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THE PLAYERS CHAMPIONSHIPMay 11, 2014Justin RosePONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA Q. I heard you mention that you read an article last night about the ruling and how it kind of put a light on in your head, what made you even go find that article and what did you think of it as you read it? JUSTIN ROSE: I don't know, Twitter is obviously you stumble across things, really. I think it came up, I was mentioned in the article and somehow read it and, yeah, just the wording of the rule was that‑‑ because clearly in the moment I've made a judgment call that my ball hasn't moved. And if a player's not able to discern if the ball has moved or it hasn't moved, it's deemed to have not moved. I think that's paraphrasing, but the rule goes something like that, I believe. So anyway, I was willing to accept the way things played out last night and under 50 times magnification you could argue that there was a tiny bit of a roll towards the toe. I'm talking a hair or a millimeter or a quarter dimple or whatever it might be. The golf ball look like a Lego ball, it was so magnified. So it was incredibly intricate, it was something that was unusual to see it that way. But point being, what was I going to say? But point being I was willing to accept everything that happened last night and the error that I made in the moment was not calling the rules official, which kind of would have protected me, the two‑shot penalty versus a one‑shot penalty and that's the learning curve that I take out of it. But quite clearly I didn't know that this new recall was in place and it wasn't really read to me last night either in the moment, so that was interesting too. So, like I said, a light bulb went on when I was at home and I kind of scratched my head and I thought, well, that's exactly how it happened on 18. What, it felt like very relevant to my case. And then didn't think anything more of it, right, because what's done is done. Got to the golf course, trying to put a good round of golf together today, and the phone was blowing up, some of the rules officials were trying to get ahold of him and I guess they were me, too, but I didn't have my phone. And received the news that R & A, USGA, PGA TOUR had a lot of conversations and felt that, in this case, that rule applied perfectly to what I had just experienced the evening before. Q. How distracting was it to come in thinking you're 5‑under with a game plan to play around at 5‑under and then suddenly realize, gee, I'm in contention? JUSTIN ROSE: It definitely, yeah, it was. It took me a lot of convincing myself that, right, okay, this is the position I'm in, let's go and take advantage of it, let's go out there and play as hard as I can and forget how I teed off at this point. Because obviously I'm teeing off an hour and a half ahead of the guys that I should have been playing with. So that in itself was strange. Then I get off to a good start too and I'm 10‑under through the turn and beginning to put a run together. So, yeah, at that point it was all very interesting. Some interesting emotions. But I quickly put myself back in the pack with three bogeys on the back nine, which is disappointing. Nice to pick them up in the last four holes, obviously, to have a good finish, but it was nice to give myself that feeling of a run today. But felt fortunate to be in that position, obviously, with what had transpired the evening before. Q. Was it ever explained to you how they came to re‑review the circumstances? JUSTIN ROSE: No, I haven't spent a lot of time with any of the rules officials, I literally had 10, 15 minutes of them just explaining to me that this new rule applied perfectly to me in the scenario with what happened. I said, my view was, you guys tell me, I'm not ‑‑ I'm not sort of pushing for any decision here, you tell me what the rule is and I'm happy to go with it either way. They felt absolutely, categorically, that that was the right rule in my case and back I was to 7‑under. Q. Were you surprised that they overturned it, one; and, two, were you surprised that it took an extra day, that it didn't happen maybe last night versus today? JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I'm certainly surprised it's overturned. Very rarely is that ever the case. Never the case, ever the case, I'm not sure. But the only thing that now makes sense is that when I was at home last night and I read that snippet of the rule, I kind of thought, God, that's exactly what happened today. Like I said, I didn't really give it another thought because at that point it's, I didn't think it was any point thinking about it. But clearly that's exactly ‑‑ I was onto the same thing that the PGA TOUR, R & A, USGA were onto as well. So I was getting a lot of reaction, a few little people tweeting me saying, the rule is this and that, it's tough to find out that way, tough for TV. So it was a lot of sort of empathy on my side, but quite clearly that's why this new rule is in place, that players are in some ways protected where it's very ambiguous what happened. There's often many times where you know exactly what's happened and the ball gets replaced and it's a shot. We all play by those rules. For me, I always tried to make the best judgment call in the situation I find myself in and ever since the first day I played the game that's the way I played it and that's how I'll continue to play it until I finish my career. So it's just been very interesting to be on wrong side of a ruling and then the right side of a ruling within sort of 12, 15 hours. Q. With the weather blowing in, are you going to go home or are you going to stay here? JUSTIN ROSE: I was going home. But that's the second person whose asked me, so now I kind of am rethinking it a little bit. But, yeah, it's obviously, two more I would have been definitely keenly watching. I think that's a couple shy. But I guess I'll give it half a had your and see what happens. Q. Your ball moved such a minuscule amount, was there a way to move it back to where it was actually anyhow? JUSTIN ROSE: That's the whole point. That's why I didn't call the rules official, because I determined that the ball didn't move, so I'm going to say to him, hey, something happened, but I don't think my ball changed position. So there was nowhere to move it back to, in my mind. And then obviously the weird thing was I had the benefit of the replay right there on 18, both Sergio and I watched it intently, closely, and there was no way the ball moved from what we saw and from what I felt. It was a very abnormal ground condition, like I've been saying, it was very incredibly spongy and I felt there was travel this way (Indicating) and there was certainly no travel out of position. So like the whole sort of area just went with my club. That's what I felt. That's what alerted me to why it was something abnormal. But in my mind there was absolutely no way the ball moved from its original position. Q. In the process yesterday, did you feel any pressure to say, yes, the ball moved? JUSTIN ROSE: Well, no, I wanted to know if it moved. Because, obviously, like I said, in the moment, you make a judgment call that it didn't move. And whether that's with me and/or whether that's I'm talking to the rules official, at that point it is your word against his and you got to play this game with your word. I truly felt that the ball hadn't moved. So what was I going to call a rules official for. Q. I'm talking about when you were looking at the video, I mean, obviously, they had thought when you backed away that the ball had moved. JUSTIN ROSE: Right. Q. They thought that. You, on the other hand, didn't feel like the ball had moved, so did you feel any pressure during that process to say, okay, you guys are right, the ball moved? JUSTIN ROSE: No, I felt no pressure to say that the ball had moved, I wanted to keenly know if the ball had moved. As a player, you want to know that situation. It took‑‑ that's why I accepted what happened at the end of yesterday, because you could argue that, under 50 times magnification, if you started to look at it harder, harder, and harder and almost create that movement in your head, did it move, I don't even know how much, less than a millimeter, maybe. At this point the ball looks like a Lego, it looks like blocks, it's not even round anymore. Q. What's it feel like to know, if it moved a little bit, that's a penalty, you didn't get penalized? JUSTIN ROSE: At that point I accepted it. I didn't even know this new rule applied. So, obviously, the wording is, if the player does not discernibly know, can see that the ball has moved it's deemed not to have moved. I can't think the word, the exact wording, but that then applied exactly to how the case played out for me on 18. So, it's, like I said, listen, I fully accepted how it ended last night, and I totally believe that the new wording applied specifically to me today. So I kind of, I was just following exactly what the rules said on both sides. I played to the best of my ability in the moment, and I accepted what happened last night, and obviously accepted what happened this morning. Q. If you had known about the new rule last night, would you have made a more vigorous defense to the officials and been adamant that you were not in the wrong or would you have maybe argued that point more? JUSTIN ROSE: Probably, yeah. Q. We see you as so nice, that you just accept authority, but. JUSTIN ROSE: Yeah, I would say so, yes. Because that's ‑‑ the light bulb went on in my head last night, where I went, I don't see how my case was any different than from I just read now tonight. So, of course, if I had maybe had that going on in the moment, along with the TV footage and whatever it was to get to the final decision, then, yeah, absolutely, I think it would have cleared things up for me. Q. If that's the case, why didn't you do something this morning? Because, clearly, you had more knowledge now this morning than did you last night. JUSTIN ROSE: I just, I accepted what happened last night. I didn't want to make a fuss. At the end of the day, I read it, a light bulb went on, and I thought ‑‑ basically I went, wow, that sounds exactly like today. I gave it three seconds more thought, never assumed this be would the case today, didn't expect it to be the case, was just accepting what happened last night, rightly or wrongly. Q. Do you feel like you are kind of a Guinea pig with this new rule or have set some kind of precedent for incidents like this in the future? JUSTIN ROSE: I guess so, yeah, I mean absolutely. Yeah, I don't think there's been another case like this that I can think of that's been this sort of miniscule in terms of the margin we're talking about. There's many cases out here where the ball moves and that judgment call needs to be made by the players and it needs to be made accurately by the players. But there's the ambiguous side of, did it, didn't it. And if you don't know in your heart and you don't know in your head and no one else can tell you yes or no, that's when this rule helps the player. Q. Did you have a feeling one way or the other before this incident about using video to determine these type of things? JUSTIN ROSE: Did I have a view? Q. Yeah. JUSTIN ROSE: I don't know. I guess the cases that I've always seen has been quite clear to me if the ball did or didn't move. So I always felt like video is a good way of exactly knowing what happened out there. But in the case of what happened with me yesterday, it was almost impossible to tell with all the best video and evidence. So that's, I guess that's where there's ‑‑ it's still a new rule, but there's still that gray area of how you interpret it. I guess. I mean, I'm still trying to get my head around it. I mean, I knew for 10 minutes before I teed off, 30 minutes before I teed off, and now I've come off the course, so I'm absorbing it as I'm answering the questions with you guys, really, so. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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