Lydia Ko tumbled down the leaderboard after getting seven penalty strokes.
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An odd yr for Lydia Ko has gotten even stranger.
On the eleventh gap through the ultimate spherical of the Dana Open Sunday, Ko marked her ball as if she was going to wash and exchange it, pondering most popular lies had been in play for the ultimate spherical.
Just one drawback. Preferred lies had been in play through the fourth spherical, however simply not on the eleventh gap. Or a lot of the holes at Highland Meadows Golf Club, the truth is. Even worse for Ko, this wasn’t the primary time she had made the error both.
Let’s return a bit.
With the forecast calling for heavy rain Saturday — that may ultimately droop play for practically 4 hours — LPGA officers made the choice to play most popular lies for the whole lot of the third spherical.
Then for the ultimate spherical, most popular lies had been solely in impact on Nos. 1 and 10, in response to an LPGA spokesperson.
Ko was unaware of this and performed most popular lies on the third, seventh and ninth fairways, going par-par-bogey on the three holes as a part of a birdie-less opening 9 of two-over 36.
It wasn’t until the eleventh when a rules official was notified Ko had been taking part in most popular lies when she known as for the ruling solely after marking her ball. She ended up getting two-stroke penalties for every of the primary 3 times she performed most popular lies on the entrance 9 after which bought a seventh penalty stroke on 11.
According to the spokesperson, since Ko didn’t exchange her ball to its unique place on the entrance 9, she was penalized for enjoying a ball from the flawed spot every time beneath rule 14.7a. However, on the eleventh, she was alerted to the infraction earlier than putting her ball once more. She changed it to its unique place, which means she solely bought solely a one-stroke penalty for intentionally touching and transferring her ball beneath rule 9.4b.
Due to rules confusion, U.S. Women’s Open competitor is DQ’d at Pebble Beach
Zephyr Melton
Her pars on 3 and 7 grew to become doubles whereas a bogey on 9 became a nasty triple. Ko hastily went from 4 beneath for the match to 2 over. She managed to make par on the eleventh and birdied the seventeenth to shoot a 78, ending T65. She dropped 41 spots from the place she had began the day.
It’s the second such instance of rules confusion resulting in a penalty on the LPGA Tour in as many weeks, albeit not as extreme. Natthakritta Vongtaveelap was disqualified through the first spherical of the U.S. Women’s Open after her caddie mistakenly used a spread finder. Range finders are usually allowed on the LPGA, however not on the U.S. Women’s Open or AIG Women’s Open.
The weird penalty continues a down yr for Ko who returned to kind in 2022, profitable 3 times and reclaiming World No. 1. Despite a win on the Ladies European Tour in January, she has solely completed higher than T31 one time, coming in her first begin in February when she completed T6.
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