OAKMONT, Pa. — Look, say what you will about Bryson DeChambeau, the man makes professional golf more interesting just by his existence. He pinballs his way through tournaments, often ending up on top of the leaderboard but always, always giving us something to discuss. He’s the finest content creator in the game, intentionally or not.
The latest installment: a short film we could call “Drop or Place?” DeChambeau was playing the par-5 4th hole in the first round of the U.S. Open and found a bunker off the tee. When he punched out of the bunker, his ball came to rest in one of Oakmont’s well-trod crosswalks. He decided to take a drop, which is his right. But instead of dropping, he simply placed the ball on the ground.
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Granted, if you’re not up on the rules of golf, that might not sound like a big deal. But It’s roughly analogous to a running back reaching the ball forward after he’s been tackled to add a few precious extra inches … it might not mean much, or it might mean keeping a drive alive.
Fair warning: if you’re a golf rules stickler, this will look like a slasher film to you.
Unlike that hypothetical running back, though, DeChambeau didn’t appear to be placing the ball out of any malicious intent; he seemed to simply get a bit turned around as he was attempting to navigate the thicket of rules that govern golf’s relief provisions. Fortunately for him, the rules official notified him of the mistake, and he properly dropped the ball. He would go on to par the hole.
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Regardless of what you think of the rule — or the difference between placing a ball on the ground and dropping it from knee height — DeChambeau would have been popped with a two-stroke penalty. That would have turned his rough-but-salvageable +3 round into a +5, putting him nine strokes behind clubhouse leader J.J. Spaun.
Rules controversies are nothing new at Oakmont. At the most recent U.S. Open here in 2016, Dustin Johnson, leading by a stroke, was popped with a two-stroke penalty on the 12th hole … for a violation that had happened back on the 5th. His ball had moved slightly — again with the minute violations — and while he was told by the official on-site that he was in the clear, officials reviewing the incident on video disagreed. Fortunately Johnson was able to contain himself and reclaim the lead and, eventually, the U.S. Open trophy.
Here’s betting DeChambeau’s near-disaster isn’t the only rules controversy we see this week. Oakmont has a way of beating its players into bad decisions.
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