In the past weeks, I have a lot of material from the major professional tours. Last week in Boca Raton, we had the Timber Tech Championship, a Champions Tour event.
ERNIE ELS – ALMOST DISQUALIFIED – BEFORE THE TOURNAMENT: https://www.golfdigest.com/story/ernie-els-almost-dq-d-due-to-flat-tire
The PGA Tour and Champions Tour have a special tournament rule. When the players are scheduled to play in a Pro-Am event, they must show up. If they miss their tee time, they are not only disqualified prom the Pro-Am but also for the tournament. Amateurs pay a lot of money to play with the pros, this is why the Committee does not accept any excuses.
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
While he was driving to the golf course, Ernie Els got a flat tire. He called right away the golf course and they sent someone to pick him up. Because Els had planned to have breakfast at the Club, he had a little bit of time in front of him. He made his tee time as scheduled.
DARREN CLARK – His 61 became a 62
https://www.golfdigest.com/story/darren-clarke-rules-penalty-timbertech-championship
At the same tournament, Darren Clark breached two rules in a few seconds. At the start of the second round, he found his ball in the fairway. He marked the ball, lifted the ball, cleaned it and put it back in play. Before hitting his shot, a referee asked him why he lifted his ball in play. Clark was under the impression they were playing preferred lies like the first round. He then replaced the ball where it was with a penalty of 1 stroke.
THE RULE
Clark made two breaches. The first one was to lift without reason his ball in play (one-stroke penalty) and he cleaned his ball (one-stroke penalty).
When Breaches resulted from related acts, the player gets only one penalty.
WHY NOT A PENALTY OF TWO STROKES – BREACH OF A LOCAL RULE?
Usually a breach of a local rule is 2 strokes. It would have been the case if he found out the breach after a few holes because he would have played from a wrong place. The
penalty would have been 2 strokes each time he would have moved the ball by playing it somewhere else.
Because he found out of the breach before playing and he corrected the mistake, the Champions Tour referee gave him only a one-stroke penalty. Clark did not play his shot from a wrong place.
NOTE: Clark won the tournament by one stroke
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});