WEBVTT - A History of the Stymie 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:02.520 I miss a green, for example, I'm already upset. 0:00:02.640 --> 0:00:04.920 When I find my ball in the bunker, I'm really upset. 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:05.880 And when I find my. 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:08.920 Ball in a brid egg Frida egg, the dreaded Frida Egg, 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:11.360 Frida Egg, frid Egg. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.239 Bride egg Lie, I'm about ready to run off of 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:13.600 the hum. 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:38.159 Hello and welcome to the Frida Egg Podcast. My name 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:41.560 is Garrett Morrison, and today we have a special episode 0:00:41.680 --> 0:00:44.800 on a particular aspect of match play golf, or I 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.760 should say something that used to be a factor in 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:53.040 match play, and that is the stymy. Basically, a stymy 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:55.680 worked like this. You and your opponent were both on 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.640 the green, but your opponent's ball blocked your path to 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:02.480 the hole. Today you can ask your opponent to mark 0:01:02.520 --> 0:01:04.840 their ball and even move their mark out of your line. 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:08.919 But until seventy years ago, that wasn't the case. Unless 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:10.920 the two balls were within six inches of each other, 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:13.760 you just had to play it as it lay. You 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:17.440 were stymied. As you can imagine, this led to all 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.119 sorts of complications. It was an entire dimension of match 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:24.360 play golf that good players had to master the strategy 0:01:24.400 --> 0:01:26.920 of it. The question of whether to create a stymy 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:31.039 intentionally the techniques for playing around or over another ball, 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.360 all that kind of stuff. But in the twentieth century 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.360 the steymy became controversial. Many golfers began to think of 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:40.920 it as a relic of an old, antiquated form of 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.600 the game, and finally, in nineteen fifty two, when the 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:47.680 USGA and RNA came out with their first jointly published 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:51.840 set of rules, the stymy was abolished. So the basic 0:01:51.880 --> 0:01:54.320 goal of this episode is to tell the story of 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:57.120 the stymy, and I hope one thing that becomes clear 0:01:57.880 --> 0:02:00.400 is that it wasn't just a charming little core of 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.400 match play, though it certainly was. That it was also 0:02:03.520 --> 0:02:06.720 an embodiment of a whole attitude towards the game, an 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:09.640 attitude that fell out of favor around the same time 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:12.160 and for many of the same reasons that the stemy did, 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:18.880 and the result was essentially modern golf. To learn more 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:21.640 about this history, I called up Stephen Proctor. 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.840 My name is Stephen Proctor. I write books about the 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:27.919 history of golf, narrative history books. My first book was 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:30.280 about young Tom Morris, and I have a next one 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:33.120 coming out next June that is about the age of 0:02:33.120 --> 0:02:34.440 golf before the Great War. 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:37.320 Stephen and I actually talked last year, so his book 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:40.200 is available for pre order right now. It's called The 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.000 Long Golden Afternoon. Now, a quick note on the format 0:02:44.040 --> 0:02:46.400 I'm using here. Some of you may be familiar with 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.560 Frida Egg's stories are audio documentary series which I host. 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:52.640 This episode has some elements of that, but it's not 0:02:52.880 --> 0:02:56.560 quite a full fledged documentary narrative. The focus is really 0:02:56.600 --> 0:03:00.000 on the interview I did with Stephen, and I started 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:03.760 that interview by asking him to tell three stories about 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:07.800 three different stymies. I wanted to understand how the stemy 0:03:07.840 --> 0:03:12.160 functioned in an actual high stakes golf match. So story 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:16.840 number one, John Henry Taylor versus Horace Hutchinson, eighteen eighty eight. 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:20.440 You know what would happen is that players who are 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:24.960 looking to establish their reputation as a gifted golfer could 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:28.760 often do so by the lofting of a brilliant stymy 0:03:28.800 --> 0:03:32.000 in a critical moment. So in eighteen eighty eight, John 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:34.200 Henry Taylor is a young man, not yet a professional. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:38.720 He's just a greenkeeper at Northam, at the westward Hoe 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.680 golf course there where he was born in Northam, and 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:43.720 he plays in a match as a member of the 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:48.080 working Man's Club against the Amateur champion, the reigning Amateur Champion, 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:51.720 Horace Hutchinson, for whom he had previously worked as a bootblack. Honestly, 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.120 so it was a kind of an interesting match in 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:54.720 that regard. 0:03:55.200 --> 0:03:57.400 Taylor, by the way, went on to become a five 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.880 time Open champion and, along with James Bray and Harry Varden, 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:03.880 one of the so called great Triumvirate of golf in 0:04:03.920 --> 0:04:06.480 the eighteen nineties and early nineteen hundreds. 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:11.680 In any case, John Henry Taylor surprisingly beats Hutchinson, and 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:13.960 he notes in his memoir with great pride, and if 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:16.279 you don't mind, I'll just quote it. It may be 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.440 that mister Hutchinson treated me with some tolerance, but the 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.039 truth must be told that once I had a grip 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:24.480 on him, I stuck to him with a greater intensity 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:28.440 and finished him off by winning three and two, successfully 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.520 pitching a stymy with my one and only iron on 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.320 the sixteenth green. So you can see that he took 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.520 a bit of pride in the fact that he had 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:38.880 one iron. It was probably a mid iron, I would guess, 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.000 or a mashiet, but it wasn't a very high lofted 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.000 iron like a niblick or what we would think of 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:45.960 as a sand wedge, And he was able to loft 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:48.080 the ball over a Hutchinson's ball and drop it directly 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:50.440 into the cup and win the match with that shot. 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:53.000 And those were the kinds of things that could establish 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.320 a reputation for you as a crafty, skilled golfer. 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.719 Yeah, and so the ability to negotiate a stymy could 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:03.719 be a particular point of pride for a golfer in 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:04.160 this era. 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.760 It most certainly was, and I think the players who 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:12.360 opposed to the stymy being eliminated felt that it took 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:15.119 a key level of match play skill out of the game. 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:17.279 And I'm pretty sure that Bobby Jones was in that 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.600 same category. He was brilliant at lofting stymy's, putting around stymi's, 0:05:22.000 --> 0:05:23.640 as were most of the great players of the age, 0:05:23.640 --> 0:05:27.720 Willie Park Junior, John Henry Taylor as we mentioned, and others. 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:33.479 Story number two Freddie Tait versus Douglas Rowland eighteen ninety four. 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:38.240 In eighteen ninety four, the first Open Championship ever to 0:05:38.279 --> 0:05:41.320 be played on English soil was conducted at Royal Saint 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.960 George's where the Open happened this year. Naturally, as part 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.880 of that, they wanted to have a special event to 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.560 supplement the Open itself. And what they did was they 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:56.279 arranged a match between amateur golfers and professional golfers, eight 0:05:56.320 --> 0:06:00.640 amateurs versus eight professionals. This was a per perfect time 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.599 for that kind of match because amateurs, for the very 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.880 first time in history, had shown the ability to play 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.159 against and beat professionals. John Ball had won the eighteen 0:06:10.240 --> 0:06:13.520 ninety Open Championship as an amateur and Harold Hilton followed 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:15.839 that up by winning the Open in eighteen ninety two 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:18.560 as an amateur, both of them players from Hoyley. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:19.839 It's worth noting. 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:26.000 In eighteen ninety four the amateur players didn't do nearly 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:29.200 so well in that match as the amateurs who ran 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.800 the game hoped for. Only John Ball and Freddie Tate, 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:37.000 the great hero of Scotland, manages to five even around. 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:40.279 Freddie Tate went on to almost get to the final 0:06:40.680 --> 0:06:44.359 and it was a stemy two stemies actually that thwarted 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:45.320 him from getting there. 0:06:45.760 --> 0:06:47.360 And that's the interesting. 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:50.080 Part about this story. He was playing against a man 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:52.880 named Douglas Rowland, a professional from Scotland, a bit of 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:56.680 a rascal, and on the eighth hole he was brutally 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:59.479 stymied when he had a two up lead, so he 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.440 ended up having that hole that he should have won 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.760 and taken a three up lead into the ninth hole, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.360 which is a pretty tough lead in a match at 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:11.720 the turn. He ended up then fighting against Roland the 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:13.400 whole way on the back nine and the match was 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:17.000 all squares they came to the seventeenth. On the seventeenth hole, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.120 Freddy Tait hits a gorgeous approach to the green that's 0:07:20.160 --> 0:07:24.200 probably four feet from the hole. Rowland's approach is way wide, 0:07:24.400 --> 0:07:27.560 forty to fifty feet from the hole, but when he puts, 0:07:27.920 --> 0:07:31.920 he puts offline and leaves Freddy with the dead stymy. 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.320 The dead stymy prevents Freddy from winning that hole, which 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.240 would have left him with the one up lead going 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:41.760 into the eighteenth and thereby almost unbeatable. Unfortunately, the match 0:07:41.840 --> 0:07:44.200 ends up being haved in regulation and Freddy loses on 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:47.640 the twentieth hole. And it was really those kinds of 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:51.160 stymies that prevented somebody from winning a match in which 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:54.560 they had clearly played better, that turned people against the 0:07:54.640 --> 0:07:55.840 Stimy in the long run. 0:07:56.520 --> 0:07:59.640 In other words, there was a sense that this was unfair. 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:02.800 There was a sense, yes, that it was unfair in 0:08:02.840 --> 0:08:05.200 the regard that Freddie Tate lost the match when he 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:07.840 played better golf, and of course Roland then went on 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:10.440 to win the whole thing against John Henry Taylor, the 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.600 great English golfer who had won the Open that year 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.160 at Saint George's, tremendous breakthrough for English golf. 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.520 Yeah, so it seems like in this case the Steymy 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:21.800 injected a kind of chaos into the match. 0:08:23.120 --> 0:08:26.400 Yes, that is pretty rare that it produced that kind 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:28.240 of outcome, but it did on occasion, and that was 0:08:28.280 --> 0:08:32.120 the thing that aroused the ire against the stymy to 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:35.720 begin with, is that in certain matches, at certain critical moments, 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.480 Steymy's would prevent the right person from winning. On the 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.679 other hand, other people looked at it as a fabulous 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:45.800 way for Douglas Rowland to stay in the match when 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:47.040 he was clearly up against it. 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:48.960 So it depended on your point of view. 0:08:49.880 --> 0:08:55.520 Finally, story number three, Cyril Tlly versus Bobby Jones nineteen thirty, 0:08:56.040 --> 0:08:58.200 the year that Jones won the Grand Slam, which back 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:01.400 then consisted of the US and British Opens and the 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.760 US and British Amateur Championships. 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:07.680 Certainly the most difficult tournament to win, at least in Jones' 0:09:07.800 --> 0:09:11.400 opinion in the mine also is the British Amateur Championship, 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:14.920 because you have to win a million, not million, but 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:18.160 seven or eight singles matches and then a thirty six 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:22.400 hole final. And obviously, as match play shows all the time, 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.120 and the reason television hates it is that anything can 0:09:25.160 --> 0:09:28.160 happen in an eighteen hole match, and a person who 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.560 might be considered an inferior player can get on a 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:33.960 heater and defeat a great golfer. In any case, Jones 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:36.480 was playing in the nineteen thirty Amateur in one of 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:39.440 his late matches to get into the final against a 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.079 man named Cyril Taly, a big burley golfer from England 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.200 who was a great golfer and one of the top 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.679 figures of that age. He is playing against Tolly and 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:54.280 beats him on one hole by virtue of the fact 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:59.920 that Tolly accidentally stymies himself, allowing Jones to win the hole. 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.720 And Jones himself wrote in his own book Down the Fairway, 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:07.080 I believe that he regretted winning the tournament in that way, 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.360 and he probably wouldn't have been able to advance because 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:12.920 Tally had to drop on him at that moment. And 0:10:13.000 --> 0:10:16.400 winning that hole when he would have maybe lost it 0:10:16.440 --> 0:10:20.880 proved pivotal in the outcome of that Amateur championship and eventually, 0:10:21.000 --> 0:10:24.280 obviously in Jones completing the Grand Slam. That's probably the 0:10:24.280 --> 0:10:26.400 most famous stemy in history. 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:29.400 Yeah, and this one was where he stemied himself. And 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.760 when you say steymied himself, you mean that Jones's ball 0:10:34.000 --> 0:10:38.400 was quite close to the hole and Tolly accidentally hit 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:41.520 a lag putt that was farther away from the hole, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.360 and Jones's ball was in the way. 0:10:43.679 --> 0:10:45.160 Correct, That is exactly what happened. 0:10:45.360 --> 0:10:49.440 And maybe the usual stemy scenario that we would think 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.480 of would be the opposite, where a player farther away 0:10:52.480 --> 0:10:55.680 from the hole would stemy the other player by lagging 0:10:55.720 --> 0:10:58.800 it up closer in between the other player's ball and 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:00.119 the hole exactly. 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.280 And this kind of steymy was the sort of stymy 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.200 that really raised Hackles about the outcome of the match, 0:11:07.679 --> 0:11:11.880 because Tali had just inadvertently in lagging his putt stuck 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:14.720 it right behind Jones's ball, and there was pretty much 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:18.640 no way he could negotiate the stymy without knocking Jones's 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:21.080 ball into the hole. And of course, if you did 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:24.920 that under the Steymy rule, Jones would have been considered 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:27.440 to have hold his previous shot and therefore it would 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.240 all be over. So those kinds of stimys were more painful, 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.400 I think than even the Roland one, which you could 0:11:34.400 --> 0:11:36.520 take a two edged point of view on that. You 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:38.559 could take the point of view that Roland did a 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:42.880 brilliant thing in preserving himself by steymying Tate, or you 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:44.840 could take the point of view that he unfairly won 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.200 by steymying Tate. But there were at least two distinct 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.920 point of views. But most people, and I think even 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.600 the winner himself, acknowledged that nobody likes to win when 0:11:52.640 --> 0:11:54.640 somebody accidentally stymies themselves. 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.880 Right, Yeah, there's something ungentlemanly about it, but you know 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:06.080 that's golf, okay, So why don't we go back to 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.319 the beginning. Could you just tell me about the origins 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.200 of the Steymy in some of the earliest rules of golf. 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:17.520 Where did it come from, how did it come about 0:12:17.520 --> 0:12:21.120 that this was a thing that was a feature of golf. 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.880 Certainly, the Steymy was never actually written down itself as 0:12:25.880 --> 0:12:29.680 a rule. It evolved from the understanding of the original 0:12:29.720 --> 0:12:33.679 thirteen rules that were created in seventeen forty four by 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:36.920 the Gentlemen Golfers of Leith, who later became the Honorable 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:40.240 Company of Edinburgh Golfers. They got from the City of 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:43.440 Edinburgh that year a silver club to compete for annually 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:47.000 over their links. But the one thing that was necessary 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:49.080 was a set of rules for the game to be 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:52.120 played by, and so they wrote down the original thirteen rules. 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:57.040 Rule six of those rules stipulated that in a circumstance 0:12:57.120 --> 0:13:00.520 in which two balls laid very close to one another, 0:13:01.360 --> 0:13:04.400 the ball closest to the hole could be picked up 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:07.920 while the other ball was played. So they were referring 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.880 primarily to situations what you would call through the green, 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:14.240 on the fairway or somewhere else. But it was inferred 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.800 from that that you were not able to move your 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:20.880 ball under any circumstance other than that circumstance, and so 0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.600 it eventually evolved into a rule whereby if a ball 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.680 was within six inches of your ball and within six 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.440 inches of the hole, it could be lifted, but no 0:13:31.559 --> 0:13:35.400 other circumstance could it be lifted. So and then eventually 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:37.480 it just became a rule where you couldn't pick up 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:39.960 your ball on the green at all in a match. 0:13:40.320 --> 0:13:42.680 This only applied to when you had an opponent's ball 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:46.280 blocking your ball. If you were in a stroke play match, 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.640 you were not considered to have an opponent per se. 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.480 You was only in match play that this applied, And 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:54.959 that's how the rule came to be in existence. 0:13:56.160 --> 0:13:59.400 So, in other words, it was defined negatively. The rule said, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:04.520 this is the specific scenario in which you can pick 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:08.280 up the ball or pick a request that an opponent's 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.880 ball be picked up, if your balls are within six 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.319 inches of each other and within six inches of the hole. 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:17.600 And it was a since that was the you know, 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:19.960 the one situation where you could pick up the ball. 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:23.600 It was, as you said, inferred that in all other 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:25.280 situations you couldn't. 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:28.160 It's definitely defined by its negative I think the original 0:14:28.760 --> 0:14:32.040 rule referred only to balls in play, not specific to 0:14:32.040 --> 0:14:34.280 whether they were on the green or not on the green. 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.200 And then eventually the rule that was adopted by clubs 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.080 was that if you were on the green and within 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.560 six inches of the hole. There were circumstances in which 0:14:43.920 --> 0:14:45.840 a ball closer to the hole could be lifted, but 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.040 under no other circumstances. So you're right in the sense 0:14:49.080 --> 0:14:51.920 that people inferred from that that the only two times 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:53.520 you could touch your ball was to put it on 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:55.080 a tee and to pick it up out of the hole. 0:14:55.440 --> 0:14:57.120 That was how golf was always played. 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.880 And of course the player actually never did either of 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:01.520 those two things. 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:03.520 They had their caddy do it. But that's neither here 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:03.920 nor there. 0:15:04.680 --> 0:15:07.360 Am I right to say that no player would admit 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:09.960 to intentionally stymying his opponent. 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.320 That is correct the way the original rule was written 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:15.440 in the original thirteen rules. As we talked about at 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.000 the beginning, one of those was you are not to 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.920 play against your opponent's ball. You're to play fairly for 0:15:21.000 --> 0:15:25.120 the hole. So the noble idea was that stymis were 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.840 always accidental, but the real idea was that they were 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.520 they were not always accidental. You can be sure that 0:15:31.640 --> 0:15:35.560 Roland wanted to hold his putt, but if he didn't 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:38.040 hold it, he wanted it to stop in between Freddy's 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:39.440 in the hole, that's for sure. 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:41.800 And you know, players I. 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.080 Can assure you that the man chipping off the green 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:46.240 against McClain was hoping that if he didn't make it 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:49.680 would stop in between McLain's ball in the hole, because. 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:50.560 It saved you. 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:53.680 It gave you one last out, you know, one last 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.600 get out of jail free card. So you know, I 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:59.600 think it was just really had a level of tension 0:15:59.600 --> 0:16:03.240 in a man because of the last minute uncertainty that 0:16:03.280 --> 0:16:07.840 it could occur from a devastating stymy that was unanticipated. 0:16:08.480 --> 0:16:11.560 Yeah, And you know, and when you're playing one of 0:16:11.560 --> 0:16:14.160 those shots, when you're behind on a hole and you're 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:16.520 and you're lagging a ball up or you're chipping a 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.120 ball when your opponent's ball is closer to the whole 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:22.560 part of your calculation, your silent calculation, you would not 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.760 admit to this is this is the good place, This 0:16:26.840 --> 0:16:29.080 is the good side to miss two. And this is 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.680 about the pace that I need to play this shot 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:34.160 at because if it doesn't go in the hole, which 0:16:34.160 --> 0:16:36.520 would be the best scenario, if it doesn't go in 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:38.840 the hole, then at least I want it to end 0:16:38.920 --> 0:16:41.520 up between my opponent's ball and the hole, and so 0:16:41.680 --> 0:16:45.040 that that would be in a player's mind, you think. 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.080 There is no question that that was in Roland's mind 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:49.480 at the moment he made that puck, and I don't 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.280 doubt that any player who laid a stymy on another 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.120 player had that thought in the back of his mind 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.720 that if this doesn't go in, it would be best 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.359 if it stymied him. 0:17:01.480 --> 0:17:04.440 Now for a quick word from our sponsor, Club Champion. 0:17:05.200 --> 0:17:08.040 A Club Champion is a new sponsor. 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Could you talk a little bit about the 0:19:08.400 --> 0:19:14.639 sort of philosophical and cultural implications of the Stemy rule, 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.240 and generally of the principle that you need to play 0:19:19.240 --> 0:19:21.840 the ball as it lies, of which the Steymy might 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:23.200 be the ultimate example. Right. 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.440 I do think that the Steymy itself and that original 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.159 rule six of the thirteen Rules of Golf helped create 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:33.280 the notion that you should play your ball as it 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:36.760 lies by the inference that you're not allowed to touch 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.480 it at any given time. The only other rule that 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.879 existed where you were allowed to pick up your ball 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:45.040 was if your ball landed next to something that would 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.119 break your golf club what they referred to as break club, 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.119 meaning like a giant stone or something, then you were 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.120 allowed to move your ball with a penalty or watery 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.320 filth as they called it, because they played on the 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.800 seaside and you know, slimy seaweed and things would wash 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:04.639 up on the shore and your ball could land in 0:20:04.680 --> 0:20:08.679 those and you couldn't really play very effectively from the 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.560 watery filth as it were, and you were allowed to 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:15.040 take your ball and drop it behind and take a penalty. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.840 But from those rules it became clear that you were 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:21.520 never allowed to touch your ball, and so evolved the 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.280 notion that you play the ball as it lies, and 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:27.800 that's a critically important part of golf culturally. I also 0:20:27.840 --> 0:20:30.879 think it goes to the notion that golf is a 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:34.159 game in which you encounter rubs of the green that 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.480 are horrible, but that are part of the challenge of it. 0:20:37.880 --> 0:20:41.280 And I think that's probably the more culturally significant aspect 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:45.000 of the stymy, is that the people who really loved 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:49.080 the stymy and wanted it to be maintained felt that 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.359 it corrupted the game every single time you tried to 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.679 eliminate a possible rub of the green, which of course 0:20:56.680 --> 0:20:58.760 has been the thing that people have been trying to 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.920 do since the beginning without cessation and continue to try 0:21:02.960 --> 0:21:06.520 to do today, is to remove the difficult bounces and 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:08.399 make everything quote fair. 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:13.120 So let's talk about some of the arguments against the stemy. 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:18.080 There were arguments against the stemy early on, and obviously 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:23.800 they increased, but what were the basic main arguments against 0:21:23.840 --> 0:21:24.320 the stemy. 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.639 I would say the principal argument against the steimy was 0:21:27.680 --> 0:21:31.840 that it was unfair in the sense that it often 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:36.719 produced winners who weren't deserving. As many people felt that 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.960