Players contender uses rules to escape brutal lie, makes controversial birdie

J.J. Spaun’s second shot on the 9th hole on Sunday at the Players Championship left a lot to be desired.

Spaun, then at 10 under and one shot back of the lead, blasted his approach on the par-5 deep into the right rough, setting up a precarious chip shot into the green. So how did he find himself playing his next shot from the fairway just minutes later at TPC Sawgrass? That’s the question that had the golf world buzzing on Sunday afternoon.

The answer, according to NBC Sports’ venerable on-course reporter Jim “Bones” Mackay, came back to a pair of sprinkler heads — and the rules of golf.

NBC’s cameras trained away from Spaun as he reached and assessed the shot, but when they returned to find Spaun in the fairway, Mackay quickly butted in to explain the situation.

Spaun’s ball came to rest with a sprinkler head in his stance, which meant he could take free relief from a man-made obstruction. The rules of golf stipulated he could drop within a club length of the ball and no nearer to the hole. As it just so happened, according to Mackay, another sprinkler head came within a club length of Spaun’s first drop — meaning, if he dropped the ball on the sprinkler head, he could take another drop, also within a club-length and no nearer to the hole.

“It was fascinating,” Bones told the NBC team. “J.J. got up there and his ball was in a horrible lie. He was standing on a sprinkler but still nowhere near the fairway, so he took relief. Within that club length was another sprinkler, so he intentionally dropped it in the sprinkler, got a second club length away from that, and got himself into the fairway.”

When the two drops were done, Spaun found himself free of the gnarly greenside rough entirely. Instead, his ball rested on the edge of the fairway, setting up a simple up-and-down to make a decidedly fortuitous birdie. While Spaun operated technically within the letter of the law as it relates to the rules of golf, several fans were quick to point out that his drops fundamentally changed the nature of his third shot into the green for the easier. What otherwise might have been a challenging par-save turned into a relatively routine birdie.

Spaun’s 4 on the 9th hole pulled him even with Rory McIlroy, the day’s leader, with nine holes left to play, which is where things remain as the Players waits out a rain delay on Sunday afternoon. You can check out video of the event, which was captured by Normal Sport‘s Kyle Porter, in the link below.