He had come runner up four times, and after years of dedication his moment seemed to arrive. The dream was crystal clear as he stepped up to play the18th hole again in a ‘Sudden Death’ play-off against the 49 times PGA tournament winner and Ryder Cup golfer, Furyk.

With the light fading over the beautiful harbour and the greens, both players safely reached the fairway from their tee shots. Davis’s second shot ran across the green, over the edge, bounced off some rocks below and finally settled on nicely packed sand with some reeds behind it. However, he successfully chipped up onto the green with his third shot. Now here’s the magic.

No one saw this happen except Davis. As he played his third shot he thought he might have barely touched ‘a loose impediment’ (a loose reed/bit of straw) which is a penalty. “It was one of those things I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. And I thought we’d check on TV, and indeed there was movement,” Davis said.

He immediately called for the tournament referee, Slugger White, and told him what had happened. It was so subtle that the crowd didn’t see it and the TV cameras didn’t see it.

He felt honour-bound to tell the referee, who checked with the TV slow motion replays and duly imposed a two shot penalty for ‘making contact with a loose impediment in a greenside hazard’ (rule 13.4: moving a loose impediment during a takeaway). Davis’s dream was over.

However, his actions on the 18th hole at Harbour Town Golf Links course, will be remembered by many for a long time to come. You can see this magical sportsmanship moment. Slugger White later said: “He’s class, first class”. Brian Davis has since received floods of congratulation cards, letters, emails from people all over America and in particular from parents who said they told their children this is how you play sport and this is how you live life.

Davis proves that nice guys are winners. In his own words, here’s how good it actually felt after the high tension game was over. “It’s probably the first time in my career, or in any golfer’s, where [you] lost in a play-off and actually drove home more positive than when you left,” he said. “It has been a good experience for me, and it has been great for the game of golf that we do call rules infractions on ourselves. It’s just part of the game.”

Note: Thanks to Ollie Campbell for alerting me about this story.

Dr. Sharon Kay Stoll on why golfers call their own penalties

As he said himself: “it was just a little bit of adrenaline, my hands got into it and I flipped my third shot into the bunker.” However he got ‘up and down’ in two and won it outright. He has a very very bright future. However that’s not why this post is in the blog. It was Justin Rose’s sportsmanship that caught my eye. He had a putt on the 18^th for a birdie 3 that could have won him the competition, or at least forced a play-off (as at that point McIlroy was out of the bunker for three shots and could only hope to get his par 4 with his final putt). Rose missed by less than an inch. He smiled, composed himself and tapped his ball in for a par 4. McIlroy then sank the biggest 4 foot putt of his life to win the competition. Rose was first over and embraced young Mcllroy with real warmth. A fellow competitor who has fought all the way to the wire proved to be a great sportsman. Well done Mr. Rose.

To listen to the Irish  Radio interview click on the play button (arrow button) below:

Or if you prefer click the link below to download the mp3 file:

RTE-Radio-1

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