Golf Panels Change Scoring Error Rule

More than two years too late to spare Englishman Mark Roe, golf’s governing bodies Tuesday installed what basically is a safety net to prevent players from being disqualified for entering a correct score on the wrong card.

As one of 111 amendments to the “Decisions on the Rules of Golf,” approved by the U.S. Golf Assn. and the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of Scotland, the revision allows officials to rectify such mistakes without penalty starting Jan. 1.

Roe might have won a major championship if the revised rule had been in place for the 2003 British Open. Instead, he and his third-round playing partner, Jesper Parnevik, were disqualified, their failure to exchange cards on the opening tee at Royal St. George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, England, proving ruinous.

Roe shot a 67, which would have left him only two shots off the 54-hole lead, but signed for Parnevik’s 81.

If the mistake had been caught before they left the scoring tent, they would have been permitted to erase the scores, mark correct ones on the proper cards, sign them and walk away unscathed. The revision allows corrections to be made by the tournament committee, “without limit of time.”

“I’m really, really pleased that something good has come from my mistake, really,” Roe, who watched on TV as Ben Curtis won the tournament, told Associated Press on Tuesday. “I’d like to think that the way I handled it at the time, and what I went through, was probably a small factor in their decision to look at it.”

PGA Tour veteran Larry Mize, who won the Masters in 1987, said in a telephone interview: “Obviously, it’s an innocent mistake, and now they can rectify it. I think that’s good.”

Another rule change will allow golfers to use lasers and satellite technology, such as GPS systems or rangefinders, to measure distances, if tournament organizers allow.

The PGA and LPGA tours are not expected to allow rangefinders, except during practice rounds, where they already have been in use.

“We’re not contemplating any change for our competitions,” PGA Tour spokesman Bob Combs said.

Spokesmen for three of golf’s four major championships -- the U.S. Open, the British Open and the PGA Championship -- also said they had no plans to allow rangefinders. A Masters spokesman, Glenn Greenspan, said the issue “hasn’t been discussed yet,” but it’s unlikely the devices would be allowed there.

Still, ratifying their general use was inevitable, David Rickman, director of rules and equipment standards at Royal & Ancient, told Bloomberg.

“Yardage information is already available through caddies, printed course guides, distance markers by fairways and from sprinkler heads,” Rickman told the news service, “so to outlaw these devices seemed no longer to be reasonable.”

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Michelle Wie will compete in the Nov. 24-27 Casio World Open, one of the richest events on Japan’s men’s tour, organizers said Tuesday.

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Defending champion Fred Couples, Tiger Woods, Annika Sorenstam and Fred Funk will compete in the Merrill Lynch Skins Game, to be played Nov. 26-27 at Trilogy Golf Club in La Quinta.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.