[Back In The Saddle]

As one who has argued for getting it right, I applaud the way the situation was handled--exactly right IMO.

I had one a couple of weeks back. Soph girls, working with a very weak partner. I'm L, shot goes up from his primary, and goes oob without hitting iron. I didn't see anybody touch it from the time I caught it out of the corner of my eye. I look at my partner...nothing. I signal going "that way." Shooting team goes nuts about it being tipped. I go to my partner again and ask him if it was tipped. His answer, "I don't know." So, we're going "that way."

Was it tipped? Given the reaction, almost certainly. Give my partner the benefit of the doubt, assume he was rigorously refereeing his primary. Assume that he would never even look outside his primary, let alone make a call outside it. Assume that his mechanics were perfect and that it was just one of those things. We still looked like clueless idiots. And got it wrong.