Heartbreak

After I'd stepped away from the emotion of it, I realize that the PGA tour had no choice but to penalize Dustin Johnson two shots for grounding his club in a bunker on the 72nd hole of the PGA championship, thereby keeping him out of a playoff with Bubba Watson and eventual winner Martin Keymer.  The fact that the trampled down area from which Johnson hit his approach to 18 had become unrecognizable as a bunker does not negate the fact that it was a bunker.  They had to penalize him.  But no matter which way you look at it, this is a black eye for the game of golf.  So what should be done to ensure something like it never happens again?  I have the answer: don't play any more major championships of Pete Dye-designed carnival courses.  Whistling Straits has so many bunkers the crowd had no choice but to stand in them all week, making many of them seem like nothing more than worn out walking paths.  Many people have bought into the myth that the TPC at Sawgrass, where they play the Player's each year, is a great golf course.  I've always thought it was a tricked-up mediocrity and as such have never considered the Player's to be the near-major that many claim it is.  Whistling Straits has much beauty, set on Lake Michigan, and it's quite challenging, but it is still an abomination of golf course design.  It was Pete Dye who cost Dustin Johnson a shot at a major tonight and the sooner the PGA tour realizes it and stops playing Dye-designed courses the better off the game will be.