Well, that got out of hand in a hurry. The year 2024 had more than its fair share of bizarro rules incidents in competitive golf. Want a taste? A trip to the men’s room led to a sweeping policy change on the PGA Tour. Then there was the pro who purposely hit a shot into the gutter of a building to get free relief. Another refused to identify a ball that was likely his because he didn’t want to play from its awful lie. Someone nearly got DQ’d from a tournament because of lost luggage!

Things were so nutso, we’re not even going to include this incident (above) when Viktor Hovland found his ball on a beach towel in the final round of the Memorial. He removed the towel and took a free drop. Now, had he actually hit a shot off the towel, that would have moved it to the top of our list of the 18 most notable rules incidents of 2024.

Since you might not recall everything that happened last year, pour a cup of coffee (or a dram of scotch) and sit back and enjoy this retrospect.

It took only seven holes of the PGA Tour season for a pro to commit a penalty

If you had Justin Rose in your first-golfer-to-get-hit-with-a-penalty pool in 2024, congrats on cashing in. Seven holes into his opening round of The Sentry, Rose was handed a two-stroke penalty. His infraction? He played a wrong ball and was very lucky he didn’t get disqualified for doing it.

The details: Rose had hit his drive 359 yards on the Plantation Course in Maui and his ball wound up on the right side of the fairway. His playing partner, Taylor Moore, also found the right part of the fairway, 322 yards off the tee. Rose proceeded to play what he thought was his ball, hitting it on the green, only to realize upon reaching the putting surface it was Moore’s he mistakenly hit. That was good for Rose; had he holed out with the wrong ball, he would have been DQ’d.

First day back at work after the festive period was interesting @TheSentry I hit the wrong ball on the 7th!! 🤦🏻‍♂️🤷🏻‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/SA4T0wSZVH

— Justin ROSE (@JustinRose99) January 5, 2024

Rose went back and corrected the error, making a double bogey. Moore, meanwhile, had to replace a ball as close to the spot as his original ball had been lying and then play on from there with no penalty.

Weiquan Lin

A WD from a hotel room

You hate to miss one of the biggest early-season tournaments of the year, the WM Phoenix Open. It’s always a raucous event. But imagine missing a chance to play because instead of standing on the first tee when the starter is about to call your name, you’re still in your hotel room.

That’s what happened to Lucas Glover in early February. The former U.S. Open champion got a phone call in his room moments before his 8:26 a.m. tee time. The voice on the other end said he had one minute to get there and tee off.

Whoops. Ain’t happening. Glover instead withdrew, which was a moot point as he would have been disqualified anyway. It’s a two-stroke penalty if you tee off a little later but once you’re five-minutes late, it’s all over.

“I just misread my text messages [about my tee time]. Glover said. “I’m kicking myself—but laughing at myself at the same time.”

Poor Jordan Spieth. At the Genesis Invitational in February, he was disqualified for signing an incorrect scorecard after completing the second round. Spieth signed for a 3 on the par-3 fourth when he actually made a 4. He graciously accepted the ruling, but it was later disclosed that Spieth had rushed from the scoring area because of a bathroom emergency and really didn’t have a chance to vet his card thoroughly.

“He was really sick, and he had a rough last hole,” Xander Schauffele said. “I can see how it all went down.”

This story does have a bit of a happy ending, however, as the PGA Tour eventually adopted a new Model Local Rule in June that gives players a little more time to sign off on a scorecard. In a memo to its players, the tour explained that they can correct an error on their scorecard after its validated within 15 minutes.

Brandel Chamblee calls out Wyndham Clark for making his ball move

The final hole of the third round at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was the setting for high drama and a rules controversy involving Wyndham Clark. It was one that while Clark was found NOT to have committeed any penalties by the tour, Golf Channel commentator Brandle Chamblee was adamant that rules officials and Clark got it wrong.

What happened? Clark hit his tee shot on 18 into deep rough on the right side of the hole. With his ball sitting down in the grass and a huge pond between him and the flag, Clark took out a wedge to play a safer shot toward the front left of the green. With multiple cameras including a close-up camera along for the ride, Clark soled his club in the grass and his ball appeared to move. If you cause your ball to move, it’s a one-stroke penalty (Rule 9.4) and it must be replaced.

“I saw it live and I knew the ball moved,” Chamblee said at the time. “I think he should have been penalized.”

Further adding to the controversy, NBC’s coverage team, which included Dan Hicks, Brad Faxon and rules expert Mark Dusbabek, all discussed the possibility that when Clark soled his club, he pressed down into the grass, which would also be a penalty for improving conditions affecting the stroke (Rule 8.1). That’s a two-stroke penalty.

“There was definitely pressure pushing down there,” Faxon said. “It certainly wasn’t good-looking.”

Luckily for Clark, after officials reviewed everything, it was determined the ball moved but returned to its original position and his actions to sole club were not outside of what is allowed. “I wasn’t trying to do anything like cheating or anything like that or improve my lie. I just simply put my club down,” Clark said after the round to the media outlet Eurosport. “And you know obviously, they zoom in, it makes it look worse. We all talked about it, [his playing partner] Scottie [Scheffler] and the rules officials, they didn’t think it moved.”

Despite the happy outcome on the ruling, Clark still bogeyed the hole and finished second, five shots back of winner Scheffler.

Ball teeters on the edge of the cup, then falls in, and it’s a penalty?

The PGA Tour’s Austin Eckroat knows the rule, and frankly it didn’t matter. When his birdie putt at the par-5 11th at TPC Sawgrass teetered on the edge of the hole, he took his sweet time to reach the ball before watching it fall into the cup, setting off loud cheers from the gallery. It was a memorable moment during the final round of the Players Championship in March, but only for a second.

Turns out, if you wait too long for the ball to drop, and then it drops, it’s a penalty. Well, sort of. Rule 13.3 says that if your ball stops on the edge, you have a reasonable amount of time to reach it, plus 10 seconds, before you have to tap it in. If it falls in after 10 seconds (Eckroat’s took about 25 seconds in total) you are assessed a one-stroke penalty. In essence, it’s the same as if you tapped in.

Eckroat made a ho-hum par, but at least he gave the gallery a cheap thrill.

The putt falls!

However, since it took more than 10 seconds, a stroke was added and Austin Eckroat’s birdie becomes a par. pic.twitter.com/sie3oaooSC

— Golf Digest (@GolfDigest) March 17, 2024

Rory and Jordan debate at the Players

For as objective as the Rules of Golf attempts to be in terms of laying out the sport’s dos and don’ts, there is an unavoidable subjective nature of their application. This is often put to the test by the classic question after a golf ball is hit into a penalty area. Where did it actually cross? The answer isn’t always clear. An example of this happened during the first round of the Players Championship and involved some of the game’s most recognizable players.

Rory McIlroy got into a conversation (argument?) with Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland about where to drop after hitting two shots into the water. The second, on the par-4 seventh hole at TPC Sawgrass, was the real issue that sparked the back-and-forth between him and his playing partners.

McIlroy pulled his tee shot into a pond and wanted to take a lateral drop, arguing it had crossed over the boundary of the penalty area where he could do so. Since no cameras caught where the ball entered the pond, it was up to the three to determine the point using whatever evidence they could gather.

Rory McIlroy, Jordan Spieth and Viktor Hovland discuss McIlroy’s drop on No. 7.

Rory makes double bogey to move from solo leader to T2. pic.twitter.com/dkV6a5Q22W

— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) March 14, 2024

McIlroy was “pretty comfortable” that his ball had landed outside the red-penalty-area line, then bounced into the water. Hovland said he wasn’t sure where the ball crossed, and Spieth thought the ball landed inside the penalty area, thus requiring a drop farther back than McIlroy was contemplating.

After a discussion among the group and their caddies that lasted about eight minutes, the result was McIlroy taking the drop that was farther back and he ended up making a double bogey.

“I think Jordan was just trying to make sure that I was doing the right thing,” McIlroy said afterward. “I mean, I was pretty sure that my ball had crossed where I was sort of dropping it. It’s so hard, right, because there was no TV evidence. I was adamant. But I think, again, he was just trying to make sure that I was going to do the right thing.

“If anything, I was being conservative with it,” McIlroy said. “I think at the end of the day, we’re all trying to protect ourselves, protect the field, as well. I wouldn’t say it was needless. I think he [Spieth] was just trying to make sure that what happened was the right thing.”

Brennan Asplen

One super creative drop

The PGA Tour’s old marketing slogan, “These guys are good,” took on a whole new meaning at the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio in early April. Jordan Spieth’s command of the rule book had him hitting shots at clubhouses and getting subsequent free relief for his play that nearly led to him saving par. He didn’t. He made double. But the way he played the final hole of the third round is nearly as memorable as his infamous play on the 13th hole when he won the 2017 Open at Royal Birkdale. Remember the driving-range incident and the shot over the trucks?

Back to San Antonio, here’s a rundown of what Spieth did after hitting a poor tee shot on the par-5 18th. In an area off the fairway blocked by trees, Spieth opted to play farther away from the hole, but his ball clipped a branch and wound up in a dry penalty area. Then the real magic happened.

Since his ball was next to a cement structure in the penalty area, he opted for a line that allowed him to swing without interference from it. That line was right at the clubhouse. You might think he was hitting it out of bounds, but the buildings and area around it were considered obstructions for the tournament. Spieth knew that and hit his shot into a gutter on the building. Yep, a gutter.

After getting free relief from the gutter—no, he didn’t wait to see if the ball would roll through the downspout and back in play—Spieth’s ensuing drop put him in another free-relief situation near a scoreboard. He got to move his ball again and now had a clear shot at the green. Spieth punched the fifth shot onto the green but left his 45-foot bogey putt eight feet short and suffered a double-bogey 7 that gave him a 72. He finished the tournament in a tie for 10th.

Bryson being Bryson

No stranger to controversy or attention, Bryson DeChambeau had a quintessential Bryson moment during the second round of the Masters in April. His tee shot on the famous dogleg-left 13th hole didn’t hold the fairway and ended up in the pine-tree jail on the right. Instead of punching something back into 13 fairway, DeChambeau saw an alternate route, and that’s where the fun began.

He wanted to play his second shot into the nearby 14th fairway but there was a large sign in his line of play. The sign was the kind that directs patrons in which direction certain areas of the course are, and DeChambeau thought it might deflect his ball. So what did he do? He pulled the sign out of the ground and carried it out of his line of play.

Ben Walton

Golf fans not well versed in the rules immediately cried foul, but Rule 15.2 allows players to get moveable obstructions out of their way so long as it takes “reasonable effort” to move it. You might think a huge sign would take more than reasonable effort to pull up and carry away, but have you seen DeChambeau’s pipes? No problem for him. And completely legal.

But then this incident took another turn. Moments after moving the sign, he was approached by a volunteer and tournament officials and the sign was put back before DeChambeau hit his second shot. So perhaps it wasn’t considered a moveable obstruction. What is reasonable to move is up for interpretation.

Back to the action, DeChambeau’s second shot bounced through the 14th fairway and came to rest behind a grandstand. From there, he was granted a free drop for relief from a temporary immovable obstruction (TIO). He then hit his third shot inside 15 feet and made the putt for a bizarro birdie.

Slow-play penalty costs college golfer chance at national title

At the NCAA Men’s Championship in May, Ben James, the fifth-ranked amateur in the world, had a chance to win the individual title but missed a putt on the final hole at Omni LaCosta Resort that would have forced a playoff. Instead, the Virginia sophomore finished in a six-way tie for second place.

The putt was terrible, he said, but he wouldn’t have had to make it to get in the playoff if he didn’t get a one-stroke penalty for slow play during the first round. He and playing partner, Baard Skogen of Texas Tech, were assessed penalties on the par-4 17th. With the added shot, James posted a one-over-par 73, and then followed it with a 71 and a 69 to get into contention going into the final round, in which he shot a one-over 73 and came up one shot short.

“It’s a crazy game,” James said. “One shot. It’s the rules, but it sucks. It’s stings. There’s such a fine line in golf.”

Let’s start by saying we’re not trying to pick on Wyndham Clark. Once again, he was NOT penalized at the U.S. Open in June for violating Rule 11.3, altering conditions to affect a ball in motion. Wyndham, we certainly understand if you don’t want to be shown in this light.

However, many fans watching the Open at Pinehurst wondered if Clark was doing something that could come with a two-stroke penalty. It happened on the 10th hole of the third round. Clark played a chip shot from a collection area just off the 10th green. The ball stopped just short of the crest it needed to reach to stay on the green and started rolling back toward where Clark had just played. As the ball was rolling, Clark could be seen swinging his wedge down at the spot where he just struck the ball and then walking back toward his bag.

It’s the walk that angered some golf fans. Clark stepped on the spot where he just played, arguably improving the area by pressing down grass he had just roughed up. Again, to be clear, the incident did not lead to a penalty, but just know that you’re not supposed to do things like “alter physical conditions by taking any of the actions listed in Rule 8.1a before playing your shot (such as replacing a divot or pressing down a raised area of turf).”

Clark’s actions were far enough away from where his ball came to rest that it wasn’t an issue. He finished T-56 in the tournament.

Andy Lyons

Did Hideki improve his line of play?

During the final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship in August, Hideki Matsuyama appeared to tap down a pitch mark before playing a shot into the seventh green. Rule 8.1 prohibits golfers from improving their line of play, and it comes with a two-stroke penalty when violated.

Video clearly showed him hitting his second shot into the green, but the ball rolled down into a collection area where Matsuyama then tapped down a pitch mark. Was that mark on his line of play? After a conversation with a PGA Tour rules official, it was determined that the pitch mark was nearby but not actually on Matsuyama’s line of play.

The video supported Matsuyama’s claim, showing the mark was around three feet away from his line. Matsuyama was in contention at the time to win, and the conversation with the rules official might have rattled him, as he went on to play a four-hole stretch on the back nine in four over par. He eventually regained his composure and won by two shots over Viktor Hovland and Xander Schauffele.

“It was really a non-issue,” Matsuyama said after the round. “If I was worried that I had done something wrong, that would have rattled me. But it was really a non-issue, so it was fine.”

–

LIV golfer waits too long at baggage claim, nearly gets DQ’d.

LIV golfer Scott Vincent might be rethinking his international schedule next year. After deciding to play in July’s International Series in Morocco, an Asian Tour event, Vincent and his brother landed at the airport in Casablanca only to discover the golf clubs didn’t come along for the ride.

Prior to his first-round tee time, Vincent says he thought the airline had found his clubs and they were waiting for him at the airport, so he left the golf course to retrieve them. Unfortunately, they weren’t there, and his trip back to the tournament took longer than expected.

Vincent was supposed to tee off at 12:30 but showed up a little after 12:34. Because he was late, he was given a two-shot penalty. Harsh, but it’s a lot better than if he showed up at 12:35. If you’re five-minutes late, the penalty increases from two shots to disqualification.

The good news is none of this rattled Vincent, who shot a five-under 68 in that first round with borrowed clubs.

One week later, Mackenzie Hughes was nearly disqualified for showing up late to his 2:45 tee time in the third round at the Genesis Scottish Open. He, too, was hit with a two-stroke penalty and ended up finishing the event T-46.

Lowry didn’t want to find his ball—and was pissed when a spectator spotted it!

Looking back, if one hole undid Shane Lowry’s chance at winning another Open Championship, it might have been the 11th at Royal Troon during the second round in July.

Lowry was leading the tournament at the time and was about to play his second shot into the green when he said he was distracted by a photographer. Lowry was heard yelling at the shooter after yanking his second into a gorse bush. Knowing that lie would likely be miserable, Lowry then dropped a provisional ball on the spot where he played his second and hit a great shot onto the green.

As he was walking down the fairway, the referee with his group asked if he wanted to search for his original. “I said no. So I assumed that was OK,” Lowry said.

And it would have been OK, but a spectator found his original. Under Rule 18.2, if a ball is found that could be the original, “the player must promptly attempt to identify the ball (see Rule 7.2) and is allowed a reasonable time to do so, even if that happens after the three-minute search time has ended.”

Lowry’s take: “We get down there, and somebody had found it. So apparently we have to find it then, or you have to go and identify it, which I thought, if you declared it lost before it was found, that you … didn’t have to go and identify it,” Lowry said.

First Lowry wanted to strangle a photographer. Now a spectator was getting the stink eye. Nevertheless, despite appealing the rules decision twice, Lowry took an unplayable lie from the gorse and made a double bogey on the hole. He did get his lead back later in the round but ended up five shots back of eventual winner Xander Schauffele.

Chasing daylight, Kuchar quits on the 18th

We told you this was a crazy year. Well, Matt Kuchar’s decision to mark his ball on the final hole of the final round of the final regular-season PGA Tour event of 2024, the Wyndham Championship, requiring him to come back the next morning and finish his round, was one of its most illogical incidents.

Yep, with the sun down Sunday night at Sedgefield Country Club and barely any light to see, Kuchar opted to mark his ball in the rough and not finish the tournament. His playing partners kept going, however, leaving Kuchar as the only player in the entire field needing to return on Monday morning in Greensboro, N.C., to finish what was less than a full hole.

“I think had I been in the fairway with a normal shot, I probably would have attempted to finish,” Kuchar said.

Kuchar’s move to wait until Monday morning held up the results of the tournament, but he did par the final hole and finished tied for 12th, six shots back of champion Aaron Rai. By waiting until Monday, when it was much easier to see what he needed to do, he earned roughly $55,000 more than if he bogeyed.

Rule 4.3 allows for the use of devices that determine distances while playing a round of golf. And it’s because of this rule, and the fact that many LPGA events permit their use, that you can give LPGA rookie Ana Pelaez Trivino a bit of a pass for getting disqualified from the AIG Women’s Open in late August.

Trivino had just made the cut for the first time in a major when she was informed she would no longer be playing on the weekend because her caddie had used a laser rangefinder. You might wonder why that would be cause for disqualification since the Rules of Golf permit them. However, the R&A, overseeing the event, had enacted a Model Local Rule that prohibits distance-measuring devices during the tournament.

Trivino’s caddie had used a rangefinder twice during the round. “I was trusting my caddie, and I didn’t read the little paper, which was my responsibility,” Trivino said after the DQ. “And he assumed you could use a laser like in every other tournament and didn’t read the little paper either.”

Ironically, if Trivino’s caddie had only used the device once, she would have been assessed only a two-stroke penalty and still could have finished the tournament.

Theegala gives golf a collective pat on the back by calling a penalty on himself

One of the things that happens practically nowhere else but golf is when a player in a tournament admits to breaking a rule—even when no one is watching. It’s a proud moment for all golfers. Do you think an offensive lineman would lean into a ref during the fourth quarter of a game and say, “Hey, I just held that guy.”

In a recent case of integrity, Sahith Theegala alerted rules official to a mistake he had made and in doing so, got hit with a two-shot penalty that could have cost him a chance at second place in the Tour Championship in September. Instead, he finished third and with $5 million less in his pocket.

The incident took place on the third hole of the third round at East Lake Golf Club. After hitting his tee shot into a fairway bunker, Theegala tried to get out, but thought he might have caught some sand on his club during his backswing. That is a violation of Rule 12.2b(1) and comes with a two-stroke penalty for grounding your club in a bunker. Theegala said he thought he saw some sand move in his peripheral vision and notified playing partner Xander Schauffele. Because it was inconclusive to either, they felt no penalty should be assessed. However, Theegala said he was 90-percent sure sand moved and a rules official explained that was enough evidence to assess the penalty.

Orlando Ramirez

Joel Dahmen hit with a four-shot penalty. Ouch!

Most golfers know there is a 14-club limit and carrying one extra, unless under very special and specific circumstances, is a penalty. Unfortunately, if discovered, it’s one of the toughest penalties short of being disqualified.

Joel Dahmen found that out the hard way at the Shriners Children’s Open in Las Vegas in October. He got to the fourth hole of the opening round before realizing he had 15 clubs in his bag. He says he was carrying two 4-irons. Rule 4.1b says it’s a two-stroke penalty for every hole you carry more than 14 clubs up to four strokes max. Meaning, once you violate the rule for more than two holes, you don’t have to worry about the penalty meter still running.

“Never happened to me before,” Dahmen said. “I travel with 15, 16 clubs. Most people out here do. I’d like it [sic] blame Geno (caddie Geno Bonnalie). That would be the easy thing to do. It’s not his fault either. I don’t know how it got there. It sucks.”

Wait, there’s worse! A seven-shot penalty?!? Talk about taking your medicine

There isn’t a golfer in the world, Tiger Woods included, willing to give the field seven shots while playing in a tournament. As it turns out, that’s what Anthony Quayle had to do in December at the Victoria PGA Championship in his native Australia, thanks to misreading a local rule in place for the event. Quayle thought the event was being played under preferred lies (lift, clean and place), only to be prompted to double check on the 15th hole of the opening round when another competitor asked him. It turned out, the rule was in effect for just one hole.

Quayle quickly summoned a rules official and figured out he had lifted his ball multiple times and placed it more than a few inches from where he picked it up. He also lifted and placed his ball back once in roughly the same spot. It was determined that Quayle would get two-shot penalties for all three times he played his ball from a wrong place (Rule 9.4) and a one-shot penalty for the time he put it back in the correct spot. If you’re doing the math, that’s seven strokes. He had to post a 73 instead of a 66.

To his credit, Quayle didn’t let his misfortunate ruin his tournament. He followed up with rounds of 66 and 69 to not only make the cut but finish in third place, two shots back of winner Cory Crawford. “I sort of want the story to be as good as it can be going forward,” Qualye said of his motivation to fight on. “It could be one that I remember for a long time.”

This article was originally published on golfdigest.com