For the average golfer playing with their buddies on the weekend, it may not be a big deal if you play lift, clean and place after the local muni course got a bunch of rain the night before.
However, on the LPGA Tour, they’re able to only make certain holes preferred lies during a specific round, which is what they did for the final round at the Dana Open at Highland Meadows Golf Club in Sylvania, Ohio.
The problem was that apparently, no one told Lydia Ko that.
After the course took on some rain heading into the weekend — including a downpour that forced a four-hour rain delay on Saturday — the LPGA put preferred lies into place for the third round, but only on holes No. 1 and No. 10 for the final round.
Ko was unaware of this and played preferred lies on the 3rd, 7th and 9th fairways, going par-par-bogey on the three holes as part of a birdie-less opening nine of two-over 36.
On the 11th hole, a rules official was notified Ko had been playing preferred lies when she called for the ruling only after marking her ball. She ended up getting two-stroke penalties for each of the first three times she played preferred lies on the front nine and then got a seventh penalty stroke on 11.
After a rules misunderstanding at the Dana Open, Lydia Ko was hit with seven penalty strokes.https://t.co/EKnj8Xgue0
— GOLF.com (@GOLF_com) July 17, 2023
According to the spokesperson, since Ko did not replace her ball to its original position on the front nine, she was penalized for playing a ball from the wrong spot each time under Rule 14.7a.
However, on the 11th, she was alerted to the infraction before placing her ball again. She replaced it to its original position, meaning she only got only a one-stroke penalty for deliberately touching and moving her ball under Rule 9.4b.
This took Ko from 4-under par to 2-over par for the tournament. She managed to make par on the 11th and birdied the 17th to shoot a 78, finishing T65. She dropped 41 spots from where she had started the day.
It’s the second example of rules confusion leading to a penalty on the LPGA Tour in as many weeks.
Natthakritta Vongtaveelap was disqualified during the first round of the U.S. Women’s Open after her caddie mistakenly used a range finder. Range finders are typically allowed on the LPGA Tour, but not at the U.S. Women’s Open or AIG Women’s Open.
