I don't play golf much these days but I use to play a fair bit and this behaviour use to infuriate me. In one four ball I use to play in one guy always use to do this but he was more of my mates friend so I didn't feel right saying anything. One thing you always notice about players who casually place and replace coin and ball like this is that if the ball is inadvertently placed in the wrong spot 100% of the time it is placed nearer the hole. When you are talking a foot long putt an inch can make a massive difference psychologically.
I think she deserved the penalty. What do the golfers on here think?
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/apr/02/lexi-thompson-four-stroke-penalty-tv-viewer 
Comments
Surely, the logical solution, would be some kind of time limit on how long after an incident a decision to penalise someone can be made in order to ensure that any penalties can be reflected on a players scorecard before they submit it.
1). Why did she pick it up? She didn't actually do anything to the ball. Didn't clean it, remove debris or even look at it.
2) Did she move it that far from its original position.?
Confused!!!
if the lady concerned here has breached the rules, intentionally or not, then she's bang to rights irrespective of who, how or why the 'offence' was spotted .. I wonder if the same penalty would apply if a golfer replaced the ball further from the hole ? .. I daresay it would
But on the other hand, she picked the ball up for no logical reason.
I find it hard to believe she didn't mean it.
Picking a ball up less than 2 inches off the ground and then putting it back down again you wouldn't miss its spot by that much of a distance surely.
Personally, it looks like she deliberately moved the ball to the side for some sort of advantage.
As I said above, an inch can make a big psychological difference to how confident you are when standing over a putt. But in this case she might have been trying to change the line of the putt to avoid a spike mark or indentation in the green on the original line.
I don't know why.......I tried it and my putting continued to be shite.
This decision is a total outrage that makes a farce of golf.
If I were on her 'team' I'd comb through footage of the winner and everyone else in the top ten, see how they replaced their balls.
She was setting her ball up to how she wanted it and not how it lay. Trying to gain an advantage not how small.
Doesn't look to me as though she gets much if any of an advantage. Seems especially harsh.
Cheated, got caught - end of. There's no way that is anything other than completely deliberate. I ought to know, I've done it in the past as well - shitty bit of turf, moody looking clover on the green etc. I'm not proud of admitting that, BTW - but golf used to bring the absolute worst out in me for cheating. I had an epiphany one day when I found myself cheating in a practice round FFS. Literally cheating against myself
Also - golf has to sort itself out. They cant keep on using tv footage sent in by a viewer the next day. Funny that they didn't penalise Woods a few years back at Augusta when he plainly took a drop yards from where he should have dropped it.
New rules are due in 2019 that will include players being allowed to repair other pitch marks, spike marks and so on that may be on their line on the green - but until then!!