Viktor Hovland was absolved of any penalty on Sunday for brushing the sand during the final round of the Tour Championship in Atlanta in a ruling that saved him $3 million.
Hovland caught the left greenside bunker at East Lake’s par-4 13th hole. Close-up, television camera footage as well as slow-motion replay from CBS Sports showed his sand wedge nearly made contact with the sand before he made his third stroke.
Advertisement
PGA Tour rules official Mark Dusbabek said the Tour received multiple inquiries concerning whether Hovland grounded his club in the sand. The rule in question is 12.2b: a golfer cannot deliberately touch the sand in the bunker with their hand, club, rake or any other object. Breach of this rule results in a two-shot penalty in stroke-play events.
“We’ve looked at this video, and it does not appear to us that he touched the sand, so it would not be a penalty in this case,” Dusbabek concluded.
Hovland, the 54-hole leader, blasted out to 18 feet from the hole and made bogey at 13 en route to posting 2-over 72 and finished second at 13 under, three shots behind eventual winner Scottie Scheffler and one clear of Ryan Gerard. But the Norwegian still took home $5 million for his week’s work, or a half million more than Rory McIlroy’s first prize for winning the Masters.
Advertisement
Had Hovland been penalized two strokes, his bogey would have been changed to a triple bogey on the hole and he would have finished in an eight-way for third at 11 under, and earned $1,956,875, a difference of slightly more than $3 million.
It was reminiscent of two years ago in the third round at the Tour Championship when Sahith Theegala self-reported a similar infraction on the third hole at East Lake after claiming he accidentally moved sand in a greenside bunker. Video was inconclusive but Theegala insisted he be penalized. “I felt like I moved a few grains of sand for sure,” he said. The two-stroke swing meant he earned $2.5 million less that week.
Hovland was not asked about the potential infraction after the round but expressed his disappointment that his swing didn’t hold up under the pressure of the final round.
“It’s just frustrating when I see the same misses coming back time and time again. The first few days, I felt like I still wasn’t swinging it all that great, but the ball went straight. On Sunday, I still wasn’t swinging it great, and now the ball went sideways. When that happens, it just doesn’t feel like I could have done much,” he said. “Just trying to battle it out, and actually proud of the way I was able to will myself into the tournament.”
Adam Schupak is a senior writer for Golfweek, covering the PGA Tour.
This article originally appeared on Golfweek: Viktor Hovland avoids penalty in bunker ruling that could’ve cost him $3 million
Read the full article here