Tag: Rules of Golf

Two-stroke penalty ultimately too much for Patrick Reed to overcome at Hero

Patrick Reed contended on Saturday in the final round of the Hero World Challenge but came up short in his quest for victory in the Bahamas.

Patrick Reed, who made headlines on Friday after getting hit with a two-stroke penalty, contended on Saturday in the final round of the Hero World Challenge but came up short in his quest for victory in the Bahamas.

Reed opened 66-66 but ended up with a 74 in his third round after he was penalized for brushing sand away. Officials ruled that it constituted an attempt to improve his line of play on the 11th hole at Albany Golf Club.

Under Rule 8, which addresses playing the course as the player finds it, a player is prohibited from improving conditions affecting a stroke.

Reed made a late surge with birdies on 15, 16 and 17 and had seven birdies in all. But he had to rally for par on 18 to shoot his third 66 of the week and finished 16 under and in third place, two shots ahead of Tiger Woods.

The two-stroke penalty ultimately proved too much to overcome, as Reed finished two shots back of tournament winner Henrik Stenson, who finished 18 under after a par on the final hole.

Hero World Challenge: Photo gallery

“So after seeing the video, it’s a two-stroke penalty,” Reed said on Friday. “I accept it. It wasn’t because of any intent. I felt like I was far enough away, because of what we saw.”

Reed led by three strokes after the second round. He will head to Australia with the rest of the American contingent as a captain’s pick for the Presidents Cup.

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Patrick Reed slapped with two-stroke penalty at Hero World Challenge

Patrick Reed was deemed to have improved his line of play in a waste bunker, and thus was penalized two shots.

The end of the third round of the Hero World Challenge was filled with temporary uncertainty for Patrick Reed, who ultimately incurred a two-stroke penalty for a pair of practice swings taken in a waste bunker on the 11th hole at Albany Golf Club in the Bahamas. Reed was deemed to have improved his line of play with those practice strokes.

The additional strokes turned Reed’s second-round 72 into a 74. He started the day with a three-shot lead and could have ended the day within one shot of co-leaders Gary Woodland and Henrik Stenson, who stand at 13 under. The two penalty shots, however, bumped him to 10 under.

Reed was penalized for brushing sand away – officials ruled that it constituted an attempt to improve his line of play. Under Rule 8, which addresses playing the course as the player finds it, a player is prohibited from improving conditions affecting a stroke.

Hero World Challenge: Photo gallery

Under Rule 8-1a, actions that are not allowed include the removal or pressing down of sand or loose soil.

Reed did that twice, though the second movement is irrelevant.

After the round, Reed told the Golf Channel he had spent only four or five minutes with rules officials reviewing video of him taking practice strokes in the waste area.

“At the end of the day you gotta let things roll of your shoulders,” Reed said to Golf Channel. “Also at the same time, I have another whole round to play tomorrow.

“If I stew over something that I felt like I didn’t intentionally do, at the end of the day it’s my word versus their word. They weren’t standing there, they had a camera angle. Because of that, you don’t really have a choice.”

Intent did not come into play in Reed’s actions, according to PGA Tour rules official Slugger White.

“He could not have been more of a gentleman,” White told media after the penalty was assessed.

The action became a prominent story line throughout the third-round telecast, considering that Reed committed the action just after the turn. Rules officials did not address the penalty until the end of the round, though White acknowledged they would have addressed it immediately had it happened in the final round.

Hero World Challenge scores

Position Player R3 Score To par
1 Gary Woodland 68 -13
T-2 Patrick Reed 72 -12
T-2 Henrik Stenson 68 -12
T-4 Tiger Woods 67 -11
T-4 Justin Thomas 67 -11
T-4 Jon Rahm 69 -11
T-7 Chez Reavie 69 -6
T-7 Rickie Fowler 72 -6
T-7 Justin Rose 71 -6
T-10 Matt Kuchar 70 -5
T-10 Kevin Kisner 70 -5
12 Webb Simpson 71 -4
13 Xander Schauffele 70 -3
14 Jordan Spieth 69 -2
T-15 Tony Finau 69 E
T-15 Bubba Watson 71 E
T-17 Bryson DeChambeau 70 +1
T-17 Patrick Cantlay 71 +1

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Presidents Cup ‘advice giver’ can change when Tiger Woods tees it up

The burden of providing advice can be passed off (and reassumed) by Tiger Woods next week during his role as Presidents Cup playing captain.

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Tiger Woods has so far been coy about the number of matches he intends to play at next week’s Presidents Cup. Considering the form he has displayed at the Hero World Challenge – particularly in firing a bogey-free 66 in the second round – the playing captain would be wise to slot himself into the lineup frequently.

Woods is the first man to take on the role of Presidents Cup playing captain since Hale Irwin did it in 1994, the year of the inaugural matches. For the record, Irwin played three times that year, appearing in the foursomes lineup each of the first two days before going out in the lead singles match against Robert Allenby on the final day. His record was 2-1 (which included a singles victory over Allenby).

“I’m playing a minimum of two [matches],” Woods said Thursday with a smile. “Does that help you?”

There’s obviously much more to it than that, though.

Hero World Challenge: Best photos from Bahamas

Woods has brought on three assistant captains in Fred Couples, Steve Stricker and Zach Johnson (the former two being past Presidents Cup captains themselves). The question is how, exactly, they’ll fill in when Woods is on the course competing, particularly when it comes to giving advice.

The Presidents Cup rulebook states that when it comes to “any counsel or suggestion that could influence a player in determining his play, the choice of a club or the method of making a stroke, each team may appoint one person who may give advice to members of that team. Such person must be identified to the committee before giving advice.”

These stipulations reflect the wording in the Rules of Golf section that covers team competition (Rule 24) and the procedures regarding the creation of a local rule that allows for an “advice giver.”

A report by Golf Channel has cleared up some of the details about how much (and when, exactly) Woods’ assistant captains can take over while he’s competing. The PGA Tour sent this response to a Golf Channel inquiry:

“The captain needs to advise the chief referee before the start of each round who has the advice. The captain may switch the person during the round. For example, if Tiger is planning to play, he would need to advise rules before the matches start who has the advice. After he finishes, he could switch back if he wanted.”

Add those particulars to a long list of other details Woods must address as the captain.

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Rules of golf: 10 biggest controversies of the decade

Tiger Woods, Dustin Johnson, Phil Mickelson, and Lexi Thompson were all engulfed in some of the decade’s biggest Rules of Golf controversies.

There was no shortage of options for making this list.

Plenty of first-name only star power — Phil, Tiger, DJ and Lexi — were among the biggest offenders.

That’s because the Rules of Golf are complicated, and despite revisions and clarification and an overhaul that went into effect in 2019, there are still regular occurrences where the punishment doesn’t seem to fit the crime plus plenty of room for ambiguity.

Here are the 10 biggest Rules controversies that sparked debate in this decade:

10. Haotong Li, 2019 Dubai Desert Classic

DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - JANUARY 27: Haotong Li of China takes his tee shot on hole one during Day Four of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic at Emirates Golf Club on January 27, 2019 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)
Haotong Li at the 2019 Omega Dubai Desert Classic in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. (Photo by David Cannon/Getty Images)

In the final round, Haotong Li canned a birdie putt on the 18th hole to apparently finish in third place. But as ESPN’s Lee Corso would say, not so fast, my friends. Li’s caddie violated one of the new Rules of Golf that went into effect in 2019 – Rule 10.2b – “once the player begins taking a stance for the stroke, and until the stroke is made, the player’s caddie must not deliberately stand on or close to an extension of the line of play behind the ball for any reason.” The two-stroke change dropped Li to a tie for 12th place and cost him the equivalent of about $100,000.

As a result of this ruling and a similarly harsh interpretation of the Rule against Denny McCarthy at the Waste Management Phoenix Open in February, a clarification was released addressing issues with the Rule. In short, it clarified what it meant to “deliberately” stand behind the player and provided more guidance for when a player actually has “begun taking his or her stance.”

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Report: Sergio Garcia’s return to Saudi won’t include appearance fee

Sergio Garcia will get a chance to redeem himself for bad behavior next year when he returns to the Saudi International.

Sergio Garcia will get a chance to redeem himself for bad behavior next year when he returns to the Saudi International. Garcia’s last appearance in the European Tour event in Saudi Arabia ended in disqualification after he willfully damaged greens and slashed around in a bunker during the tournament.

When Garcia played the inaugural Saudi International in February 2019, he received an appearance fee reportedly in the neighborhood of $650,000. The Telegraph reported that he was not asked to return any of it despite the disqualification, which came at the end of the third round when other players complained about the damage he had caused to putting surfaces.

Here’s the catch, though: His next appearance does not come with any fee.

“It is understood this was one of the conditions placed on the 2017 Masters champion by the European Tour as it spared him a suspension,” according to the Telegraph report.

The tournament will once again overlap the PGA Tour’s Waste Management Phoenix Open in 2020. Dustin Johnson won the inaugural event and will return to defend.

ESPN also reported that in addition to Garcia adding his name to the 2020 field, Patrick Reed, Henrik Stenson, Shane Lowry and Brooks Koepka will also play.

Garcia played 16 events on the European Tour in the 2019 season and won once, at the KLM Open.

His most recent headlines have been positive. Garcia and his wife Angela announced earlier this month that they are expecting their second child, a boy.

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Russell Henley speaks on golf ball gaffe that cost him eight strokes at Mayakoba

Russell Henley self-reported a penalty for using a different model golf ball that cost him eight penalty strokes and led to a missed cut.

Russell Henley was at the scoring tent after shooting a 2-under 69 during Saturday’s second round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic when his caddie tossed him two balls to sign for the standard bearer and walking scorer with his group. That’s when Henley first realized the innocent gaffe he had made.

“When I get done with a ball, my caddie will mark through it with a line so I don’t re-use them,” Henley said in a phone interview on Sunday. “He gave me two balls to sign and the Pro V1x part of it was facing up at me and I just looked at it and there’s a little dash beside the Pro V1x. I was like, ‘Hmm, that’s weird, is that what all my balls look like?’ I was caught off guard.”

The PGA Tour uses a one-ball rule as a condition of competition, which means players can only use one specific brand and model of ball during a round. The penalty for using a different model is two strokes per hole that the ball is used.

Henley, who said he uses the 2017 model of the Pro V1x ball, went to his bag and compared it to the other nine balls in there and noticed that one was not like the others. The rest didn’t have the dash. He’d never even hit the offending ball, which he said is a Titleist prototype. When asked how it got in his bag, Henley guessed that he may have picked the ball up by accident while putting to the same hole on the practice putting green as another Titleist ambassador.

Mayakoba: Leaderboard | TV info | Photos

“I called PGA Tour rules official Brad Fabel over because something was wrong and I wanted to voice it,” he said. “I told them the scenario that I probably played it, but I don’t know. It looked scuffed up and it had a line through it, but I couldn’t tell you what number ball I used yesterday on No. 4,” Henley said. “I change balls every four or five holes, whenever I hit a wedge and there’s a scuff on it or something. I think I changed around No. 4, 9 or 10 and 14 or 15.”

Fabel brought in Slugger White, the PGA Tour’s vice president of rules and competitions, who phoned the USGA for clarification. It took the better part of an hour before Henley received the verdict.

“They told me that based on what we know and the high probability I used it, we’re going to take the average of the number of holes you typically used it, which is four,” Henley said.

He was assessed eight penalty strokes – two per hole for Nos. 9-12 – turning what had been a 69 into signing for a 6-over 77.

RELATED: Henley assessed 8 penalty shots in oddball ruling

“Well, that sends me home,” Henley said at the time. Indeed, it did. He caught a 6:15 p.m. flight and arrived home after midnight.

“Do I think eight shots is extreme in this situation? Absolutely,” said Henley, who said he was still processing the unusual circumstances. “I think there should be a max of four. I hope eventually we can have some conversations and change the rule. I came from such an innocent place, you could call it a careless place, and given there was no intent I think it’s a pretty harsh rule. It can be debated both ways and I’m aware of that. It’s unfortunate when you’re playing well and in contention, like I was, to you’re missing the cut. It’s tough to swallow.”

But Henley said it won’t crush him because he’s learned not to let his golf score be his identity. His game has been trending in the right direction thanks to a putting tip from Brandt Snedeker after they played together at the Sanderson Farms Championship.

“I felt like I was gaining momentum with my game,” Henley said. “I felt really confident about my chances; I don’t know about winning but I proved to myself that I can go low on Sunday at the John Deere last year. I had two rounds to get it done and I felt good about my game.”

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Russell Henley assessed 8 penalty shots in oddball ruling at Mayakoba

Russell Henley had to add eight penalty shots to his score in Round 2 of the Mayakoba Classic when he found an unexpected ball in his bag.

The Rules of Golf continue to flummox players on every level.

During Saturday’s second round of the Mayakoba Golf Classic, Russell Henley became the latest player to face the consequences of a rules violation, and with some level of surprise. Henley was assessed eight penalty shots when he discovered a different model of golf ball in his bag than what he usually uses, and the rules committee and Henley assumed that he must have used that ball at some point during his round.

According to PGA Tour Communications, Henley was signing golf balls for fans when he noticed that one of the balls in his golf bag was a slightly different model than the kind of ball he uses. According to the statement, which was posted to Twitter, Henley didn’t know how that got in his bag. Henley self-reported his possible violation to the rules officials onsite.

Tour pros typically keep new, unused balls in one pocket in their bags, then place used balls into another pocket after they are taken out of play. Henley apparently found the different model of ball in his used-ball pocket, leading himself and the committee to assume he had unwittingly used it at some point during the round.

The PGA Tour uses a one-ball rule, which means players can only use one specific brand and model of ball during a round. The penalty for using a different model is two strokes per hole that the ball is used, maximum of eight strokes.

Mayakoba: Leaderboard | Photos | Tournament updates

This one-ball rule typically is used only in high levels of competition and does not apply to most everyday amateurs out for a round of golf. Recreational amateurs can carry as many brands or models as they like and use a different brand or model on every hole, if they choose. There are other rules about substituting a ball during the play of any given hole, such as when a ball is damaged, but recreational players are allowed to change models of ball on each tee before the start of any given hole.

And it’s not against the rules for a Tour player to carry a different brand or model of ball in their bag even when the one-ball rule is in effect. It’s only a penalty if they use that different ball.

That’s where the Henley situation got tricky, because it was an unusual circumstance and he didn’t know how the ball got in his bag. Like the balls he normally uses, it was a Titleist Pro V1x. But it was a slightly different model with one different marking on the ball. Henley told officials there was no doubt he unwittingly must have used the ball at some point in the round.

As per Rule 20-3, which relates to “situations not covered by the Rules,” the committee ruled that Henley must have used the improper ball during his round, and he was assessed a two-stroke penalty on Nos. 9-12. Those eight strokes – which meant he took a double bogey on all four holes – pushed him to a second-round 77.

Henley had opened with 66. The penalty strokes dropped him more than 80 spots on the leaderboard, ultimately depositing him outside the cutline.

Prior to this week, Henley was 4-for-4 in cuts made in the 2020 PGA Tour season.

It’s another rules headline in a month that has been full of them. Most recently, two amateur women representing the U.S. at the Spirit International Amateur were disqualified for a four-ball scoring error. Days before that, much was made of penalties assessed at the LPGA Q-Series for a violation of the advice rule, covered by Rule 10-2a.

Also in the “bizarre” category, European Tour player Eddie Pepperell fired his entire ball supply into a pond beside the fourth green at last week’s Turkish Airlines Open, eventually walking off the course when he ran out of golf balls – which earned him a DQ anyway.

If there’s any bright side, it’s that Henley suffered penalty shots instead of an immediate disqualification.

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