Tour Pros at the Hero World Challenge (opens in new tab) were ‘infuriated’ with the muddy conditions at the event, as a number of players found themselves identifying balls in the middle of fairways and seeking help from rules’ officials.
PGA Tour officials had allowed players to pick and place their golf balls during rounds one and two under local rules, due the course experiencing adverse weather before the tournament began. However, going into round three, these rules were changed as the course was considered to be dry enough and the preferred lies’ ruling was abolished.
During round three, this caused major uproar between players as they disagreed with the ruling due to balls still being covered in mud (opens in new tab) even in the fairway. Kevin Kisner said he was ‘shocked’ with the decision.
Justin Thomas’ ball during round three of the Hero World Challenge
(Image credit: Getty Images)
“Absolutely shocked, yeah,” Kisner said of the Tour’s decision. “No. 4, [I] had a 4-iron in with mud all on the left side with wind off the left and lost the ball left of the green. Pretty hard to aim it in the middle of that. But the leaders aren’t having any problems, so wasn’t too hard for everyone.”
Did Kisner have a point? Well, kind of. Scoring in the third round was almost two-strokes lower than the first two rounds which saw players dealing with gusts of wind up to 30mph. By the same token, Viktor Hovland (opens in new tab) was on hand to put this argument to bed, as he managed to increase his lead over Scottie Scheffler by three shots, carding 10 birdies in his third round under the exact same conditions.
In fact, Hovland’s playing partner during round three, Cameron Young (opens in new tab), experienced some poor lies which resulted in his score being severely affected, especially after a mud ball caused him a costly bogey on the par-5 11th before making another one at the 15th.
An exciting final round is in store at the Hero World Challenge 👀(Presented by @Rolex) pic.twitter.com/KUBvOroPqKDecember 4, 2022
Two time Major champion, Justin Thomas, wasn’t sure if he did agree with the Tour’s decision to play the ball as it lies in round three, but declared ‘it is what it is’ and acknowledged that it was certainly debatable.
“I was joking with Tiger (Woods) and I said to Billy (Horschel) today, too, like I wish we could play it up after our tee shot and down around the green because I think playing it up is a huge…
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