By Steve Keating
ROCHESTER, New York (Reuters) – The highlight of Lee Hodges’s third round at the PGA Championships on Saturday turned into the biggest disappointment after he was hit with a one-shot penalty for waiting too long for his ball to drop into the cup.
Playing the 17th, Hodges’s putt rolled to the lip where it stopped and hung there as he walked up to the cup then waited as it dropped into the hole bringing a roar form the crowd.
It was later determined Hodges had waited longer than the 10-second limit set out in the rules.
Ball Overhanging Hole Rule 13.3 states, if any part of a ball overhangs the lip of the hole the player is allowed a reasonable time to reach the hole and 10 more seconds to wait to see whether the ball will fall into the hole.
“If the ball does not fall into the hole in this waiting time, the ball is treated as being at rest.
“If the ball then falls into the hole before it is played, the player has holed out with the previous stroke, but gets one penalty stroke added to the score for the hole.”
The penalty was part of an ugly bogey, bogey, bogey finish to Hodges’s round of five-over 75 that left him near the bottom of the leaderboard at 10-over.
(Reporting by Steve Keating in Rochester. Editng by Pritha Sarkar)
