AUGUSTA, Ga. – Fred Ridley held his annual State of the Masters press conference on Wednesday morning. (Tradition, tradition.) The team chairman sits in the middle of the windowless hall with a familiar face sitting to his left, Tom Nelson, the tournament’s media chairman. But to his right was a new one, in that seat: Geoff Yang, a member of Augusta National and the USGA’s longtime rules official. Yang, a tech investor from Northern California, is in his first year as tournament committee chairman, a position Ridley has held for all of Billy Payne’s years as team chairman.
In this role, Yang serves as chief tournament rules officer, among other duties, including course planning. It is the last place behind the curtains. You won’t see him, but you will see what he does.
Ridley answered questions from 14 members of the media on Wednesday. Yang took one. It came from Jerry Tarde, longtime Golf Digest editor.
“We have pictures of the founders staring at us on the wall here,” said Tarde. “What do you think would surprise Jones the most when he comes back?” There was more after that, but that was the goal.
There are two founders of the club, Cliff Roberts, a Midwestern banker, and Bob Jones, the great novice who designed the course with architect Alister MacKenzie.
“I think Jones will be surprised by a lot of things,” Yang said, “including how far people hit the ball and the level of athleticism involved in the game. And I think the conditions have changed to try to preserve those skills. I don’t think it can be one thing. I think everything is a little reaction to where the game has gone.”
The answer alone tells you that Yang can act carefully and considerately when his public life requires carefulness and consideration. You wouldn’t know from that answer that Yang, who studied engineering at Princeton, has a wicked sense of humor with any thoughtful and humorous eye. The top rules officers – and Yang is now the Masters top rules officer – usually want to resolve any rules dispute in a two-way fashion. The law was broken, or not. If any four-man Grand Slam event has a rules controversy it reverberates throughout golf, and that’s especially true at the Masters.
People still talk about the bogey Arnold Palmer took at the Masters Sunday on the par-3 12th hole in 1958. Ken Venturi, Palmer’s playing partner that day, was agonized over the legality of that drop for decades, although Bob Jones said Palmer’s drop was done correctly during the game. This was Palmer’s first four wins in the tournament.
People still talk about the 1968 Maters, won by Bob Goalby after Argentine golfer Roberto De Vicenzo signed the wrong Sunday card. Had he signed for the right points, Goalby and De Vicenzo would have played an 18-hole playoff to win the title. But that didn’t happen and Goalby left with the green club jacket. Roberts sat with both men during the Butler Cabin interview and told De Vicenzo “in our hearts we will always consider you one of the two winners of this tournament, without taking anything away from the new Masters champion.” That comment got deep under Goalby’s skin – in the worst of circumstances, there was only one winner – and it stayed there for years, until finally resentment gave way.
In 2013, in Saturday’s round, Tiger Woods went down the wrong way after his second shot on the 15th green went off the skin and into a water hazard. According to the rules at the time, he could be expelled for signing the wrong score card. Ridley, in the role that Yang now holds, eventually decided to give Woods two penalties. It is still being discussed and analyzed.
This week, and for years to come, Yang will face new legal questions, which will affect the outcome of the tournament. You won’t see much of Yang or hear much from him. But the rulebook rides on every aspect of this event, or any serious golf event. Augusta National’s philosophy is to try to prevent rules problems before they happen or get out of hand. That’s what Jones did with Palmer in 1958. Yang, in his own way, will be asking a long series of questions: what are the rules – and what would Jones do?
