He's Back - Dale Jackson's Rio Olympics Golf Blog Returns

Wikipedia Describes The Caiman (Shown Here) As 'Relatively Small Sized Crocodilians' - Don't Try Telling That To Dale Jackson Who Encountered This Guy In Rio - Image Credit Dale Jackson

Victoria's Dale Jackson is in Rio as a golf rules official for the 2016 Olympic Games and is providing a daily blog on what he sees and experiences as Canada attempts to defend its Gold Medal from the 1904 Olympic Games the last time golf was a part of the quadrennial event. The men have finished their event out of the medals and now it's up to the ladies to defend Canada's title.

by Dale Jackson

I'm Back

My plans to do a daily blog fell apart a few days ago. The expected free time disappeared with various commitments outside of the golf course. That was followed by a very llloooonnnnggg trip back home and then a nasty cold (which is, says he through too much experience, often the price of long travel), all of which has precluded any more updates, which is too bad, it would have been preferable to write as events unfolded. Oh well, better late than never – I hope – and I thank those few faithful readers who may be left for their patience.

Back to the tournament then.

Day 3
The third round found me assigned to Espen Kofstad (Norway), Jhonattan Vegas (Venezuala) and Miguel Luis Tabuena (Philippines). With Vegas having just won the Canadian Open, I was able to congratulate him on that win and let him know I was from Canada.

The weather was perfect, sunny, warm but not hot and enough wind to make it interesting. All the players scored around par and played quite well. In terms of rulings, there were four, including one after tee shots on the first hole. Tabuena’s ball came to rest in the scrub area next to the fairway but near a sprinkler head, and so relief was given.

***Rules nerd alert! *** The most difficult ruling of the day (and week) was relief for Vegas from a TV tower behind the fifth green. His ball had both physical interference and intervention within one club length along the arc from the Temporary Immovable Obstruction (TIO).

After dealing with the intervention, there was still physical interference, so we dealt with that and he got the ball back into play. TIOs and rulings with them are not something the vast majority of referees deal with but they are a large part of the professional game.

As anyone who has tried to read the TIO local rule will know, it is impenetrable and it is only through experience that anyone becomes comfortable giving TIO rulings. Thankfully, after four years of dealing with them, I am quite comfortable giving those types of rulings.

One of the highlights of the day was spotting a caiman on the 10th hole. A caiman, Wikipedia tells us is, “An alligatorid crocodilian belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within Alligatoridae, the other being alligators.”

Good to know!? All I know is that it was about eight feet long and I was not going to mess with it. (See Photo At Start Of Blog)

'A Shameless Tourist Photo' - As Dale Himself Describes The Above Picture

After I finished walking with my group, I had a quick lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon as the television referee. With today’s focus on the use of television evidence in making rulings and the controversy at some tournaments this summer, there was always someone watching the television coverage to make sure nothing was missed out on the golf course and to aid referees in making rulings.

My time passed uneventfully, with the only incident being a very unusual putt by Bubba Watson, that went about six feet instead of the thirty he had planned.

There was a some question about what tanspired but in the end nothing untoward happened and we moved on.

That night was spent with most of the referees and others associated with the championship attending weightlifting. It was really interesting, with much more strategy than I ever realized.

Very impressive to see these athletes lift approximately three times their body weight. The winner of the weight class was from Iran, and I believe it was the first gold medal won by an Iranian.