Place That Club Carefully Behind The Ball, Kids: Knox and McNealy Penalties At Pebble
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One of the more bizarre changes in player behavior of the last five or so years has to be the way players ground their club behind the ball. Often, not gently and occasionally, for questionable reasons (Brooks Koepka called this practice out last year.)
That said, two players who had no intention of improving their lie suffered one-shot penalties that played a role in the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am’s outcome. (Video of both incidents below and to the credit of the PGA Tour, remains posted online.)
Saturday, Maverick McNealy placed his club behind a ball sitting high in the rough and it moved. The PGA Tour referrees assessed a penalty under Rule 9-4.
Sunday, it was Russell Knox in the first fairway and on live television. His penalty assessment did not come until he was on 5th hole once officials reviewed the tape. (Eventual winner Daniel Berger was a witness struggling to get clarity on the current rule, one appears confusing to players believing inadvertent actions such as this were changed in the 2019 rules revision).
From Keith Jackson, quoting Knox on his penalty.
Asked to explain the events of the first hole, Knox gave a firm indication of his mood when he said: "Yeah, I wanted to tee my ball up in the fairway to gain an advantage but sadly I got caught, which sucked!
"But, no, I just was getting comfortable a little. I guess I put the club down, moved up, a little waggle, came down and the ball just creeped a little bit, and then obviously I was deemed to have addressed it. And even after I kind of walked away, the ball still moved a little further, like 30 seconds later, which was weird.
"It's just one of those horrible rules which every one of us is against. There's no advantage gained in any way, and it happened to Maverick McNealy yesterday, my playing partner, so it's just, it's one of those kind of horrible rules that got me on the first hole.
"At first, the ruling was that I didn't cause it to move, because it was such a grey area there, and ultimately we got it right and I did address the ball, so I should have been penalised. Obviously it's a rule which I wish they would eliminate."
McNealy’s ball was perched high after taking embedded ball relief. James Raia reports for the Monterey County Herald on another bad break.
“We made the right call and we have the best rules staff in golf, but it was an unfortunate situation,” McNealy said. “I flew it over the green with my pitching wedge and it embedded. I took a drop, relief from the embed and when the ball landed, it popped back out of where I dropped it
“It was kind of perched on the back of that little hole it made. And when I looked at it, as I addressed the ball I was being very careful, because I thought it was in a very precarious spot, but it fell forward back into that hole and ended up being a one-shot penalty.”
The two incidents:
