Mississippi State's Ben Nelson goes by the rules on the PGA tour

By Bill Wagnon

Try putting yourself in the shoes of the tournament official who has to tell professional golfer John Daly that he's just been disqualified from a tournament for signing an incorrect score card.

Mississippi State alumnus Ben Nelson wears those shoes. As one of only 12 PGA Tour rules officials in the country, it's part of Nelson's job to apply the rules of golf during high-stakes and high-profile PGA Tour events across the country.

Nelson, who graduated from Mississippi State in 1966 with a liberal arts degree, has been involved with the game of golf nearly his entire life. His association with the PGA Tour came after a stint on the Mississippi State golf team, one year as an assistant pro at Vicksburg Country Club, and 19 years as the head professional and co-owner of Live Oaks Golf Club in Jackson.

"I got to be interested in the rules of golf and tournament administration over the years," Nelson explains. "I started small by working a lot of local and statewide tournaments during those days and became pretty good with the rules." His reputation for knowing the rules of the game soon spread and, in 1986, the PGA Tour called. After working part time on a contract basis for two years, Nelson became a full-time rules official for the PGA Tour in 1988 and was named tournament director of competitions in September 1995.

For 30 weeks out of the year, Nelson works a PGA Tour event. The tour generally dispatches six of its 12 rules officials to the tournament site, with one being designated as the tournament director. Another is sent to the site of the next tournament as the advance official. The rest are on vacation.

"I may work three or four weeks in a row and then be home for two and then back out for two and home again," says Nelson. "There's really no set pattern."

He does, however, try to work his schedule around the Mississippi State football season, where attending home games with his family is somewhat of a tradition. His wife, Lynn, an elementary school teacher in Clinton, is a 1967 Mississippi State graduate. Their son, Benji, a sales representative for Nike, graduated from Mississippi State in 1992. A avid golfer himself, Benji won the 1995 Mississippi State Amateur Championship. Daughter Laura is a senior at Mississippi State.

During some 40-plus PGA Tour events each year, Nelson and the other rules officials position themselves in golf carts at strategic locations around the course. From there they can respond to situations as they develop. They are responsible for making sure that the game is played by the rules, and that play moves at an acceptable speed.

For the tournament director each week, Nelson says, come additional responsibilities such as having the final word on all rules disputes, along with coordinating TV coverage and playing weatherman.

"We try to get 72 holes in each week, and sometimes that's not possible due to the weather" explains Nelson. "We have to monitor the weather situation and be prepared to suspend play or even cancel it if necessary.

"Since most of our tournaments are on network television, we also have to coordinate that aspect. If CBS has a show from 3 to 5 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon, we have to make sure we have golf at that time if we possibly can."

At the Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic held at Annandale Golf Club in Madison, Mississippi, this past July, Nelson was both the advance official and the tournament director. He and his family live in the Annandale subdivision.

"That doesn't happen often, but since this was my home course I was given both jobs," he says. "It's almost too much work for one person."

The official doing the advance work the week before the players arrive is in charge of the administration of a tournament, including such things as making sure the list of players committed to play is complete, formalizing groupings and times for the Thursday and Friday rounds, working with the course superintendent to be sure the course is cut to the right heights and the greens are the right speed, and making sure the sponsors' tents are in the right location and the bleachers and the TV towers are in place.

Spending so much time with the players, relationships naturally develop. But Nelson says it's a relationship of respect for the game and the rules.

"It's a situation where you don't become the best of friends, but you certainly want a relationship of respect," Nelson notes. "They know we have a job to do. It's part of the game of golf. Sometimes they don't like exactly what we do, but they understand.

"If the players feel like everybody is being treated in the same way then they have no problem. It's our job to be very consistent in how we handle all our timing and rules situations. We make sure that everyone--whether they be big names in the game or youngsters trying to make names--gets the same ruling."

Over the past eight years, Nelson has worked every PGA Tour event at least once with the exception of the Tournament of Champions and the World Series of Golf, two small-field tournaments usually worked by the rules officials located closest to the area. He's also worked the Masters, the PGA Championship, the U.S. Open, and the Ryder Cup, events recognized, but not directly sponsored by the PGA Tour.

If you watch your television on a Sunday afternoon, you just might see Nelson conferring with some of the game's biggest names. The tour players know that the rules Nelson and his colleagues are applying are part of the game and accept the fact of what they are told when playing for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That's why earning the respect of the players is so important. Ben Nelson found that out with John Daly. He had to disqualify the long-driving Daly after he signed an incorrect score card at the Greater Hartford Open in Connecticut in 1993. He signed a score card following the final round that included a score of three on a par three hole. He had actually scored a four on the hole.

"I finally caught up with John at the airport," recalls Nelson. "He had left the course abruptly because he had to catch a flight to England for the British Open. I had to explain to him over the phone what had happened, and I told him he was just going to have to trust me. He took my word for it. I asked him if he wanted to see the score card, and he said, 'No. If I can't trust you, I can't trust anybody.'

"The toughest part of this job is to disqualify someone. It's the worst penalty in golf. It was a $29,000 error for John that I had to explain on the phone.

"We don't disqualify, the rules of golf do," Nelson continues. "We're the bearer of the bad news and sometimes they want to shoot the messenger. It is, after all, their livelihood; it's how they make their living."