Watson tees off on Elkington

2008-03-30

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By John Reger PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

AVONDALE, Louisiana (Ticker) - Instances of on-course incidentsare fairly rare between golfers, but there was one in Friday''ssecond round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.

Bubba Watson and Steve Elkington exchanged words on the 10thhole and requested a rules official come into the scorer''s tentto resolve the flap.

According to Shigeki Maruyama, who was the third player in thegroup, Watson was upset Thursday when he thought Elkington andhis caddie were walking in Watson''s line in the fairway andmaking noise.

Watson apparently did not say anything the first day, but onFriday there were words exchanged between the players on the10th hole.

"A couple of F-words by Bubba," Maruyama said.

Television microphones picked up Watson saying, "Steve can kissmy ...," and the last word was bleeped.

When the players reached the 18th green the tension was obvious.Elkington putted out before Watson and shook the hand ofShigeki Maruyama and his caddie.

When Watson''s caddie extended his hand to Elkington, the veterangolfer did not acknowledge him, walking off the green. WhenWatson putted out, Elkington quickly made his way to thescorer''s tent.

When Maruyama came out of the scorer''s tent, he was smiling andstarted shadow-boxing before saying, "big problem."

Tournament director Arvin Ginn was called to the scoring tent tohelp facilitate the discussion between Elkington and Watson.

"I''ve had a talk with all three of them at one time and theywere very gentlemanly about the entire thing, about resolving itamong themselves and did so," Ginn said. "They shook hands andthere''s no incident here."

Elkington emerged afterward and refused comment, walking pastreporters and fans seeking autographs.

Watson, who may be fined by the PGA Tour for utteringobscenities, came out shortly after and said the issue had beenresolved.

"I made a bad decision and I want to apologize to everybody inthe tournament, whoever heard it," Watson said. "You know, Idon''t drink or smoke, but every once in a while I get a littleangry and I said some stuff I probably shouldn''t have said."

It is not the first time players have had altercations on thegolf course. At the 2005 Masters, Vijay Singh and PhilMickelson exchanged words in the locker room after Singh sentout rules officials to check Mickelson''s spikes. Singh saidthey were damaging the greens.

Later that year at the Booz Allen Classic, Rory Sabbatini had aproblem with Ben Crane''s slow play and played ahead on hole No.17, walking toward the 18th tee and leaving Crane in thefairway.

After the round, Crane was lectured by an obviously annoyedSabbatini, who later apologized for his actions.

Most on-course arguments don''t turn into confrontations but areplayed out in the media.

Jarmo Sandelin accused Mark O''Meara of cheating at the 1997Lancome Trophy, a European PGA Tour event. Sandelin''s managereven went to the extreme of passing out videotapes that appearedto show O''Meara replacing his ball after marking it on thegreen closer to the hole. The view, though, was that the actwas done unintentionally and O''Meara denied trying to gain anadvantage.

In a book written by Gary Player, he accused Tom Watson of usingclubs that didn''t conform to win the 1977 Masters and BritishOpen.