When Rory McIlroy missed his tee shot right of Harding Park’s third green, the usual army of volunteers and three-deep crowds was not there to direct him to the ball. After his group that included Tiger Woods and Justin Thomas had hit their approaches, the marshals on hand headed to the green’s right side. It was down deep.
According to Kama Yechoor, a volunteer who had finished his shift and was watching the group, those on hand were looking for the ball in an area pin-high right. Turns out, Rory had not flown nearly that far and the ball was sitting well down somewhere beside the fronting greenside bunker.
Jane Crafter, a former LPGA great and longtime commentator working ESPN’s Featured Group coverage, approached the scene to assess the tee shots and was going to help the search. Everyone this week is a marshal without spectators. No one wants to see a player lose a ball. Even though the bluegrass roughs were topped off at 3.5 inches, the tall stuff is already a stout five inches in shaded areas.
“I didn’t see it, but I felt it,” Crafter said. She stepped on McIlroy’s ball as she approached.
When McIlroy and caddie Harry Diamond arrived, Crafter was told what had happened, according to Yechoor. He called for a ruling.
The task fell to Mark Dusbabek, a roving official working as part of the PGA of America’s rules team this week situated off the nearby 13th fairways. He is also a full-time PGA Tour rules official and before that, a former linebacker who played three years for the Minnesota Vikings.
Dusbabek told McIlroy that he was entitled to replace the ball under rule 14-2, which addresses a ball at rest moved by an outside agency. Since Crafter did not see the lie, Dusbabek told McIlroy that they had to “estimate what the lie was.”
So McIlroy placed the ball down next to the spot where it had been embedded, laying it on top of the dense rough. Dusbabek, kneeling low and conversing quietly with McIlroy, looked at the two-time former PGA Champion.
“He said he didn’t feel comfortable with it sitting on top like that,” Dusbabek said.
Dusbabek told McIlroy he could place it to how he thought it might have sat before the accidental embedding.
“No one really knew what the lie was, but if everyone is going around looking for it, it obviously wasn't too good,” McIlroy said after the round. “So I placed it, I was like, that just doesn't look right to me. So I just placed it down a little bit.”
Not giving himself an advantage all but ruled out saving par after short-siding himself with the tee shot.
“It was a better lie than he probably would have had since I couldn’t see it,” Crafter said. “But he certainly did not give himself much to work with.”
After a second round 69 that included six birdies and a triple bogey, McIlroy explained his thinking.
“You know, at the end of the day, golf is a game of integrity and I never try to get away with anything out there. I'd rather be on the wrong end of the rules rather than on the right end because as golfers, that's just what we believe. Yeah, I would have felt pretty wrong if I had of taken a lie that was maybe a little better than what it was previously.”
Given the recent efforts of some elite players to fiddle with or overtly stomp on the spirit of the game, McIlroy’s instinct to not abuse the rules seemed especially refreshing.
