20.08.2022: Jon Rahm has battled through the initial phases of the BMW Championship, posting a 73 during Thursday’s most memorable round and afterward beginning Friday’s second round with intruder on two of his initial seven openings.
However, that didn’t stop the world’s fifth-positioned player from stepping in when a PGA Tour rules official seemed prepared to punish Hideki Matsuyama after the 2021 Masters champion took a work on swing from the harsh close by a shelter on No. 7 just to see the ball roll then, at that point, back in the shelter.
Matsuyama’s swing wasn’t close to the ball, and he quickly gazed toward his caddie with sickening apprehension when he understood it had dropped in the sand. Since the ball was resting in an off-kilter spot right external the shelter, the Japanese champion would have expected to swing while at the same time remaining inside the dugout to have any shot at getting the ball close to the banner.
A guidelines official came over and inquired as to whether the ball had moved because of Matsuyama’s swing, and Rahm stepped in to demand that was not the situation.
The authority likewise got some information about the course of events of the ball’s development — on the off chance that it came straightforwardly after Matsuyama’s work on swing.
“It might have fallen out of the blue,” Rahm said. “He didn’t make it move.”
Hideki Matsuyama was allowed to play his shot from the bunker with no penalty after his ball rolled in from its initial position. pic.twitter.com/vBeNN9srdM
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 19, 2022
After a conversation, the guidelines official permitted Matsuyama to play the ball from the shelter, a lot more straightforward shot than the one he recently confronted.
Matsuyama, who opened with birdies on four of the past six openings, hit his sand wedge to inside 11 feet and made the standard putt to remain 5 under for the competition.
As indicated by the Rules of Golf:
Rule 9: Ball Played as It Lies; Ball at Rest Lifted or Moved
Reason for Rule: Rule 9 covers a focal standard of the game: “play the ball as it lies.”
On the off chance that the player’s ball stops and is, moved by regular powers, for example, wind or water, the player typically should play it from its new spot.
In the event that a ball very still is lifted or moved by anybody or any external impact before the stroke is made, the ball should be supplanted on its unique spot.
Players ought to take care when close to any ball very still, and a player who prompts their own ball or a rival’s ball to move will regularly get a punishment (besides on the putting green).
Since the swing and the ball development happened simultaneously, rules authorities might in any case take a gander at the video and change any decision.