On the first hole during the
final round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship, JB Holmes found some early
trouble and went afoul of the Rules, resulting in a rare “must correct”
situation.
Holmes
had pulled his tee shot on the first hole left of the fairway into the adjacent
water hazard. Under Rule 26-1c, one of
his options for relief, under penalty of one stroke, was to drop within two
club-lengths of a point on the opposite margin of the hazard that was
equidistant to the hole from the point where his ball last crossed the margin
of the lateral water hazard. However,
that is not where Holmes dropped a ball.
He correctly identified the equidistant point on the opposite margin,
but instead of dropping within two club-lengths, he dropped the ball about 25
yards back on a line that kept the equidistant point between where he dropped
the ball and the hole. This is a hybrid
between two options of the water hazard Rule and unfortunately when he played
the ball that meant he had played from a wrong place.
Holmes
played two more strokes before he was approached by officials at the putting
green who informed him of the incorrect drop and that the Committee considered
it to be a serious breach of playing from a wrong place. This is where the ruling gets interesting.
When
Holmes played from the wrong place, he incurred a penalty of two strokes,
regardless of whether the Committee deemed it to be a serious breach. The difference is that a serious breach of
playing from a wrong place (see Rule 20-7c) must be corrected prior to playing
from the next teeing ground or the player would be disqualified. Officials had
Holmes return to the hazard and drop a ball correctly under Rule 26-1c and play
the hole. The stroke played from the wrong
place and strokes continuing play of the hole from the wrong place do not count
his score.
The
most interesting part of the ruling is figuring out why this was considered a
serious breach. How to determine whether
a payer has played from a wrong place is given to us in Note 1 to Rule 20-7c,
which states that a serious breach of playing from a wrong place has occurred
when the “Committee considers he has gained a significant advantage as a result
of playing from a wrong place.” We get
two examples in the Decisions on the Rules of Golf to guide Committees in
making this determination:
1) Decision 26-1/11 states that if a player treats a regular
water hazard as a lateral water hazard by dropping in a place that allows the
competitor to avoid negotiating the hazard, he has committed a serious breach.
2) Decision 26-1/21 states that a player who drops 50 yards
or more closer to the hole than where the Rules require is guilty of a serious
breach of the water hazard Rule.
In Holmes’ case, he actually dropped
25 yards further from the hole than
where the Rule required, so why was it a serious breach? We have to go back to
Note 1 from Rule 20-7c: the Committee considered that Holmes had gained a
significant advantage by dropping further back at a spot that allowed him to
play a 3-wood over the trees. The spot
where he was required to drop would not have permitted him to do so.
Ultimately, whether a played has committed a serious breach is the Committee’s
decision, not the player’s. In this case it is perfectly plausible to state the
ability for a tour pro to use a 280 yard club, rather than a 180 or 200 yard
punch shot club was a significant advantage. In the end, Holmes made a 7 on the
hole, including the two-stroke penalty for playing from a wrong place in breach
of the water hazard rule (Rule 26) and the one-stroke penalty for taking relief
from the water hazard.