Because of rarely used rule, pro’s shot is voided, and he’s forced to hit again

Ross Fisher, you could say, caused a jolt. 

His tee shot, if you will, was stunning. 

It was, and hear us out here, electric. 

Sorry. Our apologies. We’re just trying to get you … plugged into this piece. 

OK, OK. To actually begin here, Fisher is playing the DP World Tour’s Made in Himmerland event, at the Himmerland golf course in Denmark. On Saturday, he was two shots out of the lead to start the third round, and he was three back standing on the tee on the 427-yard, par-4 9th. And he hit. 

He gave his ball just a peak. It was true. 

He picked up his tee. 

He started his walk.

He did it all over again.    

Watt the heck? (Fine, that’s the last one.)

His ball had struck a power line. And that brought into play Model Rule E-11, which states: “If it is known or virtually certain that a player’s ball hit a power line (or tower or a wire or pole supporting a power line) during the play of (specify hole number), the stroke does not count. The player must play a ball without penalty from where the previous stroke was made.”

So back to the tee he went.

Said an announcer on the Golf Channel broadcast: “Sometimes you don’t like reloading, but it looks like it’s about to go into the middle of the fairway and you have to reload. It takes commitment to the next shot.” 

Said another announcer: “So let’s try this again, shall we?” 

Said a third announcer: “See how consistent his ball flight is here. Hits the wire again.” 

Said the first: “Imagine if it does.”

It didn’t, it found the fairway, and Fisher bogeyed the hole, after missing the green to the left on his second shot. 

Rarely, though, does the power-line rule come up; a ball hitting a thinnish wire far off the ground is some feat, after all. But it has happened, though, with one of the last widely known occurrences coming late last September, during the second round of the Sanderson Farms Championship. 

There, Sam Burns teed off on the 9th hole at the County Club of Jackson, and his ball appeared to be tracking toward the fairway, only for it to hit the wire, and Burns to thump the turf with his driver in frustration. On the reload, he found the left rough. 

In his post-round press conference, Burns was asked if he had ever hit a power line before.

“Never, no. First time,” he said.

“What’s that feeling when that happens?” a reporter asked. “It’s got to be a weird feeling.”

“It would have felt better if I would have hit a bad one, but I hit a perfect one,” Burns said. “Then I hit the next one in the left rough, so that kind of stunk, but it is what it is. I know they’re there; there’s always a possibility you can hit them, I guess.”