LARGE TEXT PRINT
University of Alabama golfer Michael Thompson didn’t make the cut, but he walked away from Augusta National with the respect of the golf world.
Thompson, the U.S. Amateur runner-up and an accounting major in the Culverhouse School of Accountancy, stood at 4-over on the 15th hole in Friday’s second round, battling for a chance to make the cut.
As he placed his putter on the ground for the birdie try, Thompson noticed the ball moved slightly, probably because of a slight puff of wind.
Thompson promptly called a penalty stroke on himself. Under the rules, if a player grounds his club and the ball moves, he is assessed a one-stroke penalty.
Rattled, Thompson went on to bogey three straight holes and wound up shooting 78, missing the cut by four strokes.
Because only Thompson saw the ball move, he could have ignored it and hit the putt. But the integrity of the game meant more to him.
“I don’t want to create a bad image about myself, and that’s something you just have to do,” Thompson said. “You have to follow the rules. It doesn’t matter how you’re playing or what’s going on. It just happens.”
“It’s just something unfortunate that happened. But it’s something that you’ve got to deal with. I had put my club down. I had completely addressed the ball and as soon as I put my putter down, the ball moved. And according to the rules, that’s a one-stroke penalty and you try to replace the ball and you replay the shot. So that’s what I did and I didn’t make the putt. I was looking at about eight feet for birdie and ended up having eight feet for par. And I missed it and made bogey.”
Even though TV announcers said no one may have ever even noticed the ball move, Thompson said if he had it to do all over again, he would still have taken the penalty.
“Oh absolutely. Every time. There’s no doubt. No question. It’s the rules of golf. You don’t break the rules of golf. Especially in a setting like this it can always comes back to haunt you and, if not from someone else, it will always haunt you personally and I would rather live with me giving myself a penalty than I would with me cheating.”
Thompson started the day at 1-over and got off to a hot start with birdies on the first two holes.
However, he bogeyed five of the next seven holes and coupled with his penalty on No. 15, finished with a 7-over.
“It’s the nature of the game. I didn’t play my best, I can tell you that. But I learned a lot from these last two days that will help me get better in the future.”
Published in The Tuscaloosa News from combined reports