Pro’s clever use of the rules features an impressive shoe toss
Billy Andrade, his playing partners and their caddies try to identify his ball at Phoenix Country Club.
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Eighty-one golfers are playing this weekend’s Champions Tour’s Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
None will hit a ball better than …
One of the rules officials?
With a shoe?
Golf?
“Something we can honestly say that we’ve never seen here at Phoenix Country Club,” announcer Whit Watson said on the Golf Channel’s broadcast.
Minutes after golfer Billy Andrade made bad contact during Friday’s first round, official Brian Claar made good.
Andrade had hit his second shot on the 571-yard, par-5 7th hole at Phoenix CC among some tree branches about 10 yards off the ground. He needed to identify his ball in order to take back-on-the line or lateral relief. If he couldn’t, Andrade would’ve had to replay the ball from its previous spot under stroke-and-distance relief.
Claar relieved Andrade. He took a black shoe, cocked back and rifled it toward the branches. The ball popped up, and the shoe and the ball fell to the ground.
Andrade’s ball.
“It does have a red line. That was awesome,” said Brandt Jobe, one of Andrade’s playing partners.
“Good shot, dude,” said Tim Herron, Andrade’s other playing partner.
Andrade would take his drop and bogey the hole.
“I need to make a comment about Brian Claar. I’ve never had an official throw his shoe that good,” analyst Lanny Wadkins said on the broadcast. “So any time I was stuck in a tree, I was just out of luck.”
“Tell you what – that was quite the arm and quite the accuracy there by Brian Claar,” Watson said. “That was a lot of fun to watch.”
Golf!
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