Dustin Johnson kicked out of USPGA for not sticking to the rules
Dustin Johnson might have won the USPGA championship, if he would not have been kicked out of the playoff at the Whistling Straits.
Johnson was 1 shot ahead of the first group with 12 under par after delivering a birdie on the 17th hole, when he took his tee shot from the 18th aiming towards the gallery lining the hole. However, when he found the ball, it was lying on a small heap of sand, which didn’t resemble anything like a sand bunker. Dustin took his shot towards the green but the shot was short of 203 yards, and hence landed in the rough on the left. To Dustin’s demise, he took off with another par putt of eight feet but because of the wrong amount of pressure on the club, the par putt turned out to be another bogey. The consequences of the miscalculation turned out to be a playoff.
However, it was not long enough when an official took a notice right after the completion of the final round that the heap of sand on which Dustin Johnson tapped and grounded his club was real a sand bunker. Since spectators and other players were walking all day on it; the sand bunker could not be identified. According to the rules and regulations set by ARC, if a bunker was outside the range of a rope or unraked, it was still to be treated as a bunker. A ball landing on the bunker is just like ending up in a hazard. Finally, after 15 minutes it was officially announced that Dustin Johnson had breached a rule, and was out of the playoff because of the double bogey being posted on his scorecard. Once fumbled in US open 2004, the golfer fumbled yet again.
When asked from Dustin Johnson how he felt about his fate that landed him in hot water, he replied, “If it was up to me, I wouldn't have thought I was in a bunker, but it's not up to me, it's up to the Rules Committee, so I've got to deal with it."
According to the Mark Wilson, the co-chairman of the PGA of America Rules Committee, “the rules were defined clearly and it was made apparent that all the sand bunkers are to be treated like ones. If a player does not take care of this sensitive issue then he has to bear the consequences.”
Moving forward to other players on the course, the next contender who was in the limelight was 31-year-old Bubba Watson, who entered the playoff with the 25-year-old Martin Kaymer. Watson began the playoff by driving the 10th hole of par 4, later delivering a 2-feet birdie putt and getting a one-stroke lead over his German fellow golfer. Martin responded to this birdie shot by hitting a tee shot to 15-feet on the 17th hole of par 3 and drained a birdie putt. Those two birdies set the decision to the last 18th hole. However, Bubba Watson did not give up, and tried to make his way onto the greens after facing the water hazard with a double bogey but the crown was already stolen by the German Kaymer.
Bubba Watson finished second, and managed to vault his way to the third spot in the Ryder Cup points table. The USPGA was the last event for the 31-year-old to qualify for the Ryder Cup Team. According to the media reports, Bubba Watson finished in the first spot of the driving distance throughout the week. Second to him was Dustin Johnson with 304 yards.
The final round of the USPGA championship finished on 15th August, despite the delays given by the fog prevailing on the course of Whistling Straits situated on the lake of Michigan .According to the experts, some players had their luck and their career revived like Tiger Woods, while others saw the Claret Jug slip away from their hands, but on the whole the championship was fascinating and like all other events it too had some amazing stories. For the ones who are interested in the insight happenings, don’t miss the upcoming article!
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