[editor's note, by Todd]
Bumped from the diaries.

Alabama senior Michael Thompson is currently the low amateur at The Masters, and is one stroke over the projected cut line. I will update this post after his round today is complete. Hopefully, he can get a stroke back and get to play the weekend.

(He is, by the way, wearing a white-with-red-script "A" cap.)

What moved me to post this though was his action on the Par 5 15th hole. As his set-up over his birdie putt - a putt that would have put him at least one stroke under the likely cut line, his ball moved ever so slightly - no more that a 1/4". He did not touch the ball, but the rules state that once a player addresses his putt, if the ball moves, it's a one stroke penalty.

Thompson was the only person on the course who could have possible seen so minute a movement. Still, he immediately stepped away from the ball, beckoned to a rules official, and called the penalty on himself.

The following par putt didn't fall, and he wound up with a bogey six. But the character he displayed in calling the penalty on himself is really the point here. There are, of course, echoes of Bobby Jones in his having done so.

It's all about character.

UPDATE: Thompson went on to Bogey 16, par 17 and 18, and as such will not make the cut. He also missed being the low amateur by - get this - one stroke.

The par at 18 was something else, though: his second shot finished on the green, but was well above the hole, necessitating a putt of approximately 50 feet with a break of (I'm not making this up) about 110 degrees. He lagged the ball to within two feet and finished with a par.