PGA Tour leader loses ball in the fairway in the most ridiculous way imaginable

Akshay Bhatia’s tee shot on the par-5 17th hole at the Rocket Mortgage Classic was laced.

His beautiful high cut did what all beautiful high cuts should do: it bisected the center of the fairway and tumbled forward, charging in the direction of the green. But then it did something that no beautiful high cut should do: it disappeared.

Bhatia must have thought his eyes were playing tricks on him when it happened. His ball had clearly split the center of the fairway on the hole, setting him up for another layup birdie opportunity at Detroit Golf Club. He was clearly in position for a 260ish-yard approach shot into an unguarded green, giving him at worst two looks at a birdie or better. So how, exactly, had he wound up standing in the fairway with a golf ball nowhere in sight?

As it turned out, the reason lay beneath his feet. Bhatia had smoked his drive alright, and he’d hit the center of the fairway just as he’d planned. But he’d managed to do so while sending his ball tumbling directly towards a green storm drain located in the dead center of the fairway. Irrigation be damned, Bhatia’s ball had rolled over the storm drain and, in a miraculous failure of golf course engineering, through the slits in the drain cover and down into the drain.

Bhatia did what any player — and particularly any PGA Tour tournament leader — would do: he called over a rules official.

“I’m fairly certain that’s a Callaway down there in the bottom,” Bhatia said to the official.

“Okay, we don’t have to get it,” the official said. “Unless you can figure out how to get it open.”

“You sure?” Bhatia shot back, a grin on his face.

With the help of some video review and Bhatia’s close eye into the ball in the storm drain, the rules official ruled that he would not be penalized for a lost ball.

The rules decision, the official said, came down to rules 16.1b and 16.1e of the rules of golf, by which the player gets free relief under Rule 16.1b if he finds the ball or Rule 16.1e if he doesn’t find it but it is known or virtually certain the ball is in the drainage basin under the grate. Given the video evidence of the disappearing ball (virtual certainty) and Bhatia spotting a Callaway (his ball) in the drainage grate, the official had no problem affording Bhatia free relief no nearer to the hole.

The 22-year-old pro took advantage of that relief swimmingly, blasting his second shot on the par-5 just off the green and settling for an eventful par. He would make five birdies on the day, including two in the holes immediately following sewer-gate, to push himself to 13 under for the tournament and in the 36-hole clubhouse lead at the Rocket Mortgage Classic.

Not bad, considering the lost ball.