Kendra Graham - May 21, 2012

• By Morning Drive Team
• May 21, 2012 7:35 AM ET

Golf Channel Rules Insider Kendra Graham is a former USGA Rules Official. When asked about the Morgan Pressel situation, she started by defining when a group is out of position in relation to keeping proper pace of play. She believes that the LPGA Tour officials had given Pressel and Munoz a chance to improve their time before putting them on the clock. Once you are on the clock, all bets are off. You have to play quickly whether you are at fault for the slow time or not and if you do not play quickly, you will be penalized. The LPGA Tour has a policy which states that you will be penalized after a hole is complete because the penalty is based on average time among the total number of strokes taken on a particular hole. The reason this ruling was so significant was that Morgan would have won the hole without the penalty.

When it comes to the discretion of rules officials, she said that it is subjective based on the rules official whether or not a group is timed to determine whether or not they are playing too slowly. The official chooses when to start the clock and when to stop the clock. Since she was not with Pressel and Munoz on Sunday, she cannot give too much of an opinion on whether or not the rules official did the right thing.