http://wieblog.com/archives/michael-bamberger-a-name-youll-remember-39
Michael Bamberger, A Name You’ll Remember
So it wasn’t a home viewer in this case.
The updated Associated Press wire states that it was Sports Illustrated reporter Michael Bamberger who informed tour officials about Michelle’s Saturday round drop. Johnston was bothered that Bamberger, who was at the seventh green when Wie took the drop, waited a day before raising it with tour officials. Had she been notified Saturday before signing her card, she would not have been disqualified.
Bamberger said he paced it off after Wie, playing in the final group Saturday, finished the hole.
“I did it in crude way — ‘Let’s see what she has to say.’ I was hopeful she could convince me,” in the Saturday interview, Bamberger said. “I thought about it more and was just uncomfortable that I knew something. Integrity is at the heart of the game. I don’t think she cheated. I think she was just hasty.”
Asked why he didn’t bring it up before the third round ended, Bamberger said, “That didn’t occur to me. I was still in my reporter’s mode. I wanted to talk to her first.”
Now there’s the ethical dilemma for you: Do you withhold information from your interviewee to get your story knowing that doing so could potentially disqualify your interviewee?
Wie accepted the decision: Rules are rules. She’s a class act.
http://www.aberdeennews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/columnists/morning_buzz/12930832.htm?source=rss&channel=mercurynews_morning_buzz
Why wait to blow whistle?
Associated Press golf writer Doug Ferguson tackles the role of Sports Illustrated's Michael Bamberger, who on Sunday alerted a rules official to a possible violation by Michelle Wie on Saturday, leading to Wie's disqualification:
Should golf writers do anything when they think they see an infraction?
I came across this question in March at the Bay Hill Invitational, when K.J. Choi played a bunker shot to the 18th green. He left his first shot in the sand, then swept his foot over the sand to fill in the hole.
It appeared to be a violation, since players cannot test conditions in the hazard. Should that have been a double bogey instead of a bogey because of the one-shot penalty? I told rules official Mark Russell what I saw, and he went into the scoring trailer to speak to Choi before he signed his card. Turns out there is exception under Rule 13-4 for smoothing sand after a shot, provided it doesn't improve the lie on the next shot.
Bamberger's error was not in bringing up what he suspected was a violation, but his timing.
He was standing about 15 yards away as Wie's 5-wood on the uphill, 470-yard hole hit hard off the top of a slope and shot into an island of desert bushes.
When her caddie, 18-year LPGA veteran Greg Johnston, found the ball, Wie wasted no time telling fellow player Grace Park she was taking an unplayable lie, then taking out her driver to measure two club lengths and taking a drop. The first time, the ball inched forward, and she dropped it again. From there, some fronds from a small, desert palm slightly interfered with her backswing. She had 45 feet to the hole, the first 20 feet down a steep slope to the green. It was a weak, nervous chip to 15 feet, but she made the par putt.
Bamberger stayed behind and stepped off the distance from where her ball was in the bush to the hole, and from where she dropped to the hole. It caused him enough concern to bring it up to Smith the next day.
But if it bothered him enough that he paced it off, he has been around golf long enough to know that once a card is signed, there is no going back.