“Never heard that before” - Justin Thomas expresses surprise at unfamiliar golf rule during official's ruling
Justin Thomas is currently playing in the Hero World Challenge. He has completed his first three rounds and is placed solo third on the leaderboard. He is five strokes behind the leader Scottie Scheffler.
Although everything has been going smoothly for Thomas in The Bahamas, it was not the case when he started his play on Thursday. Well, when Thomas was playing on his sixth hole of the first round, he landed his ball on a sandy area, which was typically a tire track.
It is noteworthy that Albany's sandy areas are not to be mistaken with the bunkers. Usually, the players do not get relief on these tire tracks on a golf course as per Rule 16.1, until and unless the tournament has elected for it. But, the home of Hero World Challenge did elect it, hence Justin Thomas went to a rule official and enquired about it. But, sadly, his plea was denied - twice.
While speaking on the same incident, as quoted by Golf.com, Thomas said,
"I just had never heard that before."
Recently, Golf.com got a proper explanation of the same dispute through an email. The chief referee Stephen Cox explained it, as per Golf.com, by saying,
"In an attempt to maintain consistency, the PGA Tour Rules Committee typically employs the following strategy at courses that possess playing areas that consist of dune land or sandy areas."
He explained that the PGA Tour Rules Committee has employed some strategies to maintain consistency across the golf events. Areas that consist of dune land or sandy lands can not be considered abnormal and if these conditions are extreme, the Committee can grant relief to a player.
"Surface imperfections in the sand (whether those be footprints or tire tracks) are to be expected. Such areas are not considered to be abnormal in nature and are a challenge of playing the course. In circumstances when such conditions are extreme (such as a severe vehicle rut where the player cannot get the club on the ball) the Committee may grant relief under Rule 16.1."
"But we’re not in those rules meetings" - Justin Thomas on unfamiliar Golf rule at the 2023 Hero World Challenge
Back on Friday, after completing the second round, the two-time PGA Championship was asked about his take on the unfamiliar Golf rule that he acknowledged at the Albany Golf Club in The Bahamas.
Justin Thomas said that he was calling the rules official to understand what could be done after his ball landed on the tire track as he was only aware of getting relief in such situations. He added that rules official's calling it to be "deep enough" to get such an advantage was confusing. As quoted by Golf.com, he said,
"I never — it was always my — yeah, it was always my understanding if you’re in a tire track, you get relief. I was more calling a rules official over as courtesy to kind of talk me through it. He came over and said because there’s sand everywhere here, you know, it’s pretty common and you get a lot of tire tracks and it just needs to be deep enough."
Justin Thomas added that he called in another rules official for a second opinion as the condition was not something that they often play. He struck a dead-end from the latter official too.
"I called a second opinion because I just had never heard that before. I asked if it was on the local rule sheet because again, it’s not something that we normally play. And they said it wasn’t, but they had just spoken about it in a rules meeting, but we’re not in those rules meetings."
Justin Thomas was surely confused with what the rules officials said to him on the sixth hole on Thursday at the 2023 Hero World Challenge. However, he had made peace with it as he said,
"The moral of the story is just to hit the fairway and not have to deal with it. But I learned yesterday, that it has to be deep enough, which whatever that is."
As of now, Justin Thomas has ended his third round of the 2023 Hero World Challenge. He is scheduled to tee off at 10:44 PM ET along with his playing partner Jason Day.