Golf

Farmers Insurance leader narrowly avoids crushing penalty

Sam Ryder narrowly escaped catastrophe on Sunday on the Farmers Insurance Open.

CBS Golf

There are unhealthy drops, after which there are unhealthy drops.

Farmers Insurance Open leader Sam Ryder narrowly averted the latter on Sunday afternoon at Torrey Pines.

The state of affairs arose on the fifteenth gap, when Ryder approached his tee shot within the right-side tough whereas clinging to a one-stroke lead.

As Ryder drew nearer to the ball, viewers at dwelling may sense his nerves. The 33-year-old was closing in on what would have been his first-ever PGA Tour victory at an iconic U.S. Open venue. He was attempting to fend off a leaderboard that featured names like Rahm and Morikawa, Homa and Matsuyama. His mother nervously paced close by, carrying the entire agony of a final-round lead at one of many Tour’s harshest assessments.

Ryder and his caddie, Brent Everson, chatted shortly as they surveyed the ball within the tough. It was buried. Ryder would wish to take a mighty lash simply to make sure the ball would return to the golf green. From there, it was anybody’s guess.

After a couple of minutes of chatter, each males settled on a membership. Ryder reached into the bag, pulled out an iron and … thud. It tumbled out of his fingers and adopted the pull of gravity immediately towards Earth. As the membership fell, it tracked proper within the route of Ryder’s ball, falling simply inches away from his speck of white within the grass.

On the CBS broadcast, Trevor Immelman and Jim Nantz had been perturbed.

“Oh look out!” Immelman cried because the community confirmed the replay.

“That was before,” Nantz echoed. “…And that came close to making contact with the ball.”

For Ryder, the influence of his membership grazing his ball may have been calamitous. Per rule 9.4B of the rules of golf, any contact with the ball inside the subject of play — unintentional or not — when a stroke has not been made ends in a one-stroke penalty. Had Ryder made contact with the ball, he would have been assessed a one-stroke penalty and performed the ball from the unique spot.

Fortunately, Ryder’s membership fell safely into the turf, unaffected by any white-dimpled objects inside its orbit. Unfortunately, the nice break for Ryder didn’t lead to his first-career PGA Tour victory. He would go on to make bogey on the fifteenth, and would fall finally to Max Homa, who left the Farmers Insurance Open the champion on Sunday.

James Colgan

Golf.com Editor

James Colgan is an assistant editor at GOLF, contributing tales for the web site and journal. He writes the Hot Mic, GOLF’s weekly media column, and makes use of his broadcast expertise throughout the model’s social media and video platforms. A 2019 graduate of Syracuse University, James — and evidently, his golf sport — remains to be defrosting from 4 years within the snow. Prior to becoming a member of GOLF, James was a caddie scholarship recipient (and astute looper) on Long Island, the place he’s from. He will be reached at james.colgan@golf.com.


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