Justin Thomas pleads with 2 officials over ruling

Not all tire tracks on the Albany Golf Course are created equal, it appears. 

And due to that, not all reduction rulings from tire tracks on the Albany Golf Course are the identical, both. 

Justin Thomas is cognizant of that now, although forward of this week, he hadn’t absolutely been.  

“I just had never heard that before,” he stated. 

To begin right here, throughout Thursday’s first spherical of the Hero World Challenge, Thomas went left with his tee shot on the sixth gap at Albany, and his ball completed in a sandy space — and amongst tire tracks. Here’s the place it will get a bit difficult. To be aware first, the Albany sandy areas are usually not thought of bunkers.    

And tire tracks usually don’t afford gamers reduction under Rule 16.1 (irregular course circumstances). But match committees can elect to take action, and the Hero has — however just for sure tire tracks. So Thomas went to work. 

He known as over one official. He was denied. Then one other. He was denied once more. 

But why? Wasn’t Thomas in a tire monitor? Yes — however it wasn’t “extreme” sufficient. 

At Albany, there are quite a lot of tire tracks. So reduction is set on a case-by-case foundation, in accordance with chief referee Stephen Cox. 

Here is his full clarification, as supplied to GOLF.com by way of an e mail on Saturday:

“In an try to take care of consistency, the PGA Tour Rules Committee usually employs the next technique at programs that possess taking part in areas that include dune land or sandy areas.

“Surface imperfections in the sand (whether those be footprints or tire tracks) are to be expected. Such areas are not considered to be abnormal in nature and are a challenge of playing the course. In circumstances when such conditions are extreme (such as a severe vehicle rut where the player cannot get the club on the ball) the Committee may grant relief under Rule 16.1.”

So Thomas performed on, and he parred the outlet. 

On Friday, after his Hero second spherical, Thomas was requested about all of it. 

Notably, he stated he was considerably confused over the match’s definition. 

“I never — it was always my — yeah, it was always my understanding if you’re in a tire track, you get relief,” he stated. “I used to be extra calling a guidelines official over as courtesy to sort of speak me by way of it. He got here over and stated as a result of there’s sand in all places right here, you realize, it’s fairly frequent and also you get quite a lot of tire tracks and it simply must be deep sufficient. 

“Again, it’s simply a kind of guidelines, there’s no outlined ‘deep,’ provided that you sort of can’t get the membership on the ball sort of state of affairs. 

“The path I used to be going, yeah, it undoubtedly may have been deeper, however I had sufficient stuff behind my ball the place I couldn’t go the route I needed to go due to the tire monitor. 

“I called a second opinion because I just had never heard that before. I asked if it was on the local rule sheet because again, it’s not something that we normally play. And they said it wasn’t, but they had just spoken about it in a rules meeting, but we’re not in those rules meetings.”

Thomas then had yet one more thought. 

“The moral of the story is just to hit the fairway and not have to deal with it,” he stated. 

“But I learned yesterday, that it has to be deep enough, which whatever that is.”

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Nick Piastowski

Golf.com Editor

Nick Piastowski is a Senior Editor at Golf.com and Golf Magazine. In his position, he’s answerable for enhancing, writing and growing tales throughout the golf area. And when he’s not writing about methods to hit the golf ball farther and straighter, the Milwaukee native might be taking part in the sport, hitting the ball left, proper and brief, and consuming a chilly beer to scrub away his rating. You can attain out to him about any of those subjects — his tales, his recreation or his beers — at nick.piastowski@golf.com.