Unusual: No penalty points for a ball that disappears!

An incident during the 2nd round of this week’s PGA Tour tournament in Detroit allowed us to discover a new subtlety in the rules of golf. It is possible to “lose” your ball and not receive a penalty.

It’s a ball that should have been found right in the middle of the fairway which gave rise to a rather funny discussion between Akshay Bhatia and a referee during the 2nd round of Rocket Mortgage Classic.

We thought that the play of the winner of the Valero Texas Open had split the fairway in two, but not to the point of disappearing into the bowels of the course!

In reality she plunged into one of the openings of a drain placed there!

“I’m pretty sure it’s a Callaway ball at the bottom.” explained a rather worried Akshay Bhatia to the official as he leaned down to try to identify his ball.

But the referee immediately reassured him by explaining that in this specific case, it was not necessary to recover it. “We don’t need to find her.”

” Are you sure ?” answers the 22-year-old player, surprised but still smiling.

Thanks to this decision, the 29th player in the world was able to sign the par and maintain the lead of the tournament on Friday evening. Note that Bhatia returned his 8th card of the season of 66 or less on Thursday! No one has done better in 2024 on the PGA Tour.

©PGA Tour