Golf is a fickle sport, with ancient rules that are seemingly in a constant state of being changed to keep up with evolution of the game.
Over the years these rules have yielded all kinds of wild occurrences, from players missing out on play-offs at majors, losing massive amounts of prizemoney or being sent home early.
What follows is proof that even the game’s elite players can fall foul of the rules book and we should learn a lesson from their mistakes.
DUSTIN JOHNSON
2010 PGA Championship
Playing the 18th hole at the 2010 PGA Championship, Dustin Johnson hit his drive into what was designated as a waste bunker.
There are more than 1,000 waste bunkers scattered across the Whistling Straits course, but by late on the final afternoon of a major championship some of these waste areas had become indistinguishable from trampled down, sandy turf.
Prior to the start of the tournament, a local rule was posted in the locker room, making all bunkers – waste or otherwise – to be defined and play like bunkers. In short, Johnson could not ground his club in sandy wasteland without incurring a penalty.
Strangely, perhaps caught up in the moment, or being naïve of the local rule change (which he confessed later) Johnson grounded his club in the ‘bunker’ to play his second shot into the 18th green.
Should the rules official accompanying Johnson’s pairing have said something when the trampled ground with drink cans and food-wrapping litter was where his ball came to rest? Probably. Did the rules official say anything? No. Johnson probably should have asked for a ruling.
But none of that happened. Johnson, who had just birdied 16 and 17 to take a one-stroke lead while trying to win his first major championship, grounded his club and hit his second shot. Moments later when he putted out for his bogey, he thought he had tied for the lead and would be in a play-off.
That was when a PGA rules officials approached him before he left the green and revealed his infraction. He was slapped with a two-stroke penalty, missed the play-off with Martin Kaymer and Bubba Watson, and missed out on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizemoney.
WHAT IS THE RULE?
Rule 12.2b – Restrictions on touching sand in a bunker. Two strokes (stroke play), loss of hole (match
