Mark Hubbard, proven eventually week’s World Wide Technology Championship.
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Mark Hubbard, after a sequence wherein he reportedly believed his driver wasn’t working to his liking, will now be at house this weekend.
In quick, Hubbard was disqualified Friday after the second spherical of the Houston Open due to a violation of Rule 4.1c, and that information was additionally the primary sentence of a tweet from the PGA Tour Communications account early Friday afternoon. But the route to get there was little doubt weird.
To start, Hubbard shot a five-over 75 throughout Thursday’s first spherical at Memorial Park, then opened Friday’s second with a four-over entrance 9. It was right here, in accordance to a message to GOLF.com from a Tour spokesman, the place Hubbard added a brand new driver to his 14-club bag. And when he hit the fifteenth membership, he was performed.
You might have some questions right here, and we’ll strive to clear issues up. Let’s begin with the disqualification and the rule behind it. You can’t play with greater than 14 golf equipment, and that’s covered by Rule 4.1b. The rule is layered, although. If a participant learns of the violation throughout the spherical, they’re to declare a membership out of play, and “the player gets the general penalty (two penalty strokes) for each hole where a breach happened, with a maximum of four penalty strokes in the round (adding two penalty strokes at each of the first two holes where a breach happened).”
But what if a participant knowingly provides a membership throughout a spherical, like Hubbard did? Rule 4.1b begins to handle this, saying “If the player added excess clubs during the round, those added clubs are the ones that must be taken out of play.” That leads us to Rule 4.1c, which covers the process for taking a membership out of play. That rule states:
“When a participant turns into conscious throughout a spherical that she or he is in breach of Rule 4.1b(1), (2) or (3) for having greater than 14 golf equipment or for making a stroke with one other participant’s membership, the participant should instantly take an motion that clearly signifies every membership that’s being taken out of play.
“This could also be performed both by: Declaring this to the opponent in match play or the marker or one other participant within the group in stroke play, or Taking another clear motion (akin to turning the membership the wrong way up within the bag, inserting it on the ground of the golf cart or giving the membership to one other individual).
“The player must not make a stroke for the rest of the round with any club taken out of play.”
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In Hubbard’s case, in accordance to the Tour, he didn’t declare the added driver out of play, and he hit it. And a violation of Rule 4.1c is a DQ.
But why would Hubbard play the brand new driver? An electronic mail to Hubbard’s agent was not instantly returned to GOLF.com, nor was a request to communicate to a guidelines official, however in accordance to a narrative from Golf Channel’s Brentley Romine, Hubbard stated he was not getting the appropriate spin he wished from the unique driver, so he made the transfer on the flip. Notably, Hubbard double-bogeyed his first gap on Friday after hitting into the appropriate tough off the tee, hit into the appropriate tough once more on the third, fifth and eighth holes and was within the fairway on the fourth and sixth holes. (Holes two, seven and 9 are par-3s.) After the swap, Hubbard hit 4 of seven fairways.
But didn’t Hubbard know concerning the rule in play? And the potential DQ?
According to the Golf Channel story, Hubbard believed he can be hit with simply the four-shot penalty.
He then completed his spherical and was finally instructed he was mistaken.
