Koepka says he saw a PGA TOUR player improve his lie and let it go

Brooks Koepka says he watched another PGA TOUR player improve his lie before a chip this season and said nothing to a rules official. He told the story on Dan on Golf, Dan Rapaport’s YouTube show, and would not name the player.

“It was a chip. I saw it. It was really bad. He went for the backswing and you could see the whole ball,” Koepka said. “I just ate that one because karma came and bit him on the next hole.”

He did not describe the action in more detail. No penalty has been reported, and Koepka’s is the only account. He said he had let it go because he could not prove it.

In February 2020, two months after Patrick Reed was penalised two strokes at the Hero World Challenge for moving sand behind his ball with two practice swings in a waste area, Koepka said he had kept quiet about such things in the past. Because of his stature in the game, he said, “I would definitely say something.”

Rule 8.1a bars a player from moving, bending or pressing down growing grass, or pressing down sand or loose soil, when that improves the conditions for the stroke. Rule 8.1b lets a player ground the club lightly behind the ball, with its weight resting on the grass but not pressed into it, and allows grass to be disturbed by the backswing of the stroke actually played.

Flattening grass with a practice swing, or by pressing the club down behind the ball, is therefore a breach when it helps the stroke. The general penalty applies: two strokes in stroke play, loss of the hole in match play.

Rule 20.1c(2) covers another player’s breach. A player who believes another has breached the Rules, and that the other player is ignoring it, “should tell” that player, the marker, a referee or the Committee, promptly and before the scorecard is returned. A player who stays silent faces no automatic penalty, but the Committee may disqualify him under Rule 1.2a “if it decides that this was serious misconduct contrary to the spirit of the game.”

Sources

• GolfMagic: Brooks Koepka reveals PGA Tour rules breach he witnessed this season
• ESPN: Brooks Koepka joins chorus saying Patrick Reed cheated in sand (February 2020)
• Geoff Shackelford: Koepka says lie improvement goes on more than it should (February 2020)
• The R&A: Rules of Golf, Rule 8
• The R&A: Rules of Golf, Rule 20