Did you hear about the Lakers game on Saturday night?
Surely you must’ve. With his team down a hoop and five seconds to go, LeBron James drove right from the wing, bounced into the lane and lofted a shot up and over an awaiting defender — and in. Tie game! But wait! James raised his hand. He traveled, he said. No basket. No tie. No Randy Newman and “I Love L.A.” Game over.
How about that Yankees game, though? And that final at-bat? A where-were-you moment.
Bombers down one, bottom of the ninth, two outs, Aaron Judge at the plate, 3-2 count. Here’s the pitch. Ball four. We were all squared! But hold on! Judge turned back to the ump. That was a strike, sir, he said. He was out. No tie. No Sinatra and “New York, New York.” Game over.
Not quite. Back to non-fiction.
Nearly all of our sports heroes, as you know, are governed by the sole word of umps, refs and officials. Speak up after committing a transgression, and you’re a goat, and not the acronym kind. At the most, we’ll get a wink or an impish grin. As the saying goes, it’s only a crime if you get caught.
Then there’s Justin Thomas.
Maybe you heard about this, actually. RBC Heritage, Saturday’s third round, second hole at Harbour Town Golf Links, waste area to the left of the fairway. Thomas’ tee shot ended up here. He started to move some small stones. That’s allowed. His ball moved maybe the width of the tip of your golf tee. That’s not allowed. He called for an official. Thomas said he saw something, though maybe the ball just oscillated, which would clear him. No, there was more than that. A few minutes later, an official returned and said Thomas’ explanation collaborated on assessing the penalty stroke.
“I just was in a little — looks like a bunker,” Thomas said afterward. “It’s kind of a sandy area, I guess, waste bunker. There’s just a bunch of rocks and pebbles in there, so I was just moving them like all of us would do in that situation.
Justin Thomas hit with unfortunate penalty while leading RBC Heritage
“I guess this one I was moving I thought was more in front of my ball. I don’t know if it moved maybe something that was underneath my ball or whatever, but it looked like my ball had kind of just gone down maybe more so than rolled over because, when [the official] came, I was explaining the situation to him. To put the ball back, we couldn’t really get it in a spot that moved.
“It felt like — it was a weird situation. But in an instance like that, I saw the ball move. Just sometimes it oscillates and doesn’t. You’ve got to err on the side of caution, I feel like, in our sport when it comes to stuff like that.”
Sunday, the story continued, though, in the end, it finished happily. Thomas won in a playoff, his first win in just under three years.
Then there’s Ben Crane.
Maybe you don’t want to know about this one, but here goes. Corales Puntacana Championship, third round, eighth hole at the Puntacana Resort in the Dominican Republic, fairway. There, two of Crane’s golf balls sat near each other. Two? That’s a funky story. His tee shot went left and toward water, Crane thought it was washed, and he dropped and hit a second ball. Only ball one kicked off the rocks and into the fairway — and eventually was reunited with its one-time mate from Crane’s bag. Hmm. Crane hit what he said he assumed was the correct ball, finished the hole — and a short while later, he was talking with officials. He’d picked the wrong ball. And now he had to pack up. Crane turning Crane in led to his disqualification.
“I did not do a good job of identifying when I took my drop of what number I was playing,” Crane said on a video posted to his X account. “And I realized I had played the wrong golf ball through the hole and realized I have to disqualify myself because I’m pretty sure that’s the ball that I had abandoned and I had played it.”
Unlike Thomas, though, Crane’s week was done. These days, the five-time Tour winner’s starts are also infrequent, so there was seemingly hope for a weekend run.
So what to make of all this?
‘I have to disqualify myself’: Tour winner’s assumption leads to wild rules DQ
In such situations, there’s always the thought that someone’s watching. Big brother is a powerful deterrent. One turns themself in as a matter of being proactive, rather than reactive. The guilt of staying mum would also weigh heavier than a golf bag filled with every golf ball on the range.
Should there be tech for these kinds of things? Maybe one day. But until then, we’re left with just owning up, as simple and as complicated as that is. Thomas and Crane know that well.
At the risk, then, of waxing overly poetically, let’s say just the idea that golf — and perhaps golf alone — can somehow be beautiful through the sincerity of its actors in a moment of misfortune should be worth something.
At the least, it deserves a story.
It isn’t fiction, either.
