Ko Struggles To 75 After Taking Controversial Unplayable
/Lydia Ko is donating her earnings in this week's Volunteers of America North Texas Shootout to earthquake relief for Nepal, so her opening 75 no doubt upset someone not used to posting big scores. 
And the round came with a controversial drop, as Randall Mell explains.
Ko was 2 under par in her round when she hit her approach shot at the 14th hole long and left. She tried to hit a lob over a tree blocking her route to the green, but her ball caught up in a branch and never came down.
With Hamilton in the tree, Ko asked why they had to free the ball if they were going to take an unplayable.
“We have to identify it,” Hamilton told her.
Shortly after, LPGA rules official Brad Alexander arrived. He told Ko she could take an unplayable lie based on witness accounts of the ball going into the tree. She took a penalty stroke and a drop near the tree. If the ball had been declared lost, Ko would have been required to take a penalty and also return to where she struck the last shot. She would have had to drop and play from there.
Caddie Jason Hamilton's climbing effort, while noble, didn't quiet some grumbling on social media about the attempts to shake the ball loose and the unplayable lie verdict.
The LPGA rules staff held firm to their conclusion according to a statement to GolfChannel.com.
The officials involved in the ruling with Lydia Ko today on the 14th hole referenced Decision 27/12 to support their ruling. Due to the fact that it was roughly a 30-yard shot, the spectators were able to see Lydia’s ball from start to finish and therefore provided indisputable evidence that the ball in the tree was indeed Lydia’s ball. Therefore the ball did not need to be identified as it was never lost. The USGA confirmed that in a situation where observers indisputably saw the player’s ball in motion come to rest in a specific location at which the ball remains visible, the ball has been identified as the player’s ball. Thus, since the ball in the tree was deemed as Lydia's ball, she was then able to proceed under Rule 28 – Ball Unplayable.
