NAPA, Calif. – As the longtime PGA professional at El Prado Golf Course in Chino Hills, California, Rick Hunter taught his students that if they cheated on the golf course, they wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.
During the third round of the 2024 Tour Championship in Atlanta, Sahith Theegala, Hunter’s most famous student, reported a penalty on himself at the third hole, immediately calling over playing partner Xander Schauffele and notifying a rules official that he believed he may have touched a grain of sand in a bunker on his backswing, a violation of Rule 12.2b, testing the sand. Not even video could determine conclusively whether Theegala had grazed the sand but he was docked two strokes. He earned $7.5 million for finishing third but had he not been penalized he would have earned $10 million and tied Collin Morikawa for second place.
“Pretty sure I breached the rules, so I’m paying the price for it, and I feel good about it,” Theegala said after the fact.
His honesty cost him $2.5 million. When pressed on the matter, Theegala said, “I wouldn’t be able to sleep [if I didn’t call the penalty].”
“Sure enough, the exact phrase I always taught him, that’s what he came up with,” Hunter said. “But the way he handled the (infraction) was a reflection of the kind of person he is.”
To Theegala, he simply couldn’t have lived with himself if he hadn’t spoken up on what he described as “90 percent sure” he touched the sand.
Sahith Theegala self-reported a two-stroke penalty for touching the sand with his club during his backswing.
He currently moves from -13 to -11, but will have the opportunity to review the penalty with a rules official following his round. pic.twitter.com/rLAgGJGZ5c
— PGA TOUR (@PGATOUR) August 31, 2024
“I guess it was just the way my dad instilled values in me as a kid with golf specifically and my mom with the non-golf stuff,” he said. “It was just second nature. I felt I did something wrong, I just want to clear it up.”
As for the FedEx Cup Playoffs overall, Theegala described it as a rollercoaster ride. He was disappointed in his performance at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, where he finished T-46. Then he injured the hamate bone on his right hand on the Tuesday before the BMW Championship.
“It was just out of place and it was just pressing on a ligament and it was just painful,” he said. “We got it back in. It still hurt a lot, but it was back in.”
He sat out the pro-am…
..
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Golfweek…