Tag: rules violation

USGA admits incorrect ruling given to Rory McIlroy at 2023 U.S. Open

An executive with the USGA defended McIlroy, as well as the veteran official who gave the ruling.

It’s been just more than a week since Rory McIlroy lost the 2023 U.S. Open to Wyndham Clark by one shot after he made a crucial bogey on the par 5 14th hole, his lone blemish of the final round.

And if you can think back to Sunday at Los Angeles Country Club, you’ll remember McIlroy got a favorable ruling from an embedded lie that allowed him to drop in the bunker to only make bogey to remain in contention.

On Monday, an executive with the United States Golf Association told Sports Illustrated that McIlroy took an incorrect drop after consulting with a veteran rules official.

“The nearest point of relief was mis-identified; it should have been directly behind the ball,” said the USGA’s chief governance officer, Thomas Pagel. “If there’s no area immediately behind the ball, you go to nearest point in the general area. But if you look at where the ball was embedded, there was a grassy area below and that should have been the starting point.”

2023 U.S. Open
Rory McIlroy gets relief from an embedded ball on the 14th green during the final round of the 123rd U.S. Open Championship at The Los Angeles Country Club on June 18, 2023, in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)

McIlroy’s third shot to the 14th green got caught in thick grass surrounding a greenside bunker, and after a short search his playing partner, Scottie Scheffler, found the ball. Rules official Courtney Myrhum, who has officiated more than 60 USGA championships, confirmed the ball was embedded and allowed McIlroy to take a free drop.

“His ball was 100 percent embedded,” Pagel said in agreement with the official. “And an embedded ball not in sand is entitled to relief. Now Rory did everything at the discretion of the referee. In her discretion, her judgment was that the reference point for relief was to the side of the ball. And from a ruling standpoint, that’s the end of the story.”

Pagel continued to defend Myrhum, noting how “she’s an extremely well-qualified referee and she did everything in her judgment where to operate the drop. However, after further review, it was determined that there was a spot in the general area immediately behind the ball that was the reference point for relief.”

Because there was space between the ball and the bunker, McIlroy was entitled to a one-club length drop, no closer to the hole, from the “the general area” of the embedded spot, meaning a drop from the bunker was incorrect.

“If you look at where the ball embedded, just below should have been the starting point (for taking one club length relief),” Pagel said. “But even if his club length had been measured from behind the ball, he still would have been dropping on the shelf from where he played from. As it was, he measured the club length from the top of the wall to the right. As he dropped the ball out of that area, he had to drop a second time.”

“When you start dealing with vertical faces, that’s where the question is,” Pagel added. “In this case, there was a lot going on. But there was a place behind the ball where he could have started to measure.”

“From where he started measuring from, he didn’t get a break. And he did all of this at the discretion of the referee. He wasn’t doing anything to gain an advantage and as he was told how to apply the rule on where to drop.”

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Past champion Anna Davis receives four-stroke penalty at Augusta National Women’s Amateur

Davis recorded a bogey on the hole, but she wound up with a nine.

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EVANS, Ga. — Augusta National Women’s Amateur defending champion Anna Davis will face a severe uphill climb in her title defense after a four-shot penalty. Davis picked up her ball twice from the rough on the first hole at Champions Retreat to lift, clean and place, she explained after the round.

Davis thought she recorded a bogey on the hole but wound up with a nine, as two penalty strokes are applied to each infraction. Davis said she was informed of the potential violation on the fourth tee, which she proceeded to double.

The tournament released the following statement after her round: “During play of her first hole, Anna Davis lifted her ball and failed to replace it on its original spot on two separate occurrences. Under Rule 9.4, Ms. Davis has been penalized two strokes for each occurrence of playing from a wrong place. Her score on hole 1 will be increased from 5 to 9.”

“Little rough start to the day,” said Davis, “but that’s alright, it happens. It’s a learning experience.”

Augusta National sent out a memo to players on March 28 noting that due to heavy rains earlier in the week, the committee opted to adopt Model Local Rule E-3 “preferred lies” for the first two rounds of the tournament.

The rule restricts the use of preferred lies to “areas cut to fairway height or less.” Davis mistakenly thought the rule was for the entire course, which is why she did it twice on the first hole. She didn’t find out until after her round that she would take the penalty.

“I asked my scorer if we were doing it like everywhere,” said Davis, “but I guess he didn’t know. But he said, ‘Yeah, we were.’ So whatever, it happens.”

Davis has Ryan Bisharat, a family friend and former University of San Diego college player who plays out of the same club in California, on the bag this week. Davis said Bisharat tried to take the blame, and she assured him that everything was OK.

The top-30 players and ties advance to the final round, held at Augusta National. Davis won the third edition of the tournament last spring at age 16 and came into this week’s tournament fresh off a victory at the nearby Junior Invitational at Sage Valley.

Davis sits at 4 over for the tournament and T-43.

Nick Hardy reacts to Kamaiu Johnson scorecard DQ: ‘It looks like there may have been a cheating situation’

Did Kamaiu Johnson commit one of the unforgivable sins in golf and deliberately sign for a lower score?

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Did Kamaiu Johnson commit one of the unforgivable sins in golf and deliberately sign for a lower score than he made on a hole? It depends on who you ask.

Johnson, 29, violated Rule 3.3b for signing an incorrect scorecard after the second round of the 2023 Arnold Palmer Invitational, and was disqualified. Johnson, a multiple-time winner on the APGA Tour, was playing on a sponsor exemption. He would have missed the cut anyway, but that is beside the point to Nick Hardy, who was in the group with Johnson along with Kyle Westmoreland, who kept his scorecard.

In Johnson’s account of things, he made a double-bogey six at the par-4 ninth hole, not a seven, en route to shooting 5-over 77 on Friday at Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club & Lodge, missing the cut by six strokes. ShotLink data shows Johnson had a 22½ par putt from the fringe and took four putts, missing putts of three and four feet for bogey and double bogey before tapping in a 20-inch putt for his 7.

“The amount of chances that he had to say he made a six is unfortunate because it looks like there may have been a cheating situation,” Hardy told Golfweek on Wednesday, ahead of his debut in the Players Championship. “I know that especially when I’m in a tournament atmosphere, that whenever I’m playing golf there is never a time where I forget what I shot.”

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Westmoreland told Golfweek on Sunday that he didn’t see Johnson finish the hole because the group had been put on the clock.

“We were on the clock, so I walked off,” Westmoreland said after his third round on Saturday. “I assumed he made the one after he missed.”

Hardy echoed that sentiment.

“We were warned (for slow play) the day before and warned when we came off the tee box on nine (Friday). It was very fresh,” Hardy said. “When you get a warning, you get penalized as a member but there’s no penalty for non-members for pace of play. I have an issue when I get penalized for pace of play and I believe it isn’t me. I’ve been paired with non-members the last three weeks and I’ve gotten five or six warnings. When you get 25 warnings, you get fined $50,000. That’s a lot of money for anybody.”

In short, Hardy, who wasn’t keeping Johnson’s score, had a legitimate reason for walking ahead before Johnson finished in an effort to catch up.

“I’m going to get penalized even though I know I didn’t do anything wrong,” Hardy said. “If we hadn’t been warned, I wouldn’t have walked off the green and the situation would have been different and Kamaiu might have known I’d seen it. There was good reason for me not to be there.”

After the round, the group’s walking scorer confirmed that Johnson made a triple-bogey 7. A ShotLink official used video taken at the hole that showed the four putts, including the first from the fringe.

“I’ll say this, they gave him many opportunities after the round, even after he signed his card, a couple more opportunities to maybe say he made a 7. I think they knew they had video evidence from the running camera on 9. ShotLink said he had a 7, the walking scorer said he had a 7 and he insisted he had a 6. They hinted to him that, hey, we just want to make sure you’ve got this right, and he still said he made a 6. That was the troubling issue I had,” Hardy said. “The Tour gave him multiple chances to come to grips with it. I know this for a fact because I was getting calls from the scoring officials for the next hour after we signed the card inside. I saw Montana [Thompson] and Casey Jones outside the locker room when they were talking to Kamaiu. It’s definitely concerning.”

“It happens, I guess,” Westmoreland told Golfweek. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. He missed the cut. It doesn’t look great, I guess, for some people, but I don’t have much to comment on. It was a non-factor. I think the Tour handled it well.”

But Hardy disagreed with Westmoreland’s assessment that “it doesn’t matter; he missed the cut.”

“That’s unfair because when he played that hole he was right on the cut line. If he had gotten away with a 6, he only needed to shoot 2 under. It mattered, it mattered big time,” Hardy said. “I think you should be responsible. For people who think a player should get away with making a mistake like that because of a caddie’s fault or because the walking scorer should be in charge is wrong. The player should be 100 percent in charge of their score. The game is amazing because it taught me so many things about life. It’s like a true meritocracy in the sense that in life you need to be honest, you need to take responsibility, take ownership, have integrity for others; that’s the name of the game and to violate that is very concerning.”

On Saturday, Johnson took to social media to issue an apology, tweeting, “I take the integrity of the game very seriously and I’m sorry this happened. I got a little overwhelmed in the moment with the group on the clock and lost count of my missed putts from 3 feet. I’ll do better.”

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How a sticker disqualified the Olympic silver medalist from the RSM Classic

He was disqualified for having a non-conforming external attachment on one of his fairway woods.

SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. – Olympic silver medalist Rory Sabbatini just didn’t feel right about something after he left the Sea Island Golf Club following his 4-under-par 68 on the Plantation Course in Thursday’s first round of the RSM Classic.

So he called PGA Tour official John Mutch.

The call ended with Sabbatini being disqualified.

Under Rule 4.1 of the Rules of Golf, Sabbatini was disqualified for having a non-conforming external attachment on one of his fairway woods. John Mutch, senior tournament director equipment standards, said Sabbatini had non-conforming stickers on the face of the club.

Some players use reflective dots (stickers) and a launch monitor to track clubhead speed and distance. Sabbatini likely just forgot he had them on the fairway wood.

Sabbatini, who fell one shot short of winning the gold medal in the Summer Games in Tokyo, is ranked 105th in the world. In his three previous starts of the new season, he missed two cuts and tied for third in the Shriners Children’s Open.

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This player was slapped with a penalty after taking 74 seconds to shoot at the PGA Championship

John Catlin was assessed a one-stroke penalty after receiving his second bad time during the first round of the 103rd PGA Championship.

KIAWAH ISLAND, S.C. — John Catlin received a one-stroke penalty during the first round of the 103rd PGA Championship for a breach of the pace of play policy.

Catlin, a 30-year-old American who competes regularly on the European Tour and was awarded a special exemption into his first major, was timed taking 74 seconds to play his second shot at the 16th hole, his seventh hole of the first round at The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Resort. The first bad time resulted in a pace of play warning. His second bad time took place while playing 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 PGA of America has adopted a Pace of Play Policy under Rule 5.6b(3) of the Rules of Golf to encourage and enforce prompt play. Asked to comment on the penalty, Catlin said in a text, “Honestly, just moving on.”

He shot 3-over 75.

Pace-of-play penalties are rarely called on the PGA Tour. In fact, the last time  a player was docked for slow play at a major was at the 2013 Masters. On that occasion, 14-year-old Tianlang Guan was the guilty party.

 

Matthew Wolff penalized after video evidence became available at American Express

Video that wasn’t previously available indicated that Wolff should be penalized one stroke for his ball moving in the rough.

LA QUINTA, Calif. – Matthew Wolff’s Thursday scorecard gained a stroke on Friday.

Wolff, who shot 5-under 67 on Friday, was assessed a one-stroke penalty from Thursday’s opening round of the American Express for violation of Rule 9.4b (Ball Lifted or Moved by You – Penalty for Lifting or Deliberately Touching Your Ball or Causing it to Move).

Here’s what happened: On the first hole at The Stadium Course at PGA West, Wolff drove his ball 336 yards into the left rough. Wolff’s ball moved during his back swing and Rules official Slugger White discussed the situation with Wolff.

It was originally addressed by Wolff with the PGA Tour’s Rules Committee on Thursday, with the decision subsequently reversed on Friday after the Rules Committee gained access to video evidence not available at the time of the ruling that showed Wolff was responsible for the movement of his ball. With the one-stroke penalty, Wolff’s first-round score was bumped up to 72 for a 36-hole aggregate of 5-under 139.

The American Express: Leaderboard | Tee times, TV | Photos

“The incident was filmed on PGA Tour Live and was not brought to our attention until Matthew was well into his second round today,” said PGA Tour Tournament Director Steve Rintoul. “Once we realized there was video evidence, we had to look at it. Matthew was extremely professional and initially thought he was in a disqualification situation. But, fortunately for him, it was not.

“He was acting under the jurisdiction of an official yesterday and understood how the penalty applies when a ball is moved by the player. Matthew said he didn’t feel like he caused the ball to move, but certainly understood that he could have. He was extremely professional about the entire situation.”

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Ryan Palmer absolved of potential Rules violation, shares 54-hole lead at ToC

Ryan Palmer is tied atop the leaderboard after 54 holes but not without a rules controversy.

As Ryan Palmer approached scoring with a smile of satisfaction on his face, he was greeted by PGA Tour rules official John Mutch, who wasn’t there to congratulate Palmer on his scintillating third-round 9-under 64 and share of the 54-hole lead at the Sentry Tournament of Champions in Hawaii.

Mutch was there to talk about a possible rule’s violation.

“I saw Mutch with the book out and I thought, ‘What’s this about?’ I started going through the round in my mind. And then when he said, We have a situation on 9, and I immediately was, like, ‘Let’s see, I hit a good 3-wood, fluffed a chip, told (caddie) James I hit the wrong club, and then went to where I was ended up chipping again, I still had no idea,” Palmer said.

The moment in question happened at the par-5 ninth hole, where Palmer was just short of the green in two before flubbing his pitch shot. As the ball began rolling back towards him, Palmer walked towards the ball and kicked a divot before his ball came to a stop. Mutch spoke with Palmer to discuss a possible violation of Rule 11-3: “While a ball is in motion, you must not deliberately alter physical conditions or lift or move a loose impediment or movable obstruction to affect where the ball might come to rest.”

Sentry TOC: Leaderboard | Photos | Tee times, TV info

After a discussion with Palmer, who went on to make a par on the hole, Mutch determined that there was no intent and so Palmer’s 64 stands.

“He showed me the video and I said, ‘What am I looking at?’ We had to watch it twice to understand what he was talking about and discuss that I kicked a divot but the ball stopped 5 feet away from me,” Palmer said. “There was no intention of me trying to help my ball because there was no way my ball was even close to where I was at. I was just discussing with James, I hit the wrong wedge on the chip shot, in disgust, and then when I got there, I just kind of did the old kick the divot, pissed-off motion and the ball stopped five feet away from me.”

Palmer said that Collin Morikawa watched the video too, and he agreed that there was violation. But Justin Leonard, a 12-time PGA Tour winner and an analyst for the Golf Channel this week in the 18th-hole tower, didn’t exactly jump to Palmer’s defense in what clearly is a gray area that the USGA allowed in the Rules of Golf during its last revisions when it allowed for “intent.”

“It could be construed either way,” he said. “You have to take Ryan Palmer for his word.”

Palmer enters Sunday’s final round tied with Harris English at 21-under 201. Palmer will be seeking his fifth PGA Tour victory and first individual title since winning the 2010 Sony Open of Hawaii.

Cameron Tringale DQ’ed for rules violations at PGA Championship … again

Cameron Tringale was disqualified from the PGA Championship for the second time in the last seven years.

For Cameron Tringale, Friday at the PGA Championship was a case of deja vu all over again, as baseball Hall of Famer Yogi Berra once memorably put it.

During the 2nd round of the 102nd PGA Championship at TPC Harding Park, Tringale signed for a score lower than he actually made on the par-3, No. 8. He signed for a 3 but made a 4.

After his scorecard was officially certified, he then left the scoring area, but later returned to notify the Scoring Referee of his mistake. He was subsequently disqualified for violating Rule 3.3b(3).

As rule 3.3 – Wrong Score for a Hole – states, if a player returns a scorecard with a wrong score for any hole:

  • Returned Score Higher Than Actual Score. The higher returned score for the hole stands.
  • Returned Score lower Than Actual Score or No Score Returned. The player is disqualified.

Tringale, 32, had signed for 2-under 68 and was going to be sweating out the cutline the rest of the day.

Leaderboard | TV info | Tee times | Photos

But this isn’t the first time Tringale was disqualified from the PGA Championship for a scoring violation.

In 2014, a guilt-ridden Tringale called the Tour and disqualified himself after finishing T-36 and earning $53,000. He claimed to have missed a stroke when attempting to tap in on the 11th hole of the final round.

“Realizing that there could be the slightest doubt that the swing over the ball should have been recorded as a stroke, I spoke with the PGA of America and shared with them my conclusion that the stroke should have been recorded,” Tringale said in a statement after the 2014 PGA.

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