A freak rules incident, the first of its kind to be raised with the R&A, has prevented one of the region's leading amateurs from landing the biggest win of his career. Stocksfield's former England Schoolboys cap, Chris Paisley (pictured left), was given a four-stroke penalty in the Camerons Open, an amateur scratch competition at Ponteland. This weekend Paisley, 20, returns to his golf scholarship at the University of Tennessee disappointed at how he finished runner-up by one shot to Morpeth's former county champion, Sandy Twynholm. Paisley scored 72 73 and his fate at the 16th in the second round will put the North-East's 60,000-plus club golfers on guard against repeats in their club competitions this weekend. Paisley was a foot off the green and his accurate 30-foot putt lodged between the flagstick and the hole. What happened next prompted tournament organisers to seek a telephone decision from Northumberland's top rules official, Desmond Duffy. Had Paisley eased the flagstick gently to one side to allow the ball to drop to the bottom of the cup, he would have been able to write a three on his scorecard. But he tapped the flagstick with his putter and the ball squirted out before coming to rest almost a foot from the hole. Then he putted out. Paisley should then have putted out from the lip of the hole, and he had no complaints about his two-shot penalty for that offence. His bone of contention arrived when he was docked two strokes for tapping the flagstick - under rule 1.2, which deals with "undue influence of the ball by his player or his caddy." "I feel it should have been a two-shot penalty in total and that I was the rightful winner of the trophy," said Paisley, who ended up with an eight for the hole following his extra putt and his penalty shots. "There is nothing in the rules which says you cannot tap the flagstick with your putter." The Journal raised the issue with the R&A's director of rules and equipment, David Rickman. He said: "The result stands whatever once a competition is closed but I have never heard of anything like this. "We are trying to get away from four-shot penalties and you could argue two shots would have been sufficient and that the official took a hard line. "But the golfer's initial action was inadvisable and this would not have cropped up had he followed the correct procedure. "It was marginal, a tough outcome for the golfer but a hard one for the official to call. As the rules stand, it could have been called either way." | 
Golfing Destinations
