Rules of the Game
I've long been an advocate of adhering to the rules. I believe the rules help us all, by enabling predictability, stability and security. I particularly believe in adherence in the rules of games, such as golf. Breaking the rules of a game is playing a different game: The rules define the game. If we don't follow the rules, we are cheating ourselves by playing some game that we don't intend to play, a game we've created, where we're the only ones playing. However, an incident occurred at the recent British Open of golf that made me wonder whether I've been too rigid.
On the third day of the four day tournament, a player had the best round of the day and vaulted into contention in the tournament. He would play the following day with Tiger Woods. I watched his television interview, where he described his family and young children, his pleasure at his success that day and his hopes for the final day of the tournament. Minutes later it was announced that he had been disqualified for turning in a scorecard that bore the name of another competitor. His score was correct but he was handed the wrong card by officials earlier in the day and no one noticed the wrong name on the card he ultimately attested. He was as gracious in the next television interview as he had been earlier. He accepted the disqualification with equanimity and looked forward to seeing his family a day early. Then it was announced that the tournament committee had the power to waive the disqualification and that it was meeting at the time to consider the matter. Notwithstanding my belief in the rules, I hoped that the committee would waive the penalty in this instance. The television commentators, all equally strong believers in the rules, said the same thing. Finally, it was announced, without explanation, that the committee had determined to let the penalty stand.
For the first time in my life, I thought that rigid adherence to the rules was too harsh. Rules generally have a purpose, whether to ensure that everyone is playing the same game or to ensure that there is no element of subjectivity in application of the rules, such as would allow personal biases to govern the results. In this instance, I could think of no purpose for the rigid application of the rule. Especially when the lapse followed abnormal conduct of officials earlier in the day, waiver of the penalty seemed appropriate. And that leads me to a change of view: If the rigid application of a rule serves no purpose, the penalty for violation should be waived. In fact, in that circumstance, we might think of changing the rule.
Thinking this way makes it a lot harder to determine when a rule-breaker deserves punishment but we'll be better off if we temper strict justice with a better understanding of the rules themselves. We can whole-heartedly enforce the rules (or most of them) without ruining the game. And we can urge changing the rules when appropriate without changing the game.
8-11-03
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