‘You can do that?’ LIV Golf rules break creates confusion, then a stunner

Jon Rahm shares the lead. And he’s in that position after a three-hop, final-hole hole-out.  

But, he said, it’s what went down immediately before all of that that impressed him most. And it perplexed Bryson DeChambeau. 

“Well, it was shocking, obviously,” he said. 

The sequence came Saturday during the third round of LIV Golf’s Adelaide event, after Rahm went left with his tee shot on the Grange Golf Club’s 18th hole, and onto the tee box on the adjacent 10th hole. He shouted. He covered his head. He shouted again. Rahm came to the hole two back of leader DeChambeau, who was also in his group, and he was in the 18th fairway for his second shot.   

A spot in which Rahm nearly ended up. 

Doing so required a rules break — and his memory. On Friday, Rahm also went left on 18 and around the 10th tee box, but the shot back to the green was blocked by fencing deemed a temporary immovable obstruction, which, thanks to the rules, granted him a drop free of it. That put him a few yards to the left of the fairway, and, from there, he pitched on and birdied. 

On Saturday, all of that happened again, only with additional theatrics. 

Rahm went to his ball, talked with a rules official, then picked up his ball and again went to a spot just left of the fairway. Several yards ahead of him, DeChambeau was shown by an FS1 camera mouthing a one-word question — “What?” — before rolling his eyes. Rahm had been about 40 yards left of DeChambeau, and now he was almost directly behind him. 

“I didn’t know that’s what could happen, so that was most of what the shock was,” DeChambeau said after the round. “It was like, what the heck, you can do that? I didn’t know that. But ultimately, I didn’t really know from my perspective that it was OK over there, so I was kind of shocked.

“That’s really all it was, ultimately. I didn’t think much of it other than that. … But no, I didn’t know that was there, and hopefully that can go in my favor at some point. I’ve had way worse shots, by the way, too. It was just a bit of a shock at the moment, and then I was like, you know what, I’ve done way worse than that, too.”

As mentioned in this report’s first paragraph, there was more. 

After his drop, Rahm holed out for an eagle two. And after a DeChambeau par, they’ll enter Sunday’s final round tied for the lead. 

“Well, I would say it might be the most impressive thing I’ve done all week,” Rahm said, “which is pull it that far left twice, hit the cart path twice, and end up on the 10th tee twice. The odds of that are pretty low.

“Then luckily we get the TIO relief, obviously, I knew from yesterday, so I wasn’t too concerned, and knowing where I was going to drop, pretty good angle to that pin, as well. It was actually the best spot to be pretty much for every single pin for that distance.

“It was a really good number, 62 meters into the wind, trying to land it about six, seven short. Obviously executed it pretty well, and the rest is what you all saw. I’m not really expecting to make it. I’m hoping to hit it close, but obviously ended up with the grand prize on that one.”