PGA Tour star handed heavy penalty after rare rules mix-up

PGA Tour golfer Joel Dahmen was left to rue a costly moment of carelessness as an extra club in his bag resulted in a four-stroke penalty.

Playing in the opening round of the Shriners Children’s Open at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, Dahmen spotted that he had unintentionally brought a second four-iron on to the course as he prepared to tee off on the fourth hole.

Tour rules permit players to carry only 14 clubs in their bag during a round, with stiff penalties for those that transgress.

While the error was not deliberate, Dahmen was docked four shots at the end of his round, turning a one-over 72 into a 76 to leave the American second last after the first 18 holes and unlikely to make the cut.

“Bizarro,” Dahmen reflected after completing his round. “[It’s] never happened to me before.

“I travel with 15, 16 clubs.“I think most people out here do depending on conditions and courses. You know, been traveling out here for a long time and never happened before. I’d like to blame [my caddie] Geno [Bonnalie]. That would be the easy thing to do. It’s not his fault either.

“I played Tuesday and Wednesday out here. We didn’t see it in there. It was an extra 4-iron, so I had two 4-irons in the bag.

“Why, I don’t know. I don’t know how it got there. It sucks. It sucks at the spot I’m in as well. Yeah, we got to the fourth tee and I grabbed a water and I walked over to my bag and I saw a 4-iron that was in the wrong spot and our stuff is always in the right spot. It wasn’t in the right spot.”

The rulebook states that a player is penalised two stokes for each hole that a breach of this kind occurs on, with four being the maximum penalty. Dahmen made pars on his opening two holes, which were later changed to double bogeys.

“You know, you just want to get so mad and you want to get mad at everything,” Dahmen added. “At the same time, [I’ve] just got to keep playing golf, and I didn’t do a great job of that afterwards. It’s tough to refocus. Shot one over if you take the penalties away, which is not very good out here today. Frustrating, disappointing, but if you play golf long enough weird stuff will happen out here.”