The post PGA Tour rules official defends Charley Hoffman ruling appeared first on Golf.

The post PGA Tour rules official defends Charley Hoffman ruling appeared first on Golf.

Charley Hoffman was not happy when he came off the course at TPC Scottsdale Friday afternoon. His even-par round of 72 was just inside the cut line, but, in his mind, the round should have been two strokes lower.

Hoffman’s frustrations stemmed from a double bogey he carded on the par-5 13th hole earlier in the day. On the hole, Hoffman hit his ball into the water off the tee, took a penalty stroke and placed his ball back in play. However, after the ball was deemed in play, it rolled back into the water, forcing Hoffman to take another penalty stroke.

News

The four-time PGA Tour winner was furious with how the saga played out, and after the round, he took to social media to blow off steam.

“What a joke @usga@pgatour today on the 13th hole I hit my drive in the water and took a drop on a side of a hill that no grass,” Hoffman wrote in an Instagram post. “Dropped twice then place on a small tuff of grass. Turned around the ball started rolling into the water. I was under the impression that the @usgahad changed that rule. I was wrong. Had to take another penalty for doing nothing wrong at all. Did everything by the book. It’s still mind blowing that a group of amateurs rule the professional game of golf. I also blame the @pgatour rules officials for putting out a terrible penalty area line where this could even happen. No accountability at any level here. No protection for the players at all. You wonder why guys are wanting to jump ship and go play on another tour. Players need transparency, protection and consistency.”

The post generated tons of buzz in the golf world as Hoffman added fuel to the fire surrounding prospects of a new, star-driven league that is backed by the Saudi Arabia-based LIV Golf Investments group and headed by Greg Norman. Adding to the drama, fellow pros Bryson DeChambeau and Phil Mickelson commented on Hoffman’s post in support of his criticisms of the PGA Tour.

On Saturday, the PGA Tour explained the ruling and defended themselves against Hoffman’s criticisms.

“Because the ball was at rest after he placed it, the ball was in play,” said PGA Tour Chief Referee Ken Tackett in an interview with Golf Channel. “It was moved by natural forces, therefore, it was a new situation and he had to proceed under the penalty rule again.”

The rule Tackett alluded to was Rule 17, which covers penalty areas. Tackett noted that Hoffman had options after his ball entered the penalty area, including relief within two club-lengths of where the ball entered the penalty area, back-on-the-line relief and stroke-and-distance relief. However, Hoffman elected to take relief within two clubs-lengths of where the ball entered the penalty area, which led to the drama.

“The rule is pretty clear on what to do and how to handle it,” Tackett said. “They’d explained the rule to Charley, and he went through the conversations with the officials, asked for a second opinion, and he received that … That’s all we can do.”

Another gripe of Hoffman’s regarded how the penalty area was marked. He implied that the penalty area was marked in a way that made it impossible to take a drop that would not end up rolling back into the water. But Tackett explained this penalty area was marked the same way that all others on the course are marked.

“If you start changing an ambiguous line that might be a little higher, then it affects where did [sic] the ball last cross,” he said. “We are very careful in the placement of penalty areas. That line has been that way for years, and we followed the same guidance all around this property.”

The post PGA Tour rules official defends Charley Hoffman ruling appeared first on Golf.

The post Bryson DeChambeau, caddie narrowly avoid rarely used ruling at Ryder Cup appeared first on Golf.

The post Bryson DeChambeau, caddie narrowly avoid rarely used ruling at Ryder Cup appeared first on Golf.

Bryson DeChambeau has not even played a full round at the Ryder Cup yet, but he’s already made a ton of headlines. From his spectator-plunking birdie on the 1st, to his mammoth drive at the 5th, each time he’s stepped to the ball, something worthwhile has happened.

At the 6th hole, fans got yet another encounter, albeit this was an odd one.

As DeChambeau lined up his birdie putt on the par-4, he asked his caddie, Brian Zeigler, to tend the flagstick. But as DeChambeau’s ball rolled toward the cup, Zeigler ran into a slight issue — the flagstick wouldn’t budge.

Try as he might to dislodge the flagstick from the hole, it never did come free. The moment sent analysts Justin Leonard and David Feherty into a brief panic as the ball approached the cup, but ultimately, the ball ran out of steam before it reached the hole.

Check out the incident below.

But despite Leonard and Feherty’s panic about a potential penalty narrowly avoided, DeChambeau was not at risk for a rules violation — even if his ball had careened off the flagstick. Brad Gregory of the PGA of America clarified the situation on the broadcast.

“In the past, prior to 2019, if the ball would’ve hit the flagstick in that case, the player would’ve been penalized,” he said. “In this case, going forward, since this would’ve been an accidental deflection — he’s trying to get the flagstick out — it would’ve been an accidental deflection and there would be no penalty, and the player would play the ball as it lies, even if it went into the hole.”

And while this might seem like an obscure situation, Rule 13.2b covers this exact situation.

“If the player’s ball in motion accidentally hits the flagstick or the person who removed or is attending it (or anything the person is holding), there is no penalty, and the ball must be played as it lies.”

Play on, everyone!

The post Bryson DeChambeau, caddie narrowly avoid rarely used ruling at Ryder Cup appeared first on Golf.

The post Why this rarely-used rule allowed a pro to take a mulligan during a major appeared first on Golf.

The post Why this rarely-used rule allowed a pro to take a mulligan during a major appeared first on Golf.

Golf purists will claim that you should never take a mulligan, but sometimes they’re necessary — and even legal. A prime example of a legal mulligan happened Thursday during the opening round of the Senior Open Championship.

Michael Campbell placed his ball on the tee and readied to hit his tee shot with a fairway wood. As he’s done thousands of times before, he then started his pre-shot routine. He drew the club back for an abbreviated swing and followed through.

There was just one problem, instead of whooshing the air just above the ball, his wood made center contact with the ball and sent it shooting down the fairway. All he could do was laugh and get ready to re-tee.

Campbell was allowed to take a mulligan during competitive play thanks to a little-known loophole in the Rules of Golf. Although hitting a ball with your practice stroke is a penalty in the general area or on the green, the rules are slightly different from the tee box.

This is the USGA’s explanation on such instances:

“When you are playing a ball from the teeing area, the ball is not in play until a stroke is made at it. This means that when your ball is teed or on the ground in the teeing area and you make a practice swing that accidentally strikes and moves the ball, you have not made a stroke or moved a ball in play. The Rules allow you to simply re-tee that same ball or another ball without penalty.”

This scenario is covered under Rule 6.2b(5) and 6.2b(6).

This isn’t the first time in recent memory that a major winner has been saved by Rule 6.2b. At the 2019 Masters, Zach Johnson had a similar scenario play out when he accidentally hit his ball off the tee on the 13th tee box at Augusta National.

Alas, even a mulligan couldn’t help Campbell at the Senior Open as he fired a five-over 75 in Round 1. But he was still a good sport about the strange ordeal.

“Pretty much sums up my day today,” he said on Twitter. “@ZachJohnsonPGA I know how you felt.”

The post Why this rarely-used rule allowed a pro to take a mulligan during a major appeared first on Golf.

The post This heartbreaking rules blunder ended a Cinderella story at the 2003 Open appeared first on Golf.

The post This heartbreaking rules blunder ended a Cinderella story at the 2003 Open appeared first on Golf.

The 2003 Open Championship at Royal St. George’s is known for the Cinderella story that transpired as long-shot Ben Curtis held off a star-studded list of challengers to claim his only major victory. However, there was another Cinderella in the mix on the weekend until an unfortunate rules blunder dashed his major championship hopes.

Mark Roe was the quintessential journeyman heading into the 2003 Open. He’d played over 20 years as a professional, and even registered a few wins along the way. The championship was his 14th appearance in a major — most of them coming at The Open — although he’d never seriously contended for the coveted crown. But at Royal St. George’s, things changed.

Roe began the championship with a lackluster round of 77, but in Round 2, he started to get things going. The then-40-year-old fired a second-round 70 — one of the best scores of the day — to vault up the scoreboard and get inside the cut line. His third round would be even better.

Paired with Swede Jesper Parnevik, Roe tied for the round of the round of the tournament on Saturday at Royal St. George’s. Although moving day had plenty of scoring opportunities, no one (other than Nick Faldo, who also shot 67) could match the journeyman’s low round. When he walked off the 18th green, Roe was one-over par for the tournament and just two shots behind Thomas Bjørn’s lead.

Little did he know that the high wouldn’t last long.

As is customary after each round of tournament golf, Roe and Parnevik entered the scoring area, added up their scores and signed their cards. Then, Roe left the scoring area and was whisked into various interviews. But after the interviews ended, Parnevik approached Roe.

“There’s a problem with the scorecard,” Parnevik told him.

Unbeknownst to either man, Roe and Parnevik failed to exchange scorecards before the round. Parnevik’s scores were marked on Roe’s card, and Roe’s score marked on Parnevik’s. Under then Rule 6-6D, the two men were disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard.

In an instant, Roe’s hopes of lifting the Claret Jug were dashed.

“It think it’s really, really dumb,” Parnevik told the BBC. “I feel so bad for Mark Roe.”

But even as his playing partner pleaded his case, Roe took the disqualification in stride.

“In all honesty, you are responsible for your own scorecard,” Roe said. “But I’m the only person to blame.”

As a result of the scoring snafu, the R&A changed the rules two years later to protect players from this type of incident. The governing body said tournament committees would be allowed to accept administrative errors when the correct scores had been recorded on the wrong card.

“I think it [the decision] is a great move,” Roe told reporters after the change. “I am really pleased that something good has come from my mistake.”

But even with the new rule, Roe would never get another chance at the spotlight. He never played in another major championship after the 2003 Open Championship.

The post This heartbreaking rules blunder ended a Cinderella story at the 2003 Open appeared first on Golf.

The post Even Jon Rahm couldn’t believe the good fortune of this U.S. Open drop appeared first on Golf.

The post Even Jon Rahm couldn’t believe the good fortune of this U.S. Open drop appeared first on Golf.

There are presents, and then there’s the gift Jon Rahm received on Sunday at the U.S. Open. On Father’s Day, Rahm tossed aside his macaroni card and “World’s #1 Dad” mug in favor of a slightly more valuable offering: a birdie in place of what may well have been a tournament-derailing bogey on Sunday at a major championship. The kicker? It all came thanks to a drop that even he couldn’t believe.

The situation began just off the 9th tee at Torrey Pines, a straightaway, 607-yard par-5. Rahm entered the hole two strokes back of the leader at the time, Bryson DeChambeau, at three under for the day. It was the first of three par-5s for Rahm on Sunday, and the Spaniard needed birdies to remain in the mix of a packed leaderboard.

There’s not much to the tee shot on the 9th, or much to the 9th hole overall. It’s a par-5 that resembles a runway — dead-straight and with a fairly wide margin for error on either side.

Perhaps feeling the pressure of the leaderboard around him, Rahm overcooked his drive into the trees, missing well left of the fairway. As his ball sailed through the air, it became evident that it would be fortunate to remain in the field of play.

Seconds later, Rahm’s ball rocketed back to earth and came to rest, evidently just on the other side of a large, green fence constructed by the tournament. It was a brutal break, but one that required a relatively simple solution: a provisional tee shot and one-stroke penalty for a lost ball.

Except, when Rahm began searching for his lost ball, a rules official instructed him that he was eligible to receive Temporary Immovable Object (or TIO) relief for the original shot. According to model local rule F-23, players are eligible to receive free relief from objects designated as Temporary Immovable Objects by the tournament committee. Under the rule, Rahm was eligible to receive a free drop from the temporary fence, consistent with that of an immovable obstruction.

“TIOs (such as a grandstand or a tent) are not normally present and are not considered to be part of the challenge of playing the course,” the rule states. “Because of their temporary nature, this Local Rule provides an additional relief option that is not allowed from immovable obstructions, although the player can still choose to treat the TIO as if it were an immovable obstruction and use the relief procedures available in Rule 16.”

Even with his original tee shot remaining on the other side of the fence, Rahm’s ball was eligible for relief because it landed on the gap between the TIO and the course’s defined boundary. As a result, Rahm was able to take a free drop from the proper side of the fence, no closer to the hole.

According to NBC on-course reporter Jon Wood, who was with Rahm at the time of the drop, even Rahm was shocked he received relief as a result of the fence. According to Wood, Rahm said he “couldn’t believe” he got relief.

After the drop, Rahm punched out to safety. From there, he chipped on, rolled in a three-foot putt for birdie to move to four under and two strokes back of the lead.

On his first Father’s Day after becoming a dad, the golf gods hand-delivered a gift to Rahm. Sometimes, it truly is better to receive.

The post Even Jon Rahm couldn’t believe the good fortune of this U.S. Open drop appeared first on Golf.

The post LPGA pro hit with devastating slow-play penalty in match-play event appeared first on Golf.

The post LPGA pro hit with devastating slow-play penalty in match-play event appeared first on Golf.

Slow play is an issue bemoaned by all golfers, and at the highest ranks of the game slow players are under an enhanced microscope. This week, that microscope resulted in a costly slow-play penalty at the Bank of Hope LPGA Match Play hosted by Shadow Creek.

After a hard-fought match between Carlota Ciganda and Sarah Schmelzel, the pair came to the 18th hole tied. Ciganda won the hole, giving her a 1-up victory in the match. However, after the conclusion of the hole she was assessed a slow-play penalty (general penalty) under Rule 5.6a. In match play, any general penalty is a loss of hole, according to Rule 3.2a.

As a result, Schmelzel was awarded the hole, giving her a 1-up win for the match. The breach was first reported on Twitter by Golf Channel’s Tom Abbott and later confirmed by the LPGA Tour. The Tour would later issue the following statement:

“On the 18th hole of her Day One match, Carlota Ciganda was assessed a loss-of-hole penalty for a breach of the LPGA’s Match-Play Pace of Play Policy. Per the policy, a player is subject to penalty if she exceeds the allotted time for her total strokes taken on a hole by more than 10 seconds, averaging 30 seconds per shot. Ciganda exceeded the allotted time for the number of strokes taken on the 18th hole.”

This is not the first high-stakes slow-play penalty the LPGA Tour has handed down this year. Earlier this season, rookie Yealimi Noh was hit with a massive $10,000 fine for egregious slow play at the Kia Classic.

According to a report by Golfweek, rules officials gave Noh bad times on two holes prior to the fine. The cost of the fine was compounded due to a previous slow play penalty Noh received in her first LPGA event last year.

The PGA of America also handed down a penalty for slow play recently as John Catlin was penalized at last week’s PGA Championship. However, because that event was stroke play as opposed to match play, his penalty was just one stroke.

The post LPGA pro hit with devastating slow-play penalty in match-play event appeared first on Golf.

The post Pro assessed rare slow-play penalty during opening round of PGA Championship appeared first on Golf.

The post Pro assessed rare slow-play penalty during opening round of PGA Championship appeared first on Golf.

For the contingent of fans clamoring for enhanced pace of play enforcement in professional golf, the start to the PGA Championship had a nice surprise in store.

John Catlin was assessed a rare slow-play penalty during his opening round at the Ocean Course on Thursday and was docked a stroke for the breach.

“Catlin’s first bad time occurred during the play of No. 16 (his 7th hole), where he took 74 seconds for his second shot, resulting in a pace of play warning,” the PGA Championship rules committee said in a statement. “Catlin’s second bad time took place during the play of hole No. 3 (his 12th hole), where he took 63 seconds for his second shot, resulting in a one-stroke pace of play penalty.”

The 30-year-old was penalized under Rule 5.6b, which states, “when it is your turn to play, it is recommended that you make the stroke in no more than 40 seconds after you are able to play without interference or distraction. You should usually be able to play more quickly than that and are encouraged to do so.”

Catlin bogeyed No. 3 after the penalty to drop him to three over for the day. He finished with six straight pars coming home and signed for a 75 at the end of his opening round. He’s currently six shots back of the three-under lead posted by four players in the morning wave.

Although Catlin has won three times on the European Tour, this is his first appearance in a major championship. He (along with Rickie Fowler) received a special invitation to compete at the Ocean Course on the strength of his play in Europe over the last year.

Catlin will tee off on No. 1 at 1:14 p.m. ET on Friday for the second round.

The post Pro assessed rare slow-play penalty during opening round of PGA Championship appeared first on Golf.

The post Here’s why Si Woo Kim couldn’t replace his broken putter at the Masters appeared first on Golf.

The post Here’s why Si Woo Kim couldn’t replace his broken putter at the Masters appeared first on Golf.

Si Woo Kim got himself into a bit of an awkward situation on the second nine of his second round at the Masters. Despite being just three shots off the lead, Kim let his temper get the better of him on the 15th green.

Following a three-putt at the 14th hole, Kim was already running a bit hot, and when he hit a lackluster chip onto the 15th green, his anger boiled over. He slammed his putter into the ground and bent the shaft. And he did so badly enough that he found it unusable.

This was not only an embarrassing blunder for the 25-year-old, but it also put him in a bit of a tough spot with the Rules of Golf. Although the rulebook has become more lenient about the rules of broken clubs, they still offered him no reprieve for his mistake.

Broken and damaged clubs are covered under Rule 4.1 in the rulebook, which states, “if your conforming club is damaged during your round or while play is stopped, you may continue to make strokes with the damaged club for the rest of the round, or have your club repaired by restoring it as nearly as possible to its condition before the damage happened.”

However, the rule also states that “a player is not allowed to replace a damaged club, except when it is damaged during the round by an outside influence or natural forces or by someone other than the player or his or her caddie.”

Because of this, Kim was not able to replace the putter during the round, hence his decision to putt with a 3-wood for the remainder of the day.

Luckily for Kim, the mistake did not result in any dropped shots on the scorecard. After the break, he made four pars in a row to close his round and will remain in the top 10 heading to the weekend. We are guessing he’ll have a new putter come Saturday, too.

The post Here’s why Si Woo Kim couldn’t replace his broken putter at the Masters appeared first on Golf.

The post 7 Masters rules controversies that shook up the tournament appeared first on Golf.

The post 7 Masters rules controversies that shook up the tournament appeared first on Golf.

Hailed as a tradition unlike any other, the Masters is no different than many tournaments in the sense that it is played by the Rules of Golf. For the most part, that happens without hiccups. But on rare occasions, controversies arise. Here are seven of the most notable rules kerfuffles in the history of the event.

1958: An embedded ball and a controversial call

For Ken Venturi, it was a source of resentment. For Arnold Palmer, a cause for regret. “It” was the disagreement that arose on a sodden Sunday at Augusta after Palmer’s tee shot on the 12th hole thud-landed in a muddy patch behind the green. Palmer thought his ball was embedded. The accompanying rules official thought otherwise. Denied relief, Palmer made double-bogey 5 from his cruddy lie — but then announced he would play a provisional, which he did, getting up and down with that second ball for par.

Tournaments

“We’ll let the rules committee sort it out when we get in,” Palmer told a nonplussed Venturi, who felt that Arnie hadn’t followed protocol. “I agreed with Palmer on the original call,” Venturi said later. “That ball was absolutely embedded. But he didn’t declare he was playing a provisional until after he made the double bogey. To me, that was wrong. Dead wrong.”

The rules committee did indeed sort things out; it sided with Palmer, who wound up winning the first of his four green jackets. Venturi finished two back and never forgot. “We both wrote about (the incident) in subsequent books, each of us insisting we were right,” Palmer wrote in a 2013 Golf Channel column. “I regret that the incident affected our relationship.”

1960: Bad day for the Dow

After finishing the 8th hole in the second round, Dow Finsterwald dropped a ball to practice putting. Not so fast, his playing partner Billy Casper warned him: practice putting was not allowed. “Say what?” said Finsterwald, or something like that. He then confessed that he’d struck some practice putts during the first round. Informed of the transgression, the rules committee huddled and issued a verdict.

Finsterwald would have a two-stroke penalty added to his first-round tally, bumping his score from 69 to 71. You can probably guess what happened next. The tournament continued, and when all was said and done on Sunday, Finsterwald found himself in third place, two shots off the pace set by the the winner, Arnold Palmer.

1968: An accounting error unlike any other

No matter how you do the math, Roberto De Vicenzo took the same number of shots (277, 11 under par) over four rounds as Bob Goalby. But no matter how many times you tell the story, it ends in the same agonizing way: with De Vicenzo signing an incorrect scorecard, an error that kept him out of a playoff and sent Goalby off with the win.

2003: A bad bounce in the bunker

This one wasn’t controversial in the moment, but it makes good what-if fodder in retrospect. Leading by two shots heading into Sunday, Jeff Maggert found trouble on the 3rd hole when his approach shot from the fairway bunker came out low and caught the sandy face. That was bad. Worse was that ball caromed straight back and glanced off Maggert’s chest.

If that same mishap occurred today, there would be no harm, no foul, thanks to a 2019 revision of the rules that eliminated the penalty for a player deflecting his or her own shot. At the time, though, it was insult plus injury, with two strokes added to the indignity. Maggert wound up making triple-bogey 7 on the hole and finished the day in a tie for fifth behind the winner, Mike Weir.

2004: Big Easy, hard decision

The third time proved a charm for Ernie Els in his quest for relief during the second round after he pulled-hooked his drive on the 11th hole. The woods were lovely, dark and deep, but Els was displeased to discover that his ball had settled in a tangle of fallen tree branches, which he argued had been piled up intentionally for the purpose of removal.

“I just felt that they could have moved this stuff off-site,” Els explained later. “In South Africa, we call it ‘greenskeeper’s rubble,’ and I felt pretty strongly about that.”

Others felt strongly otherwise, including the first two rules officials Els consulted; both denied him a free drop from the branches. The next opinion was the one that mattered, though. It came from Will Nicholson, Masters competition committee chair, who granted Els relief. The Big Easy went on to a hard-fought bogey, but still finished one shot behind Phil Mickelson in the tournament, after Lefty birdied the final hole.

2013: Two firsts for Tianlang Guan

By the end of the second round of the 2013 Masters, 14-year-old Tianlang Guan of China had set two Masters marks: youngest player ever to make the cut; and only player ever known to be assessed a slow-play penalty in the event. First warned about his pace on the 13th hole on Friday, Guan was told that he’d been docked a shot as he neared the 17th green. Some critics cried foul over the ruling, saying that Guan had been unfairly singled out on a blustery day when no one in the field was setting land-speed records.

But there was also little doubt that the teen phenom had dawdled on multiple occasions, taking longer than the allotted 40 seconds to hit a shot; on the 16th tee alone, he spent more than five minutes settling on a club. Despite the one-stroke penalty, Guan still made the weekend. What’s more, he proved to be a quick study. “I think it’s still a great week for me,” he said. “I learned a lot.”

2013: The drop heard ’round the world

It was a beautiful wedge, a terrible break and, as it turned out, a costly drop. After laying up on the par-5 13th hole on Friday, Tiger Woods rattled a wedge off the flagstick that ricocheted into the drink. Playing his fifth shot from the fairway, Woods got up and down for bogey. Or so he thought. One viewer phone call and a video investigation later, and Woods was assessed a two-stroke penalty for an illegal drop, which, as he himself acknowledged, he’d taken two feet behind the spot from which he’d originally played. If Woods felt that the fates were frowning on him, at least he had the good fortune of playing the weekend after the tournament committee opted not to DQ him for the breach.

The post 7 Masters rules controversies that shook up the tournament appeared first on Golf.

The post Viktor Hovland self-reports rules infraction after completing first round at the Players appeared first on Golf.

The post Viktor Hovland self-reports rules infraction after completing first round at the Players appeared first on Golf.

Viktor Hovland was in the rule book quite a bit during his first round at The Players Championship. His rules fiasco at the 11th hole was highlighted by a late about-face after a video review, but that wasn’t the last time he was caught up in some rules drama on Thursday

After Hovland completed his round, it came to light that the young Norwegian had yet another rules snafu just four holes later on the 15th. Hovland self-reported that he had failed to replace his ball marker after moving it to get out of playing partner Justin Thomas’ line. Instead of moving it back to the original spot, he moved it another putterhead length in the opposite direction.

Because of this, he was assessed a two-stroke penalty under Rule 14.7 for playing from the wrong spot.

Rule 14.7 states that “after starting a hole you must make each stroke from where your ball comes to rest, except when the Rules require or allow you to play a ball from another place.” It continues by saying that if you “have played from a wrong place but it is not a serious breach, you get the general penalty.”

Given the two-stroke penalty Hovland was assessed, his first round of two-under 70 was adjusted to an even-par 72.

The post Viktor Hovland self-reports rules infraction after completing first round at the Players appeared first on Golf.