Slow play, a missed re-start, bad advice and fire ants highlight 2021 rules of golf situations

In April at the RBC Heritage, Si Woo Kim rolled a putt on the third hole during the third round and then watched the ball come to rest just on the edge of the cup. Kim watched and waited, perhaps waiting too long. The ball eventually fell in, but soon after, a rules official had to come over to give Kim the bad news — the ball had taken too long to drop and he was assessed a penalty stroke.

What’s a Solheim Cup without controversy? During Saturday’s action, Madelene Sagstrom quickly picked up Nelly Korda’s eagle putt, as the American still sat on the ground in disbelief. Moments later Missy Jones, the LPGA rules official on the scene, informed players that Sagstrom had picked up the ball too early, and that because it was overhanging the edge, she was in violation of Rule 13.3b. Korda’s birdie was changed to an eagle, giving Nelly and partner Ally Ewing a 1-up lead they never relinquished.

In October at the CJ Cup in Las Vegas, Seonghyeon Kim missed a 3-foot, 4-inch putt that did a full 360-degree trip around the cup before hung on the lip at the 72^nd hole. A golfer is granted a “reasonable amount of time to reach the hole plus 10 seconds,” according to the Rules of Golf. Kim’s putt eventually dropped after it took a total of 26 seconds from the time when his ball stopped above the cup to the moment it dropped into it. Kim was assessed a one-stroke penalty (in violation of Rule 13.3a) but that brought in a second rule violation. Since Kim already had signed his card, combined with his failure to include an unknown penalty, Kim was only assessed a one-stroke penalty, turning his birdie into a par, instead of disqualification (Exception to Rule 3.3). The penalty cost him $17,000 in prize money and some non-member FedEx Cup points.