Golfer Lee Ann Walker gets 58 penalty strokes

Lee Ann Walker hasn’t played full time on the LPGA tour since 2008. She currently works in the real estate industry. Because of that, she missed out on a whole passel of rule changes this year. Like the one about players having to reset their putt when their caddie has been standing directly behind them. So she failed to do that in the first two rounds of the Senior LPGA Championship at French Lick, Ind.

Result: She was hit with 58 penalty strokes, turning her rounds of 85 and 74 into rounds of 127 and 90.

“I may have made the Guinness Book of World Records,” she told the Associated Press on Wednesday on her drive home after missing the cut by 59 strokes.

“When I played my first round, my caddie lined me up and I did not reset,” she said. “I did not realize I was violating any rules.”

She played the first round with Jackie Gallagher-Smith and Cathy Johnston-Forbes and said neither noticed her mistake. The second round, she played with Laura Baugh and Laura Shanahan Rowe. They did.

“They made me aware of it on 14 or 15, and I called a rules official to ask what to do,” Walker said. “They had me continue playing so they could have a conference on the violation and what I needed to do.”

The rules officials had her re-create the round mentally and Walker remembered which holes and how many times her caddie was behind her without her starting the process over. She had 21 violations the first round — each penalty is two shots — and eight in the second round before she was aware of her mistake.

“What can you do at that point?” Walker said. “It was my fault for not knowing the rules. I don’t have anyone to blame but myself. Big lesson learned.”

But she has no regrets.

“I’m glad I went. I got to see a lot of great friends, it was a great golf course, great event,” she said. “Everything was great except for my penalties.”

Review time

Now that Jalen Ramsey is a member of the Rams, let’s go back and revisit some of the brutally honest things the outspoken cornerback said about many of the quarterbacks around the NFL in a GQ interview in August 2018.

Come on, it’ll be fun. What are you worried about? That maybe the two-time Pro Bowler said some not-so-nice stuff about Rams quarterback Jared Goff that might lead to some awkward moments in the locker room now that they’re teammates following Tuesday’s trade between the Rams and Jacksonville Jaguars?

It’s not like Ramsey came right out and said someone “sucks.” Oh wait, yes he did (then-Baltimore Ravens QB Joe Flacco).

OK, at least he didn’t call anyone “trash.” Hold on, he did that too (Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen).

Well, it’s too late to turn back now. Let’s see what he said about Goff, who was coming off a breakthrough 2017 season in which he completed 62% of his passes for 3,804 yards with 28 touchdowns and seven interceptions for a passer rating of 100.5.

Good news — Ramsey went easy on the guy, calling him “average to above average.”

Here is Ramsey’s full quote on Goff:

“Jared Goff, he’s average to above average. He reminds me of [San Francisco 49ers quarterback] Jimmy Garoppolo a little bit. Year one, he wasn’t good. He wasn’t even good enough to earn his own starting role. Like, if you’re the No. 1 pick, you expected to start now. Period. He wasn’t ready to do that. He wasn’t able to do that. Then when he did get in, he didn’t really do that good. But in his second year, they got a new offensive coordinator. Your offensive coordinator is just your brainiac. When we played them, it felt like his offensive coordinator was drawing up perfect plays and then he was hitting the open man. For what his team asks him to do, yeah, he’s good.”

See, that wasn’t so bad. It definitely could have gone a lot worse.