When Davis Riley pulled out his rangefinder in the second round of The CJ Cup, Byron Nelson he saw two numbers and knew he was in trouble.
After finishing the hole with a par, he immediately went to the rules official and explained that his range finder had inadvertently shown the distance and slope.
The ruling was clear, and Riley added two shots to his score on par-3 17th instead of par, which was a double bogey 5.
Unfortunately for Riley, the rules are the rules and he didn’t dispute that, but it didn’t have to come to this.
There would be some adjustments when the PGA Tour announced the pilot program to test electronic measuring devices at PGA Tour and Korn Ferry events.
The biggest was to make sure the slope feature was not active.
In my experience, every measuring device has its own mind, and it sometimes does things you are not expecting, like going from yards to meters, which is always fun to fix.
In Riley’s case, the slope feature was somehow activated without his intent or knowledge.
“We had been using the range finder for the first handful of holes, and me and my caddie doing a good job of double-checking to make sure we’re not on slope,” Riley said after his round concluded on Saturday.
“Without thinking anything of it, I whip the Bushnell out of the bag, and then I shoot it, and it pops up a second number there with the adjusted number. It was kind of interesting because it was level, so there’s not really any knowledge to be gained.”
So, if I’m Riley, I would be very concerned the next time I whip out the range finder because the slope feature might just decide to activate again?
The solution for avoiding accidentally activating the slope feature is simple: use a device without such a feature.
During the first week of the new experiment at the RBC Heritage, Vortex had a table on the range and offered its Blade unit to all players and caddies.
That specific unit does not have a slope feature and says specifically in listing its features on its website that it “Keeps you on the right side of your group and any officials.”
“I just told my caddie, David, I just said, hey, man, I need you for these next 12 holes or 11 holes, however many it was, just kind of guide me around because my head’s spinning a little bit,” Riley said. “He did a good job of that, and I kind of hung in there and played okay coming in.”
Riley eagled his final hole in the second round, made the 5-under cut on the number, and would finish on Sunday at 10-under and T45.
Riley is scheduled to play in the opposite event in Myrtle Beach this week.
Let’s see what he has done to take preventative measures to eliminate the problem in the future. Stay tuned.
Related: PGA Tour to Experiment With Measuring Devices Aimed at Faster Play
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