvious to the player – and, let’s remember, Harrington’s honesty is beyond question to the extent that the RA use him as their “Working in Golf” global ambassador and as the face of their Etiquette in Golf video – and which was only apparent when viewed on television? What’s fair when only technology more powerful than the human eye can determine a violation has taken place? That’s not equity; that’s inequity.

What Harrington said: “I was aware I hit the ball (with his hand) picking up my coin. I looked down at the time and was pretty sure it had just oscillated and had not moved, so I continued on. In slow motion, it’s pretty clear the ball has moved three dimples forward and it has come back maybe a dimple and a half. At the end of the day, that’s good enough.

“But I wouldn’t have done anything differently – there was nothing I could do about it at that moment in time. If I’d called a referee over it would have been pointless because if he’d asked me where my ball was, I’d have said it was there. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t move.

“I felt I knew the rule at the time. I applied the rule as best I could in the situation but looking at the video, it’s pretty clear that it, you know, it’s 100 per cent looks like the ball has moved forward and not enough back and that’s the issue at heart.”