French professional Julien Guerrier has been aiming to land a maiden DP World Tour title at this week’s Andalucia Masters, carding a stunning 62 on Thursday and a sublime 64 on Saturday to compliment his even-par Friday.
But as he faced a tough 18-hole battle with Spain’s Jorge Campillo at Real Club de Golf Sotogrande on Sunday, one moment shortly after the turn almost saw his chances of victory immediately go up in smoke.
As the pair of European leaders made the turn following a front nine of 33 apiece, the French player failed to cut his drive on the 10th – a 442-yard dogleg par-4 that was playing as one of the toughest holes.
Instead, Guerrier pulled his tee shot slightly and watched his golf ball sail towards the out-of-bounds markers.
On the TV broadcast, the commentators pondered where the 39-year-old might go from there before being interrupted by on-course analyst Wayne Riley who informed them Guerrier’s ball was not out of bounds and it had, helped by a hedge-like cushion, stayed on top of the wall which marks the line between safe and penalty stroke.
Sky Sports’ lead commentator revealed the broadcast team had met with tournament officials on Wednesday and they had explained that OB was, in fact, the other side of the wall, making Guerrier’s ball perfectly playable. The next problem for the Frenchman would be… how exactly to play it.
After speaking with a referee, Guerrier toyed with the idea of taking a drop but realized that would be unlikely to truly help him. Therefore, he opted to chop his golf ball off the top of the wall and back into the rough where he would take his chances on getting up and down for par from range.
Despite the smart thinking, Guerrier was unable to get down in four and settled for what was quite a good bogey in the end, all things considered. However, he had dropped two shots back of Campillo due to the Spaniard’s birdie on the same hole.
Remarkably, Guerrier responded with two birdies of his own over the subsequent pair of holes to retake the lead on his own.
Yet, the ding-dong battle turned back in favor of Campillo when Guerrier recorded a double bogey at the par-3 13th thanks to dunking his tee shot in the water left of the green.
With just a handful of holes to play, Campillo led Guerrier by one and Englishman Dan Brown by two strokes.
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