Sport: Par Cut Off at the Knees

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In a TV match several seasons ago, Tom Watson urged Gary Player to turn over a new leaf rather than pat down the one growing behind his ball. Through that incident, a line seems to have been drawn: idealism on one side, opportunism on the other. Watson writes hard-and-fast books about rules (and innocently runs afoul of them still). Player considers himself more of an interpreter, like George Archer. Once, when his ball came to rest at the base of a tree, Archer summoned a referee and requested relief under the burrowing- animals statute. "What burrowing animals?" the official demanded. Archer knelt down and pointed in horror. "Ants!"

Poor Craig Stadler, a man who has never been able to keep a crease in his pants, was brought to his knees in the third round of the Andy Williams Open under a sappy tree. Tired of being described as a bag of cantaloupes, Stadler put down a towel before slapping the ball out and cheerfully going about his business. The next day, a bee stabbed him during his round, a portent of stings to come. While Stadler was persevering to a second-place finish worth $37,333.33, TV replayed his arboreal adventure. The switchboard, as they say, lit up.

Almost no amateur golfers play by the rules. They have come to an accommodation with themselves and one another to bump the ball in the fairways or nonchalant it on the greens. The game most of them play combines croquet with tiddledywinks. But they know the rules. Alerted by the whistle blowers, P.G.A. tour officials penalized Stadler two strokes for innocently "building a stance" with his flat towel and then disqualified him entirely because the scorecard he had signed the day before was now incorrect. Some might say the punishment fit the crime no better than the pants fit the criminal, but when did the rub of the green ever have anything to do with grass stains?