Despite a dispute regarding a lost ball allegedly hit by an opponent, the girls’ golf team remains undefeated in the Mission League.
In golf, a sport where individuals, on the honor system, keep track of their own scores rules disputes are not uncommon.
“I think we have all been in a situation where we need the rules to clarify something,” Jessica Wibawa ’13 said.
Katie Kushi hit her fourth shot into the trees and dropped before she could see where it went.
Then, Kushi’s Chaminade opponent apparently hit Kushi’s ball laying on the ground under the trees.
The Chaminade golfer claimed that she instead was not able to find her ball and just took another one out of her bag and dropped it for a one-stroke penalty.
When Kushi reached the brush she thought her ball was in, she could not find it. Kushi felt she was unable to locate the ball because he opponent had hit it.
Kushi confronted the girl, telling her that she had hit her ball, but the girl again said that she had dropped a ball instead of hitting Kushi’s.
Kushi said she found a DMX ball, the brand her opponent was using, near the bushes but the ball her opponent hit onto the green was a Titleist, the brand Kushi used.
Both team’s coaches consulted the rulebook and decided Kushi and her opponent had to re-drop and take penalties because neither of them properly marked their balls.
Despite the fact that they were using different brands, players must mark their ball with some sort of a permanent marker.
Without a way to differentiate one ball from another, there was no way of proving the ball hit was Kushi’s.
Kushi ended up shooting a worse score than usual, and the team’s 9-stroke margin of victory was their closest of the season.
Unlike other disputes the fact that Kushi’s match against Chaminade on Sept. 11 was not easily resolved was unusual.
Nevertheless, the team moved passed the controversy and won their next three matches by a combined margin of 112 strokes.
The Wolverines still have to face their fiercest competition against Notre Dame on Oct. 11. The Wolverines finished second to Notre Dame at the Sept. 27 Mission League Tournament and will need to get past the Knights to secure the league title for the first time since 2009.
The team stands at 4-0 in head-to-head competitions after beating Louisville, Marymount, Alemany and Chaminade. The Wolverines beat Chaminade 238-249, but potentially could have won by a larger margin if the dispute was ruled in Kate Kushi’s ’14 favor.
