At the PGA Tour’s opening round, Justin Rose inadvertently struck playing partner Taylor Moore’s ball instead of his own, earning him the wrath of the rules, but the Englishman was not at fault.
Just a few days into the new PGA Tour season, Ryder Cup hero Justin Rose has already provided a very strange moment.
The 43-year-old is one of 59 competitors in The Sentry in Hawaii, where a $20 million (£15.8 million) purse is up for grabs. However, on the first day of competition, he struck a playing partner’s ball instead of his own, severely hurting his chances.
Rose, who played for Europe in October’s Ryder Cup victory, was one shot over par going into the 537-yard par-four seventh hole in Kapalua with Taylor Moore and Andrew Putnam in his group. When the three of them teed off and found the short grass, they would have been thrilled with how it appeared from the tee box.
Rose’s shot traveled the farthest, landing in the right half of the fairway at 359 yards, according to data from the PGA Tour website. Moore’s shot followed a similar trajectory but was 37 yards shorter. Putnam struck the middle of the fairway with his 331-yard bomb.
When Rose made his approach shot and the ball landed safely on the dance floor, everything appeared to be as it always had. However, Rose was seen with his hands on his head and Moore staring at him in the Golf Channel coverage.
Soon after, it was evident that Rose had struck the American’s ball rather than his own, as microphones recording the incident caught Moore saying, “Sorry, dude.” Rose had been using a ball with a “2” marked on it for the first six holes of the round, and Moore had also been using a ball with a “2” marking because he hadn’t told his playing partners he had switched balls during the round.
Consequently, the confusion. Ultimately, most tour players use a limited number of different golf ball models, primarily the Titleist Pro V1 and TaylorMade TP5 models. Considering that MacKenzie Hughes’ penalty at the 2023 Farmers Insurance Open was the most recent infraction on tour, it may come as a surprise that incidents like this don’t happen more frequently.
Rose was fined two strokes for the infraction, which was against Rule 6.3c. The Englishman dealt with the situation as a seasoned veteran would have, bringing it up right away with rules officials. Rose would have been eliminated if neither he nor his playing partners had discovered the infraction until the hole was finished.
In the end, he left the seventh with a double bogey six, making a par four with his own ball before the penalty was added. Moore’s ball was replaced adjacent to where his tee shot landed to ensure he had a near identical lie and he got down in four for the par. He was not penalised.
“Very unfortunate situation,” rules official Mark Dusbabek told Golf Channel. “Justin Rose had to take a two-stroke penalty. Getting the ball back into play for Taylor is the issue. The lie was altered once he played that shot. So Taylor is allowed to have a clean lie like he normally would’ve had there and was able to place his ball in the nearest, most similar lie.”
Rose did not let the moment overwhelm him, responding well to claw back the lost shots and card a two-under-par round of 71. Heading into day three, he is tied for 52nd at six-under. Scottie Scheffler leads the way at 16-under par, one shot clear of Tyrrell Hatton, Brendon Todd and Sungjae Im.
