TWO STROKE PENALTY FOR BRYSON

Bryson DeChambeau faced controversy Friday night at Royal Birkdale after receiving a two-shot penalty. Grant Moir, the R&A’s Executive Director of Governance, explained that DeChambeau was “inadvertently improving the area of his intended swing” while preparing for his second shot in deep fescue on the 5th hole.

After DeChambeau had birdied the 18th for a round of 66, he was told of a potential rules issue on the 5th hole as he entered the scorers cabin.

After a discussion.. a convoy of golf carts brought Dechambleau to the fifth hole, where he could be seen on TV arguing his case with R&A officials.

The upside of it all was a two stroke penalty as explained by Moir…….”Bryson has been penalized two strokes for inadvertently improving the area of his intended swing, so intended backswing on the 5th hole when he was playing his second shot.

Basically I’m going to explain the technicalities of the rule here for you. Ruling 1 restricts what a player may do to improve any of the protected conditions affecting the stroke, and this includes the area of the player’s intended swing. So an improvement means to alter one or more of the conditions affecting the stroke so that the player gains a potential advantage for the stroke.

Now, I’ll stress that this applies even when the action is accidental, as it was in Bryson’s case.

The area of intended swing includes the entire area that might reasonably affect any part of the backswing, the downswing or the completion of the swing for the intended stroke, and importantly, what the prohibited action here is that the player mustn’t move, bend or break any growing or attached natural object. A player is allowed to fairly take their stance by taking reasonable actions to get to the ball and take a stance, if in some situations that improves the condition affecting the stroke, but when doing so, the player must take the least intrusive course of action to deal with the particular situation and is not entitled to a normal stance or swing.

I would reiterate this rule applies even when there’s no intention to improve the area, as was the case with Bryson.

That’s all I have to say.”

Photo: Bryson DeChambeau on the 18th.(Photo by Stuart Kerr/R&A/R&A via Getty Images).